[New-Poetry] Re: Frost on the edge

[JforJames at aol.com]

Frost's poetry certainly speaks for itself. It has nothing to
fear from time or boundless innovative poetries. He wrote some 
poems that will outlast hundreds of innovators. Randall Jarrell's essay 
the "The Other Frost" says it all. 
 
The reason this discussion gets tiresome (or pointless), it
because it's a simple, or simplistic, dialectic that is being  set up. 
And innovators (or supposed innovators) always seem to forget 
that they don't innovate ex nihilo. Frost wrote more from the tradition. 
Without the tradition there is no sense of talking about  innovation. 
 
The 'innovators' always look to outward...and that space is boundless
and their innovation can go on ad infinitum. Yet, if one looks  inside,
toward inner space, as though one was going inside the atom,
the space is equally vast and boundless. Some poets choose
the latter course. 
 
Finnegan
 
 
In a message dated 2/4/2007 9:55:22 PM Eastern Standard Time, jfq at myuw.net  
writes:

it's  only pointless if you're on the side you're so obviously on.

David  Graham wrote:
> 
> 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. 
> 
> ------------
> 
> 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.   




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