[New-Poetry] NatPoMo

[Bob Grumman]

>> Can't see that I said or suggested that, Mole.  I just pointed out that 
>> the poetry Bernstein attacks is easy listening compared to the kind he 
>> likes. But I would say that less people are going to like challenging 
>> poetry than easy listening poetry, just as less people are going to like 
>> calculus than arithmetic or Ingmar Bergman than As The World Turns.
>>
>> --Bob
>
> I think that's a very good point, and one that doesn't get made often 
> enough in conversations like these. Also, I think it's worth noting that 
> even though some poetry is easy listening, being easy listening doesn't 
> make it prima facie bad. i mean, i like to think of myself very much in 
> the tradition of the otherstream (a word i hadn't paid much attention to 
> before today, but that i like quite a lot and plan to use quite a bit) and 
> i like the poetry of that movement. At the same time there are poets i 
> don't like as much, and there are some mainstream poets that I like quite 
> a lot. I would, for example, much rather read a book by BH Fairchild than 
> I would read one by Susan Howe. And that's not saying that I think 
> Fairchild is a good poet and Howe a bad one. I think they're both 
> brilliant, but I enjoy the one more than the other. I think a lot that 
> gets lost in the camps of difficult vs accessible, and mainstream vs 
> otherstream is that there are a lot of people doing good work in both 
> traditions. It's easy to get bogged down in the sniping from both sides. 
> While I think there's value in Bernstein calling out Official Verse 
> Culture, or Ron Silliman criticizing the School of Quietude, and I 
> disagree strongly with some of the anti-otherstream comments that have 
> been made by poets like Collins and Kooser, it doesn't mean that we can't 
> all get along. I mean, at least we're not all writing Harlequin Romances.

Yes--more than once.

--Bob