POETICKS

It crossed my mind earlier today that a flair for the use of fresh language might be the most important attribute of a superior poet.  Certainly E. E. Cummings had it, which is why he rates so high with me.  In particular, I think the invention of new words or phrases, or the use of a word in a way it was  never before used, like Cummings’s melding of “just” and “spring” in his famous poem about the balloonman, is about the most important thing a superior poet can do.  Hopkins and Dylan Thomas are two others I quickly think of who did this.  If I were fading out, I’d try to find examples, and mention more poets of fresh language.  I might even come up with a Grummaniacal name for them.

For now, I just say that one way of recognizing mediocrity in a poet is his total conventionality of word-choice and use.  You can recognize the subj-mediocrity by his used of dead poeticisms.

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