In connection with remarks made by Tim and Kent recently--

I have done a lot of reviewing of poetry, especially recently, but one 
thing I have never done is choose to write about a book purely because 
I don't like it and want to attack it. What on earth would be the 
point of that? If you don't like something take no notice of it. The 
very fact that you don't like it means it is to you ineffective, 
you're not going to learn or realise anything from it, it is inert, so 
let it lie there like a lump of star jelly and pass on. And anyway, 
nobody's listening.  As for hiding behind anonymity in order to shoot 
your mouth off...

I'm not the apostle of some moral or spiritual credo in poetry, some 
hope for the future, some cultural light which is in danger of being 
extinguished by inept or blind poets whose work must be stamped out. 
We are not missionaries.  The idea that it is part or the whole of 
poetry's business to convert humanity to some new vision, some new 
reach to the totality, is now out of the question, it last died with 
the "new American poetry" and its adjuncts. It was killed by the poets 
themselves, by Olson and Dorn and Duncan, in the frightful megalomania 
and perversity of their late works (having been so brilliant as young 
poets). You cannot after that collapse go on any longer spurning the 
sense of common humanity.

Of course there are ways of promoting poetical quality itself, which 
is very diversely defined (perceptual accuracy, technical skill, 
equanimity, the "wisdom" which Olson spoke against and many other 
things). This involves claiming a right, which might be difficult to 
justify at large. But to me none of this entails the bombarding of 
enemy fortresses.

PR