At 04:28 PM 3/22/02 -0800, you wrote:
>At 05:20 PM 22/03/02 -0500, R.Gancie/C.Parcelli wrote:
> >There's a certain desperation in the Neo-Formalist camp that
> >is akin to the Langpos. They want acceptance at the
> >imaginative level but they have produced no viable canon of
> >work.
>
>There are of course very fine living poets who write
>(at least occasionally) in formal structure: Vikram
>Seth and Derek Walcott come to mind.  I'm not aware
>of any instances of these artists expressing an opinion
>that they have a monopoly on the One True Form, nor
>are they prone to fling epithets such as "degeneracy".
>
>There's a lesson here.  -Tim

I wouldn't consider Vikram Seth a very fine poet. The formalism we find in
Golden Gate gets very tired after awhile. I think what Carlo might be
saying is if you want to read some imaginative work, why read Seth (the
neo-formalist) when you can read Pushkin? I mean, Golden Gate is nothing
more than a bad knock-off? And, Seth even says as much half-way through the
thing. He tips his hat Onegin-way.

I won't argue Walcott.

Add the recently departed Agha Shahid Ali--a fine 'neo-formalist,' who
ended up there through a sort of organic development. It wasn't a conceit
on his part, at least in my opinion.