[Michael Juster]

Some nasty questions for you:

1) Who is the most overrated New Formalist?

2) Who is the most underrated New Formalist?

3) Who are the three New Formalists most likely to be part of the canon a hundred years from now?

I'll unstress you a little by saying leave yourself and Alan out.

[Tim Murphy]

Mike, those are really nasty questions. To the first, a corporate response: most of the poets in Rebel Angels. Had I been doing the book, I'd have confined the selections to half a dozen writers. Of course then it wouldn't have sold as it did in creative writing programs--as opposed to the general reader who gave it a big yawn. I think the most under-rated is Greg Williamson, but that's a function of his youth and bashfulness. I'll be expressing my awe when I introduce him as my guest later this month. I think a number of us have a good chance at lodging something where it will stick, but our only sure bet for the cannon is Master Gwynn, who is in Dr. Johnson's phrase "that rarest man of genius, a true satirist." A very unfashionable thing to be these days, I might add. Let me add as well that Tim Steele has written poems that have really enriched my life. Now let's hear everybody else's nominations. --Tim

P.S. What a parochial response! I've ignored the other side of the pond. Dick Davis and Wendy Cope, like Gwynn, are assured of their spots.

[Michael Juster]

To show you there are no cowards in this here part of town,I would nominate Molly Peacock as the most overrated and Thomas Carper as the most underrated, although I agree that Williamson is short on deserved recognition. I think the endurance in the canon question is a highly tricky one. I have some doubt about Sam and Cope only because I worry that the canon will continue to exclude geniuses in the Pope/Byron/Parker tradition. I think the jury is still out on the New Formalists, but I think that Jarman stepped up his case with the Ecclesiastes and Unholy Sonnets books. Embarassingly, I don't know Davis' work well enough to have a strong opinion, but I suppose I ultimately think that Sam will survive despite the disadvantage of the humorous tilt (not to slight his serious stuff). I think that Rhina Espaillat, Dana Gioia, Tim Steele and a few others have a shot, but probably ultimate judgment turns on work yet to be published.

[Tim Murphy]

I don't regard Espaillat or Carper as New Formalists, any more than I would Hecht or Wilbur who are only a decade older. There's a great moral seriousness about Cope and Gwynn that distinguishes them from real light verse writers like Ogden Nash. Yeah, Peacock is just awful, but so are plenty of others.

[graywyvern]

appreciate the honesty here. i'm still looking
(i hate to say) for one who'll make me want to
buy their books. these i will look into. thanx.