[New-Poetry] What I witnessed

[TheOldMole]

You think that's depressing -- consider that all this is pretty much 
what was said about Keats -- flabby poetry, wouldn't have been published 
at all if it weren't spouting politically correct Leigh Hunt liberalism.

John Jeffrey wrote:
> Now I'm depressed.
>
>
>
> --- On *Wed, 7/2/08, TheOldMole /<Opus40-01 at opus40.org>/* wrote:
>
>     From: TheOldMole <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
>     Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What I witnessed
>     To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views"
>     <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>     Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 12:58 PM
>
>     There's no one standard for what makes a good poem, and we don't know 
>     we're right. Maybe Maya Angelou's flabby poetry of witness will be read
>
>     200 years from now as the defining work of our time, and -- hard as it 
>     is to believe -- Aram Saroyan won't be remembered vividly. Or Ashbery, 
>     or Levine, or Jorie Graham
>
>     Chris Lott wrote:
>     > On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 06:07, John Jeffrey
>      <jjeffreymail at yahoo.com>
>     wrote:
>     >> -- "Now, was that applause for me, for the poem, or for the
>     sentiments in
>     >> the poem? You know, applause can be so ambiguous."
>     >>
>     >> THAT is what (at least) I am talking about, that sentiment makes many
>     people
>     >> raise their opinion of a poem, praising flabby, bland poems to the
>     status of
>     >> "powerful" if they agree with the point of view put forward
>     by the poet.
>     >
>     > No doubt. But the complications are obvious: bad poems can still do
>     > good things... and denigrating good poems because one *doesn't* agree
>     > with the position being taken is at least as common as artificially
>     > elevating them (when anyone cares at all). Then again, past a pretty
>     > basic level, I'm not at all sure that aesthetic appraisal-- as
>     > relative and individual as it is-- can really be so neatly
>     > disentangled from other
>      cultural and philosophical understanding.
>     >
>     > I've only seen three poems (one of them incomplete) from this book by
>     > Wright, but none of them struck me as bland and flabby. On the other
>     > hand, I lost all credibility in not being entranced by much of O'Hara.
>     > And I have an inordinate number of family members who have been in the
>     > prison system (and some who still are) so, for reasons stated above,
>     > my view comes from a different place than some others. The implication
>     > in some of the discussion is that I should be more sensitive to
>     > "exploitation" because of that.. .and I think I am, but then we
>     get
>     > back to the fact that even bad poems can do good things, like giving a
>     > problem most constantly and happily ignore even a little exposure.
>     >
>     > c
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>
>     -- 
>     Tad Richards
>     http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
>     http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
>     The moral is this: in American verse,
>     The better you are, the pay is worse.
>       --Corey Ford
>
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-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

The moral is this: in American verse,
The better you are, the pay is worse.
  --Corey Ford