[New-Poetry] laureate

[Bob Grumman]

shin02143 at aol.com wrote:
> Dennis,
>
> Could you explain your reasoning? I like the idea of a national poet 
> laureate. It is a time honored tradition and it occasionally even 
> honors a deserving poet. Maybe in today's diffuse environment a 
> laureate doesn't mean as much as it once did, if that is your point, 
> but there are so few truly significant honors an American poet can 
> receive I see no reason to eliminate this one.
>

> Richard
>
One obvious problem with it is that it is not "a truly significant 
honor."  Too many not terrific poets have gotten it, and too few 
superior poets.  And too many who have gotten it, have gotten it for 
socio-political reasons rather than for their poetry. 

On the other hand, one might argue that it isn't the position that's at 
fault, but the way those chosen to fill it are chosen.  If I were in 
charge, I'd get some computer experts together with poetics experts 
(subjectively chosen by me, but with as much input from those interested 
as I could get) and try to devise a program that would analyze and rate 
poetry, then use it to reduce the number of candidates to a handful that 
prior laureates or some such group could pick the laureate from.

I know, I know, poetry can't be analyzed, blah, blah, blah.  Certainly 
the first versions of the program I imagine would be crude, but I am 
absolutely sure an effective one could eventually be created.  It would 
compare what a poet's work with a huge memory vault of poetry in English 
to determine what it does that is different, for instance, something 
that can be objectively determined and is important, even though 
deciding the value of the new may not be--entirely. 

Just trying to make such a program could be extremely education, too, I 
should think.  But don't worry, I'll never be put in charge of any such 
undertaking, nor will the poet laureateship be dropped, or some poet 
doing something interestingly unlike what all the established poets of 
the time are be given it.

--Bob G.