Well put, Michael, and apparently a lot more civilly than I managed. For me the divide has to do with the way the poem is seen as product. On the one hand, the fulfillment, however cleverly, of predetermined goals (the story's subject and its rough trajectory known at the start), on the other, the discovery of where one is and where one's going, and in process the discovery of form. I realize that this latter is entirely from the point of view of the maker (hell, it's what I do), but I hope that the following of the trail of crumbs leads the reader also to something unforeseen. It's what I mean when I refer to "experimental" poetry, using the word simultaneously in its English language and its French senses (as "experience"--the poem as the record of the experience of its making).
Best,
Mark
-----Original Message-----
>From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Apr 11, 2013 10:17 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Is Paul Muldoon overrated?
>
>For me, there remains a disquieting divide, I simply can't read him without placing him. It is prejudice, certainly, but it is also a perception that, at a micro-level, at the level of some basic conceptions of what poetry is and what it can or should do, Muldoon is somewhere completely different from me. (The problem of these different poetics fascinates me too, Tim. ) It isn't perhaps even just a poetic thing.
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