[New-Poetry] for the Bob-list

[Bob Grumman]

Judy Prince wrote:
> Bob, in order to avoid David's insistence upon your finding a poem in 
> which only 'novelty' is the necessary and sufficient condition of what 
> you have called a 'major' poem, you finally came up with what you 
> consider THE necessary condition:  freshness.  You've come up, as 
> well, with THE necessary condition for freshness:  'doing fresh better 
> than anyone else'. 
>
> You'll get no debate on the need for freshness in a 'major' poem, but 
> you had to stop your argument at the brink of defining 'better than 
> anyone else' because it begs the question---that is, it throws us back 
> onto only, 'freshness', without providing the necessary condition(s) 
> for doing freshness 'better than anyone else'.  My guess is that, in 
> order to eliminate Herrick's poem and others that've been presented to 
> you which are NOT the forms that you yourself use [as well as those 
> who use the same or other different-from-old forms], you are forced to 
> use the word 'novelty' as the necessary condition for 'freshness' 
> [which is the necessary condition for a 'major poem'].  David's won 
> the first big round, then. 
>
> Judy
Sorry, Judy, but I don't think you have my argument right.  Of course, 
I'm not spending much time on it, so it's sloppy.  I'm not up to 
clarification right now.  I'll only say that I think there are many 
different kinds of freshness, some of which do not depend on anything 
significantly new.  In other words, you can't have innovation without 
freshness, but you can have freshness without innovation.  You can make 
a conventional poem fresh by choosing the right words and/or subject 
matter, but choice of words and subject matter is not, to me, being 
innovative.  Choosing words that sound fresh and/or subject matter or 
treatments of subject matter that are fresh is what all poets do.  
Innovation has to do with the use of techniques others aren't using.

--Bob