[New-Poetry] Aram Saroyan

[Bob Grumman]

>  
> 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.  
>
> --
> Don't you think the one-word poem can be more easily exhausted than an 
> epic? To twist Gertrude Stein's slam of Oakland, there is only so much 
> there there after all.  Mostly what we get is a critical apparatus and 
> superstructure that is built around the one-word poem (or phrase 
> poem).  While many an epic can be exhausting for other reasons, a 
> good epic is endlessly mined, and it seems that it will never give up 
> all it aspects/secrets/passageways.
>
> I'd agree that "lighght" is almost in a class by itself when it comes 
> to very short or one-word poems. I do like it a lot. But if I dwell on 
> it too much, I find that I'm damaging its essence. 
> Finnegan
>
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.

--Bob
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