[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by frahse

Personally I much prefer the "old poets" of rhyme and song. I think modern poets are too lazy and undisciplined at best to write a reasonable poem and at worse are just pretenders or hacks.

In my opinion, it's a mistake to conclude that an entire cross-section of artists share the same defects and personality traits.

My experiences (and prejudices, perhaps) have led me to conclude (perhaps unfairly) that the laziest poets of the day are often the ones who write in incidental rhyme and emphasize narrative or superficial sound at the expense of formal depth. Even so, many spoken word poets are powerful and effective, and the best of them will doubtless survive me.

Also: when you talk about modern poets, do you mean poets of the past century (modernists, for example), poets who are still living but are associated with the 50s (such as John Ashbery) or the most current poets (Nada Gordon, Charles Bernstein, Bob Perelman, Tracie Morris, etc.)?

I tend to trust the craft of poets who work with form in a multilayered way, and who "load every rift with ore," as Keats said. But I'm also aware that my preferences can lead to other kinds of excess, and that my standards reflect my interests as much as they do a sincere emphasis on perfection. And I would add that many of the more modern poets look upon form as an expression of content, which is why someone like H.D. or Denise Levertov can seem simultaneously formless and formalist.

I myself tend to write in elaborate forms, but that's because I'm a musician. Form, sound and rhythm are how I connect with the work. I tend to emphasize content for the simple reason that emphasizing the technical is too easy for me and can lead to one-sided work.

This lady you speak of Prestidigitweeze, thought by wit, daring and will alone she could make her way, and was unable to resolve the rigors of the world's cruel reality with her early choices, and so what had been a binary person "flip-flopped" in the engineering sense.

I'm reluctant to say anything like that, given how little we actually know about her. We have no idea what role mental illness might have played in her life, for example. And in terms of great poets who made similar choices (Rimbaud, for example), her name is legion.

None of us can be young, vital, beautiful and headstrong forever. Only the last choice seemed to remain for her. Rip...

Truthfully, I wouldn't wish her final years on anyone.