Precisely it, Joseph. It's not that there's not a proffesorial strand within
US poetry, but it's not the whole story. Nor is proffesorship a necessary
invalidation of a person's writing.
One of the things that struck me about the Lind article was that it saw
things as significant principally in terms of their acceptance within that
very academic community it 'professes' to be independent of (it paid
lip-service to a wider readership but ...) - most telling was its
attribution of the re-incarnation of free-verse in the US to Lowell's
mid-life mid-career change.
And since Michael has now successively conceded its inaccuracy about a)
poetry outside the US (ie the rest of the world) and b) the historical
background to the US scene I'd like to know what its value is, other than
its interesting by-pass to Gioia's productivity (again, it seems, wrong)
Other than Welcome to the End of History
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Duemer" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2001 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: Poetry in PROSPECT
> Michael Snider writes:
> <<I said nothing about the historical accuracy of the piece, or
> about the accuracy of its claims about poetry other than in the US
> -- only that the description of the current scene here seems
> accurate.>>
>
> If you are not willing to defend the "historical accuracy" of the
> Lind piece, how can it be an "accurate" description of poetry in the
> US? Does American poetry exist outside history? And how can one
> endorse the "accuracy" of assertions that are patently false, such
> that "professors" have "hijacked" American poetry? Especially when
> the only "evidence" for that claim is Lind's HISTORICAL argument
> that Pound & Eliot, neither of whom were professors, ruined American
> poetry.
>
>
> jd
> ======================
> Joseph Duemer
> School of Liberal Arts, box 5750
> Clarkson University
> Potsdam NY 13699
> 315.268.3967
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> http://www.grammarbitch.com/ppp/index.html
> ======================
>
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