[New-Poetry] Baiting

[TheOldMole]

Well, you know me, Bob -- I'll always rise to a challenge. But in this 
case I had nothing to say. I don't think message and technique exist 
locked away in separate rooms. In general, people are going to be more 
interested in reading stuff they're interested reading, and they're 
going to be interested in reading that stuff delivered by the best 
writers. This is true in every field, It's why horror fans read Stephen 
King more than they read some shlub, and romance readers are going to 
spring for Nora Roberts more often than Roberts-plagiarizer Cassie Edwards.

Bob Grumman wrote:
> 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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-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

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