[New-Poetry] Aram Saroyan

[Chris Lott]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 3:53 PM, Bob Grumman <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>  I was only making the point, quickly, that length shouldn't matter in the
> judgement of poetry.  I tend to be with Poe about epic poems.

I'm a slow learner and sometimes things you say, Bob, only start to
make sense to me quite late in the game. I agree that length is
largely irrelevant, though I see in practice lower and upper bounds.

I probably shouldn't compare things to epic poems anyway, since the
reality of my reading habits is such that I have a really hard time
with poems of more than a page or two *at most*. I prefer short poems
and have a strong affection for short prose poems, haiku (taking into
account how screwed up the idea of the haiku in English can be...
speaking of which, there is a really fine piece on haiku in the guise
of a review of "popular haiku" books in the latest issue of
_Pleiades_), aphorisms, etc. When I see a poem that extends past a few
pages I instinctively shy away... yet another bad habit I try to work
on.

c