[New-Poetry] 100 Poets You Should Know

[TheOldMole]

Frost would be at the top of that list. Pound, Eliot, Williams, Stevens. 
Behind them Warren, Tate, Lowell, Bishop (not John Peale), Schwartz, 
Rexroth, Patchen...whoops, that's twelve. Jarrell. For recognition, 
you'd have to include the great light versifiers like Nash, Parker, 
Armour. Stephen Vincent Benet, although John Brown's Body was still a 
couple of years away from Broadway. MacLeish hadn't made Broadway yet, 
but he'd be up there. Jeffers. He'd crack the top ten. cummings of 
course. I know I'm missing obvious ones. Millay died in 1950, but if the 
list were made early in the year she'd still qualify,

Normally I'd say it's unfair to compare people who've stood the test of 
time with people who haven't had a chance to stand it yet, but in this 
case I'd have to agree with Bob.

However, I do have a book published in 1900 which names the most 
important American writers of the 19th Century. Not on the list - Twain, 
Melville, Whitman, Dickinson, Crane, Poe.



Bob Grumman wrote:
> It would be interesting to compare this list to one of the most 
> visible living American poets of 1950. The best ten on that list, I 
> claim, would be at least two orders of magnitude better than the ten 
> best on James's list.  But they would not be superior to the best ten 
> contemporary poets, whoever they are.  (All I'm sure of is that none 
> is on James's list.)
>
> --Bob G.
>
> JforJames at aol.com wrote:
>> Certainly the list is subjective, an visibilty is based on one line 
>> of sight. The list is an invitation, for those so moved, to suggest 
>> and lobby for other choices, as you have. Also, 100 is an arbitrary 
>> round number. Could easily balloon to 105, 1120,,,
>>  
>>  I think my choices of Bob Holman and Patricia Smith are good ones 
>> for the performance vein of American poetry. Wakefield has 
>> flown under my radar; but Algarin makes sense to me. Berrigan, 
>> Eshleman, Rothenberg, Padgett, all good choices for the Jason 100.
>> Finnegan
>>  
>> In a message dated 11/22/2007 12:16:37 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
>> jfq at myuw.net writes:
>>
>>     It's an interesting point. The question I'd like to ask you is
>>     visible
>>     to whom? If you're talking about contemporary performance poetry,
>>     they
>>     don't get much more visible than Buddy Wakefield or Miguel
>>     Algarin. Tom
>>     Raworth, while not particularly visible on this side of the
>>     atlantic, is
>>     more visible in Great Britain than I think a number of the people on
>>     your list are. I'll withdraw the suggestion though and in his place
>>     offer Jim Carroll: the only living american poet of import to have
>>     penned a alternative rock anthem; one that still gets airplay on
>>     independent "underground" and alternative radio. Plus there was a
>>     movie
>>     about him, which is something you can't say about Jorie Graham,
>>     thank
>>     Christ. I didn't notice this was an american list. As for
>>     anthologies, I
>>     think it depends on whose anthologies you read. I don't know for
>>     sure,
>>     but I'd be willing to bet Clayton Eshleman and Jerome Rothenberg
>>     have
>>     more anthologies between them, both as editors and as poets and
>>     translators than a good portion of your list combined. Anselm
>>     Berrigan,
>>     aside from being brilliant and a blood heir to the New York
>>     School also
>>     is still the director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Place,
>>     which
>>     as far as I know is the longest running spoken word series on the
>>     east
>>     coast.
>>
>>     As for Ron Padgett, true, he's maybe not the most visible figure
>>     and is
>>     maybe an emotional choice. but nevertheless he's one of the few
>>     poets
>>     I've ever memorized, and I think I probably own more anthologies
>>     that
>>     he's in than I do anthologies that Maya Angelou is in. But then,
>>     I don't
>>     generally buy THOSE kind of anthologies. So yeah, I guess he can
>>     go too.
>>     Still, i think he's a poet everyone should know.
>>
>>     Nothing in that drawer
>>
>>  
>>
>>
>>
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Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

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