[New-Poetry] Re: Frost on the edge

[Bob Grumman]

  On Feb 4, 2007, at 11:58 AM, Bob Grumman wrote:


    Frost was a great poet, and I've always loved his prose about poetry.  But he was not innovative--because he invented no new way of doing anything in poetry, just used conventional ways of doing poetry better than just about anyone else. 
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  We've been around this track before.  You define "innovative" in such a way as to restrict it far more than I would do.  Our argument is over before it starts.  In any case, like David Orr I tend to be far more interested in looking at ways in which Frost is a great poet than in choosing up sides in this old and pointless battle.  


  Right, David, which is why you provided us with the Orr quotation you did.   But I admit I was just doing my duty as New-Poetry's main representative of the otherstream by repeating my boilerplate.  BUT, if you can't name a poet who is not innovative, what use is the term?  Connectedly, what term should we use to distinguish a Pound or Stein or Hopkins from a Frost--so far as conventionality versus unconventionality is concerned?

  --Bob G.
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