11-30-2016, 01:06 PM
There is something to be said for 'quantity'. The anthologized 'greats' tend often to have formidable oeuvres, even if they might be best known for one formidable 'Moby Dick'. We aren't 'schooled' in too many one-hit-wonders, though I've no doubt folks could forage up more than a few. A couple points pertaining to poetry follow from this presumptuous observation: First, I'm unsure there exists a corpus of 'absolute criteria' for what constitutes 'great' poetry; if you can throw enough mud at the proverbial brick wall without becoming discouraged or starving to death, then you might be on to something; secondly, 'yesterday' (to poach from Auden) constitutes the ineluctable tool kit of 'to-day'--use, abuse, revise as you wish those whose oeuvres have withstood the test of time, but ignore them (either deliberately or out of ignorance of them) at your own risk. I might add, if you 'know' them and think you are 'deliberately' ignoring them, then, Willy-nilly, they are shaping your work and you owe them a debt. Perhaps this thread is an installment.