[Michael Cantor]

No need to PM me, Gregory. No poet tries to hide his success, and I'm sure that others would be interested as well. Why does it have to be a secret? What is there about the Society that you can't discuss openly? Is it a poetical Skull and Bones?

[Gregory Palmerino]

Michael, you tease. Just when I thought we were getting close. I could tell you about the Society, darling, but then I'd have to...

[Mary Meriam]

I gagged down the whole interview, so hard to believe it's real. Here's a possible antidote: http://epicprotestpoems.com

We invite all poets to write one line, of no more than 25 words that will be considered for inclusion in the Epic Presidential Poem: The Trump Years. (The concept is to receive lines of poetry, we will read and select the best lines to then place the lines into what will become an epic poem that we add one line to for every day that Trump is in office.)

[R. S. Gwynn]

There are a lot of delusional people out there, even in Poetryland. Why anyone should be surprised or upset about this is beyond me. I could even mention a couple of other names and publications, but I'd be sent to Eratosiberia for doing so. Like Mike, I recognized only a couple of the featured poets' names, both from here. And why not? Everyone wants to be published.

[Quincy Lehr]

The editor, Mantyk, seems yo be associated with the decidedly dodgy Epoch Times. Frankly, I find the whole thing highlarious.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/author/evan-mantyk/

[Gregory Dowling]

Let’s not kid ourselves about Frost’s “The Gift Outright.” Frost himself was dissatisfied with it, to the extent of adding the disastrous “Dedication” as a preamble. At the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, Frost feigned a visual problem at the podium and scrapped the “Dedication.” Nixon’s top hat should have solved the fake problem, but the real problem was “The Gift Outright” itself, which is not a poem at all. It is a tedious series of rambling couplets that never establish enough unity among themselves to constitute a poem.

Not that it much matters but he's got this all wrong. The poem Frost wrote for the inauguration was entitled, obviously enough, "For John F. Kennedy's Inauguration" and was indeed a fairly undistinguished piece in couplets. However, because of snow-glare he couldn't read it and so instead recited from memory "The Gift Outright", which he had written and published back in 1942. "The Gift Outright" is unrhyming - and also highly memorable.

[R. S. Gwynn]

The transcription of the poem is not quite accurate, I think, but this is a good summary of what happened. I was in 8th grade and saw it on tv. At the time I was a little embarrassed--for all concerned and for the country--at all the milling around and confusion at the podium. But I was 12 and easily embarrassed by almost anything at the time.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/0...-inauguration/

It was Vice-President Johnson, not Richard Nixon, who offered his top hat for shade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XInL2u0DP88

Cynics have said that Frost "staged" the whole thing to draw attention to himself. I don't think so. Apparently, the dedicatory poem was typed out on a regular typewriter; Frost would have required a large font given the visual conditions.

[Gregory Dowling]

Thanks, Sam. I'd seen the photo but never actually seen the film of the occasion. I'm sure you were far more embarrassed than Frost was.

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Gregory Palmerino

Many may find this interview interesting. I'm still amazed at the support Trump receives from the religiously faithful. Julie S. posted an insightful explanation some time back in the Trump Watch thread. Nonetheless, the contradiction still perplexes me.

Greg

I took a quick look but dismissed the interview once I read as far as "Is the dominate [sic] style of poetry, free verse or modern, dead?"

If the interview on poetry is itself illiterate, that's all I need to know.