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Entry 1514 — Another State-of-Poetry Article

Monday, July 21st, 2014

There’s another one of those what’s-wrong-with-poetry essays here.

It and the really stoopit comments about it have me thinking of writing a more intelligent on the subject. I think it might be accepted by a mainstream magazine like The Atlantic, not yet cured of such thoughts in spite of never getting any response from mainstream publications I’ve submitted work to that was not a form rejection.

In any case, I thought I’d warm up for the task of writing my essay with a list of standard comments on the poetry of our time that I may want to address. The first four are from comments to the article the link above is to, followed by my own observation:

1. Free verse killed poetry.
2. Obscurity is killing poetry.
3. Poets’ focusing on their own concerns rather than on the concerns of readers is killing poetry.
4. The value of poetry, like any endeavor, lies in the effort it takes to produce it.
5. Almost no one discussing the state of contemporary poetry seems to realize that Wilshberia is not the only site of poetry-construction.

There should be more items on this list but for some reason I can’t think of any just now. Time for a nap. More tomorrow.
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Entry 1346 — My Excerpt from Of Manywhere-at-Once

Monday, January 20th, 2014

I had planned to get an entry out of a long commentary on my mistakes in my coverage of Crag Hill’s poem in Of Manywhere-at-Once–but, holy catfish, the passage is perfect!  Not even a typo (one I caught this, at any rate), and I’m amazed at how many typos I’m finding in old published works of mine, and in my Scientific American guest blog.  So I’ll just say that I hope the poem gets to a few people who have never seen it.  My commentary, too!  Ditto, Karl’s comma poem of a few days and my commentary.  Indeed, it occurs t0 me that we might concentrate our efforts on poems like theirs–the gatekeepers may not any longer be able to recognize how superior they are to the junk they bring to the attention of the general public because of their age.  One or two of them may now even be able to begin to appreciate them!

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Entry 742 — Credentialed Authors and the Internet

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Here’s my latest post to New-Poetry: “

Brace yourselves all who read this: I’m going to compliment David Graham, and the other professors who participate at New-Poetry.  By way of introducing a question: why do so few professors and visible authors get on the Internet?  And so few of them who do, do much more than make announcements?  My compliment is to those professors and visible authors who, like David, do participate on the Internet to the extent of even posting opinions and thoughts and arguments.  As for the others, do they keep to themselves merely because they feel they reach a sufficient fraction of the public with needing the Internet (as people like I can’t)?  No doubt that’s part of it.  But I wonder how big a role their fear of having to reveal and defend their ideas in a forum they have little control over—certainly less control than they have over their classrooms—plays.  (Note how much trouble some of them have with not-really-that-despicable mavericks like me on the Internet.)  And when they publish, their audience is mute, except for letters-to-the-editors their publishers will screen, and they can ignore without anyone’s knowing about it but the letter’s writer.  I can understand, too, that some of the people I’m talking about don’t feel anyone they’d run into on the Internet is worth bothering with—i.e., who has relevant ideas in their subjects other than those getting them published in peer-reviewed periodicals or the equivalent?  Of course, that is why no visible commentator on poetry strays far or for long from Wilshberia in his discussions of poetry in visible publications.
Or am I wrong?  Perhaps many professors and visible authors do get on the Internet, but only at carefully monitored sites. which simply makes my question, why do so few such people do any free-for-alling on the Internet.
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