My witness is that it was the modern thing, complexity and all (I mean Pound
and Eliot) that opened up ALL poetry to me. Before that I thought it was
mostly arty posturing (incl. Shakespeare: I thus reveal my lumpenproletariat
origins). But there WAS the requirement that oneself be willing to work a
little. I forget who it was who said responding to a complaint about
difficulty that "Shakespeare is difficult." I sadly relinquish the People
Magazine readership to People Magazine. Tom White


> From: Carrol Cox <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 08:16:48 -0600
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Pound and the Occult (was not
>
> charles moyer wrote:
>>
>>> Since we are on the subject of Modernism here is what I read in
>> yesterday's Cleveland Plain Dealer concerning our poet laureate's appearance
>> at John Carroll University tonight.
>> "There's a waiting audience out there that was frightened away by
>> Modernist poetry in school.
>
> Randall Jarrell wrote a beautful little essay trashing this nonsense.
> Two core points in it if I remember correctly from about 40+ years ago.
> (1) All those complainers about modern poetry's complexity don't read
> any other poetry _either_. (2) In some Latin American cities you will
> find that the waiter in the hotel restaurant is a poet. What kind of
> poetry does he write? Surrealist poetry! Jarrell has some lovely sneer
> to the effect that because someone can't read The Wasteland he has given
> up on Shakespeare and Wordsworth, or something to that effect.
>
> :-)
>
> Delicately put, those who say they have been frightened away from poetry
> by the complexity of modern poetry are mostly fucking liars.
>
> Carrol