|My criterion is simply personal taste. I know no other.
|And over the generations individuals combined personal taste
|accumulates to a decision on a poem, which still may fluctuate.
Fair enough, to a point. I am reminded of a short story by E M Forster where
all the gods who have ever existed are in heaven, getting larger and smaller
as their popularity grows and falls. I can think of her name, but there's
that woman who writes _romantic_ novels and covers herself in Royal Jelly; I
nominate her and the man who wrote Jaws, Benchley, and a few others for the
major prizes on the grounds of mass public taste.
Or the way someone is innocent until proved guilty; and, then when it's
found a few years later that they have been stitched up, they're innocent
again.
My _up to the point_ concerns your shift from greatness to poem. I am aware
that there are many admirers of Flecker, for instance; and I am among them
and on record for it. I am not aware that the greater number of them are
going round saying that of course most of what Flecker wrote isn't poetry.
This seems to me as if the position of a particularly strident sect.
It seems that you have given me criteria for *greatness rather than *being a
poem.
I am genuinely sorry that it annoys you and you think I am nitpicking when I
make these challenges; but I question the benefit of such analysis and think
it may actually set us thinking *incorrectly.
I don't like pop music charts or sports results either.
L
btw you don't need to backchannel as well as posting to the list; it just
duplicates the messages.
Silly me; and I'm sober; I just found your next one...
|Silly me! I am getting befuddled by drink. I dont say a poem is `great',
|I say the poet `has a poem'. The accumulated consensus of generations
|can award greatness. Very few poets `have poems'
Criteria for a poem?
L
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