[New-Poetry] Re: Aesthetic Diversity in Poetry Today

[Bob Grumman]

Jeff Newberry wrote:
> Why is subject matter a "triviality?"


Subject matter is not a triviality.  A change of subject matter is, 
however, for it not make a poem significantly different from other that 
are like it in all other ways.  That's because every original poem is 
slightly different from every other original poem in subject matter.  I 
concede that I'm exaggerating somewhat.  There can be innovatively 
significant changes of subject.  When poems started being used to treat 
tractors and other "unlofty" subjects, they were significately 
innovative.  But change in technique is really about the only way one 
can be significantly innovative in poetry, it seems to me.

--Bob G.