[R. S. Gwynn]

Some poets have the knack for rhyme, meter, and tight form. WCW didn't. Pound did, but he quickly learned there was no way to advance past Yeats, though he would have done well enough as a decadent if that style wasn't old hat. So Make It New became his credo; he wanted to be in step with the modern artists in that respect. I like HSM as poetry, but I lose patience after that, just as Pound, I think, lost patience with poems for POETRY. There's a big difference between the two. Williams also tried POETRY in the Paterson books, but he should have stuck to poems instead. Poems are made; POETRY is written. I could go on and will if anyone has questions, but I'm in DC right now and have to limit my screeds. I will add that the silly red wheelbarrow was probably written as an "in your face" to those who had set definitions about what poetry is and isn't (or what a poem is or isn't) and it did work in that respect. The Armory Show of 1912 (?) was a watershed for the American arts in general.