Inspired by Tonight's Poetry Homework

[ase]

Dear contemporary poets of America:

Words cannot describe my loathing of Walt Whitman's "confessions of an eighteenth century hippie" style. Please purge this pernicious abuse of the english language from your poetic influences, lest I compare your deathless free verse to thirteen year old girls' atavistic fan fiction.

Should said purge leave you without muses, I suggest looking up the work of Robert Frost, Tennyson, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, William Shakespeare, John Donne and W. B. Yeats, all of whom can knock most contemporary poetry into a cocked hat in two stanzas or less.

Yrs,

ase

Comments

Whitman

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

To be fair, it needs to be spoken, not read. The poets you cite structure language visually...almost like sculpture. Whitman just talks and his rhythm is the rhythym of talking.

Granted, still not to everyone's taste, but there are some nuggets there worth consideration.

Of course, I may be biased. I've sung several of Whitman's poem set to choral arrangements and they were all really good.