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Just been having a look, Candice, and hilarity vied with disbelief at the wriggling distortions of that article. The ancient art of the dressed-up half-truth, I'd say. Like to know who, and what, 's actually behind 'Prospect', and what its undeclared agenda is. Best Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 11:26 PM Subject: FW: Poetry in PROSPECT > Check out this hilarious (and error-riddled) piece by an American journalist > in a Brit journal that blurbs itself as "_the_ magazine for the > intellectually curious general reader...the intelligent monthly based in > Britain - but with an international mind and an international > readership"--but with no fact-checker on staff apparently.... > > Let's hear it for Dana Gioia, Slo-Po! > > Candice > > > (From the July 6th Chronicle of Hire Ed) > > A glance at the July issue of "Prospect": > The sorry state of contemporary American poetry > > Michael Lind, a journalist, poet, and novelist, skewers the > current state of American poetry and places the blame squarely > at the feet of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and American academics > who have warped poetry into an esoteric, "coterie art that would > ward off the uninitiated." Mr. Lind sees this as a recent > phenomenon; it was only in the 20's and 30's, he reminds us, > that Robert Frost was a celebrity and Edna St. Vincent Millay > had her own radio show. In the United States, Mr. Lind writes grimly, > "almost all of the prestige poetry is written in the early 20th-century mode > of 'free verse' -- that is to say, lines of prose chopped up at arbitrary > points -- and almost all of it consists of relatively short poems." Compare > this with Britain, Mr. Lind continues, where star poets like James Fenton > and Wendy Cope "use traditional verse technique to write about a range of > subjects in a variety of genres, including political satire and light > verse." The Catch-22 of America's academic poetry, he writes, is that > "hardly anyone writes poetry in the U.S. other than professors -- and hardly > anybody reads it, other than the professors who write it." Mr. Lind hails > Dana Gioia as a saving grace of formalism in American poetry; one whose > mastery of form, lyrical prowess, diversity of technique, and musical > cadences harken back to the poetic days of yore. Though Mr. Gioia may be > "considered a slow writer by members of the campus poetry subculture who > crank out a new collection of poems every year or so (it's easy to be > prolific when your lines don't scan or rhyme)," Mr. Lind sneers, there's no > need to worry about the peanut gallery. It's just full of envious "American > poets who cannot tell the difference between a heroic quatrain and an Alcaic > stanza [but] have convinced themselves that they are poets." > > The article is available online at > http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/whats_new.html >