[New-Poetry] Aram Saroyan

[Bob Grumman]

Chris Lott wrote:
> That was actually unfair. The quote just made me laugh because it
> evokes an attitude that I find-- well-- laughable. Many find me worse,
> I'm sure. I wish I'd known I was writing poems when I was repeating
> words while stoned not so many years ago!
I'd be happier if I knew that Saroyan composed without pharmaceutical 
help, but I think all the best poets composed out of an altered 
consciousness.  Those lucky are able to get into such a consciousness 
without marijuana or the like.  I wonder how many of the poems Saroyan 
wrote while stoned he kept.  I'll bet he edited himself while unstoned. 

Should he return the prize on the grounds that he did the equivalent of 
using steroids?

As for "lighght," Chris, it may just be me (and a few others) who, as 
kids, found the fact that some letters are silent in words so 
exhilaratingly and profoundly wowwy that we found Saroyan's poem 
irresistibly appealing.  (I was extremely taken with homonyms, 
too--sea/see probably the most.) Even if we overrate "lighght," though, 
it has to be admitted that it did something no other poem ever did--in a 
genre Saroyan practically invented, the one-word poem.  I would claim 
that any poetry-lover who looks down on such poems is as ridiculous as a 
poetry-lover who would look down on epics. 

--Bob

--Bob G.