reid@uwvax.ARPA (11/20/83)
I tend to agree with this assessment of proper poetry to some extent. Who am I, you might ask, to take issue with the prominent poets of today, but I read a lot of poetry, and have managed to form a few thoughts of my own on the subject. For one thing, the idea that "if the words don't say anything more than what they state it isn't poetry" strikes me as being wrong. It isn't so much what you say, but how you say it. It is advantageous, certainly, to have a "message," but NOT necessary, as history has proven. Look at Frost's poems-- he might just describe something. That is or can be poetry. The words mean only what they mean, after all, it is a description, in a sense, but it is poetry. The notion that the careful choice of words provides "texture" is a well-taken one, but there is more to it than texture. Words have meanings, which it is important to know when you write a poem. A little bit of am- biguity or double meaning in the semantics could provide that "transformation" of thought. I dunno. I did some research of my own the other day, and was disappointed with what I found. I spent an hour going through books in the "Small Presses" section of our University Book Store, looking at a whole lot of "new" poetry. I could not find a *single* poem that rhymed. I happen to like rhyming poetry. I then looked in books by Blake, Shelley, Poe, and others, and I couldn't find a poem that *didn't* rhyme. And to tell you the truth, I think most people would agree with me that Blake's poems are better than the stuff I was reading as "new" poetry. Poetry is like dance, like art, like many things that evoke emotion. There are no real prescriptive rules, but when it is done well you know it. I guess I am just a "classicist" in that I like a little meter with my rhyme.... There's more, but this is getting long. Glenn Reid ..seismo!uwvax!reid (reid@uwisc.ARPA)