[William A. Baurle]

I do think that a century or so of hard experience should have told us that newness can't be equated with progress.

We definitely agree on that, Sam.

I hope I haven't implied that I think such a thing.

The poet who slammed "Good Poems" is August Kleinzahler. There was a thread about him hereabouts, which may be found in the archives? I posted this on that thread.

Onward!

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I wonder if anyone can recall who wrote what many consider*** the first "free verse" poem in English. That would be William Blake, in his Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The poem:

The Argument.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow.
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river, and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility.
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.


***I recall reading that somewhere, but can't locate anything substantial.

For those who don't, or won't, click the link to the Blake article:

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a must read for anyone seriously interested in the making of poems. Sam will notice I avoided the word 'poetry'. I am not exactly sure what he means by the distinction between poems and poetry. Unless it be that poems are to be treated as individuals, and that poetry is an abstraction, hence not a real entity?

I mentioned in another thread (Trump Watch) that I'm a nominalist, ie, I don't believe that universals exist as real things (meaning: actual entities. They are words and symbols only).

This is important, but not necessarily important insofar as this thread goes.

Won't at least one person defend that dreaded ratz a fratzin freakin silly little Wheelfreakinbarrow?

It's a huge poem. It's an English, and/or American form of Haiku.