& another thing. Tim argues that when free verse & modernism "happened", the role & function of traditional forms - their presence in literary culture - was irrevocably altered. I agree with this. But I think that if you accept this argument, you must also accept the possibility that, out of boredom with free verse & experimentalism, older forms & form itself might make a comeback (elliptical, dialectical, unexpected). This too, it follows, might fundamentally alter the role and function of modernist style.

Very well-thought-out contribution to the formalism debate from Tim Yu. I agree with much of what he says; but a problem, it seems to me, with much of the debate is that individual practice will always outrun general critical frameworks.

An assumption behind Tim's assessment is that formal verse (sonnet for example) is always an expression of high culture, high seriousness - thus the main effect of Lowell's work is seen as the ironic juxtaposition of low contemporary squalor & the exalted old forms which can no longer contain or express it. But individual poets use form in poetry - from its most basic elements to its most highly-articulated specific types - in ways that are extremely unpredictable. As Jonathan pointed out, Frost, for example, can interpolate colloquial speech into strict forms without any appearance of straining after meter. Modernists might claim that his project - to democratize & "Americanize" forms - to make them popular and relevant in a way parallel to the project of Keats & Wordsworth a century before - failed. Yet Pound's "historical consciousness" (in Tim's sense), and the free verse that followed, has proved to be quite dated as well. What I'm trying to get at is that there simply is no particular "right" way to use or not use traditional forms. And it is impossible simply to consign them to the pile of obsolete machinery, because the present and future use to which they may be put is unpredictable.

Hey Tim, you've got a future in TV. Turn it into a reality show, if possible.

I don't think much about an ideal reader. But I guess I would like to imagine someone who loves to read, all kinds of writing - history, science, literature, poetry. Who takes an interest in poetry without necessarily writing it. Who knows the great old things, but is also willing to explore the unknown. Who is active in the world in their own right, both practically & intellectually, and reads poetry & literature within a generous experiential context. Who enjoys language for its own sake, & yet at the same time wants to learn something specific & benefit from it. [OK, no, this is not a personal ad. Or a job notice.]

Again I ask, do you have something to say to the world, about anything, to anyone outside the clubhouse?

Meanwhile everybody's down on me. I love Janis Joplin.

Tim mischaracterizes what I said. There was nothing in there about triumphant barbarians, nor was my issue with "dominance" of a literary market or scene. I've never argued in favor of choosing the accessible mainstream over the avant-garde (Tim's reductive comments only more evidence of this boring binary at work).

Meanwhile, Jimby the Famous Monkey reinforces the chimp theory of socio-poetry. David Hess disses old ape Henry. Henry swats him down. Dave goes off to sulk in the jungle. Jimby yells boo.

Tim Yu responds to some of my recent postings.

My position on 20th-century avant-gardism and its inheritance is that it displaces, programmatically, any lineage but its own. That Ron Silliman et al. debate their own genealogy within that movement is not evidence to disprove my argument : that the project of revolutionary novelty displaces the poetic process itself. Tim writes:

"I'm most bothered by the statement that avant-gardism is simply "a displacement of the most basic aspects of poetic making with technical novelty." Nobody believes in mere "technical novelty"; to say that of a poem is simply another way of saying that it's silly, pointless, or boring. In fact, it seems like it's been the task of the avant-garde over the past century to pursue novelty with a purpose--precisely with the goal that Gould describes: a better "verbal response to reality." It just depends what reality you think you're responding to.

The labels "innovative" and "experimental" are occasionally annoying for this reason--that they suggest just fooling around with techniques with no purpose or direction, innovation for innovation's sake. "

It seems to me that Tim somewhat undercuts his own position in this last sentence. Where do these labels come from, if not from the programmatic commitment to "pursuit of novelty for a purpose"?

As I think my original posts made clear, I'm certainly not opposed to reform, re-assessment, renovation of existing decadences of style and rhetoric. My point is that "avant-garde allegiance" is fundamentally a form of intellectual conceit and self-delusion; it short-circuits the poetic process by means of historical narratives of literary progress, by partisan commitments to collective "movements" which take the place of individual perception and composition.

My object in these criticisms is not criticism for its own sake. I want to focus on those aspects of the poetic process which are perennial, not subject to polemics and tendentious literary politics. I think that's the best way to clear the air, to discover our real affinities and opportunities.