[New-Poetry] Influential Poets, The Five

[JforJames at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/2/2007 1:54:11 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
skip at louisiana.edu writes:

And how  does one substitute Plath for Pound unless one thinks only of
contemporary  quantity? (But even then . . .)



If we're talking 'influential', then I'd drop Eliot from the list in  favor
of Frank O'Hara. Influence I measure numerically and there are  legions
more writing in the New York School style than in the Eliotesque.
 
Pound was all over the place...what Pound has had the most  influence,
Pound of imagism, Pound of personae, Pound of the Cantos?..the latter
being itself all-over-the-place...and can such a 'poetic  sequence' really be 
a model other than one of marvelous, quixotic ambition?
 
Almost everyone has read and admires Emily Dickinson...but does  anyone
really claim to be in the line of Dickinson? She's sui generis
to spawn a followers...what we get from her is something Raven may
have been claiming: License. The right to be wrong about everything that 
is ordinarily taught as 'the right way', including punctuation  and grammar. 
I hasten to add that I don't endorse a fear of reading far &  wide. The fear 
of influence through reading is an admission of profound  weakness...one's
pen is not a blown leaf. Recently back from Germany, I  encountered
a quote about Albrecht Durer in which it was said that when  Durer
referred to his art he spoke of 'his hand'. So it's the kind of  thing that
won't be easily tethered to someone else's puppet strings.
 
I think Wiman's got the list about right, if influence is the measure, and  
one
must pick only five.
 
Finnegan
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