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2 July 2005: I pulled out my boilerplate at New-Poetry again this morning, to blast Ted Kooser's column on poetry, which is on the Internet at
American Life in Poetry. Tad Richards, "the Old Mole," as he refers to himself, had said Kooser's comments on the poems he had in his columns weren't at a very high level, but that he didn't consider Kooser "an enemy of poetry for not including rebuses." The old mole has the imbecilic idea that visual poems are rebuses, and that all I care about is visual poetry. Anyway, I responded with: "The moron absolutely is an enemy of poetry. Not merely for not including poems of the kind the Mole is so ignorant of as to miscall 'rebuses,' but for including NO poems except Iowa plaintext lyrics of the kind schoolchildren will be exposed to without his help, and 'learn' the same trite things about in their texts and from their teachers as Kooser discloses. On top of it, the column goes out free to newspapers, thus competing with anyone else who might have a good poetry column for newspapers. Kooser's major crime, however, is in not even attempting to use his office and influence (and taxpayer dollars) to expose the full range of contemporary American Poetry. In fact, he doesn't even expose the full range of Wilshberia"--(which I've very slightly revised).
Apprentice Stasguard Jeff Newberry immediately blasted me--but I just realized he did so backchannel, so I will respect his privacy and not quote him. Here's part of what I said back to him, though: "Jeff, would you not consider someone who went into a museum and painted an Andrew Wyeth scene on top of a Pollock an enemy of painting, however much he loved the works of Wyeth? No, Kooser doesn't do the equivalent of that, he merely uses his state-supported museum to exhibit the equivalent of Wyeth paintings.
"I'd love to observe how you and the other stasguards at new-poetry would react to a poet laureate who did a column with nothing but language poems in it, and published anthologies with nothing but language poems in it. And in all his comments on poetry, acted as though language poetry were the only kind of poetry worth mention, and mentioned slickstream poetry only obtusely and dismissively.
"Actually, you might read the remarks of the many formalists who have told us that the freeversers have destroyed American Poetry. Their remarks differ from mine in two ways only--they are directed against a different group than mine, and they don't call for the full range of poetry, but a return to Proper Poetry."
I don't post all this baloney out of any pride in my invective or ability to argue or Superior Outlook. I think I look pretty stupid, in fact (despite my Superior Outlook, which I don't think I could be convinced I don't have in this matter). But, I'm still having trouble working up things to say here, so you got the above.
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