Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Slater
I propose we coin a new term, perhaps "Shmoem," which can cover all those things that free verse poets currently call "poems" as well as all those things that formal poets call "poems," thus eliminating pointless semantic debate and allowing us to focus on the merits or flaws of each individual shmoem we encounter.
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Your term is good. My own term, an acronym, is maybe more positive: LBOW.
That is, an LBOW is a
Long Bit of Writing. LBOWs include Pound's Cantos, Homer, Dante, Chaucer, and Howl, besides efforts by WCW.
Williams' "Plums" is a SPOW (Short Piece of Writing), that is, a largely metrics-free item, which, in the case of the Plums, I like. SPOWs are the order of this epoch, and most are hopelessly forgettable. Most modern LBOWs are too.