[New-Poetry] Baiting

[Bob Grumman]

Sorry to keep a rather dumb and trivial tangent going, but on reflection 
I've decided that the first time I asked whether Lee was packing them in 
because of his message (/primarily/, as I guess I have to point out for 
the literalists) rather than his poetry, I was simply curious, as I 
said.  I was not trying to get into an argument about the otherstream 
versus the knownstream.  I won't deny that I /was/ also implicitly 
sniping yet again at bigtimers--but I was ready to be pleased with and 
for Lee if someone whose opinion I esteemed said his poetry was what 
what drawing crowds, or even that he message was drawing crowds but he 
was a good poet aside from that.

Evidence supporting my defense: I was going to post a rude reaction to 
the Tufts prize-winners but didn't--because I decided after a non-skim 
of the second poem that it was quite good (although flawed--I think the 
word "hospice" was too pathos-laden).  The non-poem that got the 
professor a hundred grand, though, was standard for that kind of 
stale-by-now thing.  Unless it's completely unrepresentative of the 
professor's work, I think her getting the loot a blow against poetry.

--Bob G.
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