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23 January 2005: My latest poetico-political thought is that poets should be divided into three kinds: crowd-pleasers like Merle Haggard, Bob Dylan, Billy Collins, Robert W. Service; professor-pleasers like Robert Creeley, Richard Wilbur, John Ashbery, and Jorie Graham; and research&development nerds like me. Give out awards and grants separately to each group. So California could have pop-poet laureate, a pbs-poet laureate, and an otherstream poet laureate. I mention California because they're in the process of electing some kind of poet laureate, and a few people are discussing it at New-Poetry. My idea got bounced, needless to say.
A problem for me is presenting these ideas neutrally. I biased in favor of otherstream poets, naturally, because I is one. But I feel I can be a neutral bystander when offering ideas like this, and can accept the idea that each of the three is the equal of the others, but different. I even believe it. No, I don't; what I believe is that all three are valuable. But the best otherstream poets are not just making lasting poems, but discovering new paths for other poets. Making lasting poems at any level is the most important thing, but without new ways to work, it will become more and more difficult.
A comparison I made at New-Poetry was of pop-poets and more serious poets to engineers and scientists. I'd change that to pop-poets, pbs-poet and otherstream poets to engineers, journeyman-scientists and theoretical scientists. All six of high value, but the otherstream poets and theoretical scientists more valuable--and sometimes good or better than good at the other positions in my set-up. Newton, for instance, made the first reflecting telescope, a very superior feat of engineering. Similarly, Ezra Pound wrote some fine pbs-poet level poems, and even some good pop poems.
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