OK, I'll retreat and allow that the poem may not be complete crap, and may even be pretty good. But what makes it superior or canonical? Perhaps there's historical context, that this poem was trail blazing in its day? Or that the poem became a favorite exemplar of the imagist movement?
There are certainly other examples of poems becoming famous while not clearly being all that great. Mother Goose is full of unexceptional ditties that have lived for centuries and for which, I suspect, we feel a bond that we would not feel if one of them turned up for the first time on the Metrical board.
Would Pound's "Metro" poem, had it never been written, excite enthusiastic critiques if posted here? Would anyone here hail it as an instant classic, bound to enter the canon for the indefinite future? Or would even its greatest fans here at Erato merely praise it and move on?
I mean these questions only half rhetorically, since I admit to not being a fan of "this kind of thing" under any circumstances. But I am convinced that there are several poems here at Erato that have received far more universal praise than Pound's poem would receive if it were a new poem and not canonical.
A good poem, or even a very good poem, I'm willing to grant you, though I don't quite see it. But a great poem that deserves to live forever? One that gives goosebumps or meets the Dickinson test of making you feel that the top of your head has been removed? Not even close.
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