Hmmm. I've considered your points, but:
1.I will repeat myself yet again: within the context of MODERN POETRY I do
not think Keats to be included. Of course Keats should be read, studied,
understood...he deserves it as much as Williams, Pound, or any other
talent...and this was exactly the point I clearly made two notes ago. Perhaps
you could check the previous notes, then disagree if you still feel the need
to.
2.As for factual evidence, I backed up my argument with quite a bit of
experiential, first hand knowledge, noting that not only am I commenting on
my peers, but that I've spent time at three different universities on the
east coast before obtaining my BA. Read carefully, the previous notes show
that although I'm hesitant to make a generalization, such a statement is a
'general subjective view'.
2a.I agree, siting Kerouac is a bit out of place on a Pound list. But I had
to make my point. Apparently I wasn't clear enough, so here it goes: Pound,
at the time you mention, had undoubtedly mastered the craft of writing.
Students mimicking such ways of writing tend to forget the nuts and bolts (if
they ever knew them in the first place), disregard serious studies of such
writers as Keats or Williams or Pound or any writer that they personally do
not particularly "LIKE" yet, paradoxily, may adopt 'writing techniques' (viz.
"first thought best thought"). This adopting of techniques is essentially,
from my experience, due to a gloss over, i.e., rather than a full
investigation, things are taken on a surface level, e.g., I'd be surprised if
any of the Keroucian undergraduate neophytes really knew that "On The Road"
was rewritten several times, as was "Howl" by Ginsberg, who was a proponent
of Kerouc's Spontaneous Prose. Perhaps this is "fast and loose" thinking, but
I'm speaking of my peers and I'm not too long out of the undergrad trenches
to forget how most young writers I came across never bothered to seriously
investigate their craft.
2b.Abstract Expressionism, Black Mountain and Jazz all predate Kerouac
putting pen to paper on 'Spontaneous Prose'. Let's deal with Black Mountain
exclusively, since it's poetics I'm attempting to discuss. (Not to put poetry
in a vacuum, for nothing exists without relation to another thing, but for
the purposes of a honed discussion I will deal specifically with poetry.)
Olson's "Projective Verse" essay is, undoubtedly, the precursor to Kerouac's.
They say similiar things, only Olson did it a decade before Jack (lacking, of
course, the "Jazz" metaphors), and at the university level students ignore
Olson and latch on to Kerouac. I've seen this with my own eyes, heard with my
own ears. I will, at your prompting, look up Belgrad and take a look at what
he has to say.
3. Popular culture just may be more "sophisticated" than ever, but I argue
that all the films you site will be collecting dust in a lonely corner of a
rental store five years from now. Casino? Fight Club? Are these films really
of a lasting scope? Do they have the presence, the staying power, to not be
termed 'disposable'? I truly don't think so. Seems they were made to make
money at the box office. But I'm no film expert.
 
--CB