Skimble-skamble? I like it. I also liked Chris's poem, though I don't share his view of the Wallace Stevens poem in question, which I don't happen to care for all that much but which seems to me justifiably well-known and obviously quite skillful. There are many other Wallace Stevens poems that I prefer and which I admire deeply. The last section of "Esthetique du Mal" is some wonderful and powerful stuff indeed.
The fact that we're still talking about the red wheelbarrow so many decades after it was written, and that at least a few educated and committed students of poetry seem to like it very much, is empyric proof that there must be something "there" whatever your ultimate verdict may be. I think Chris's initial explanation was pretty close to the mark. I also think it's enormously difficult for any of us to react to the poem in the context of its day, and that the poem was far more path-breaking than it's apt to strike readers today who think of it virtually as a cliche.
Anyway, I've written many bad poems, but I'd be surprised if any of my bad poems were being debated 70 years from now. For most of us, the only chance we have of being discussed 70 years from now is to write exceptionally fine poems... if WCW managed the trick by writing only crap, he's perhaps more of a genius than anyone suspected.
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