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

[Jeff Newberry]

Thanks, Bob.  I think that I see where you're coming from.

I suppose I just bristle at the dismissive attitude some (not all) critics &
poets have toward the subject matter of a poem.

I suppose William Matthews says it best, however:  "Dull subjects are those
we have failed."

Best,
Jeff Newberry


On 9/6/07, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> 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.
>
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"Memory believes before knowing remembers.  Believes longer than recollects,
longer than knowing even wonders."
—William Faulkner, Light in August


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