[New-Poetry] 100 Poets You Should Know

[Bob Grumman]

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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