Just some stray thoughts on the State of Poetry
1. It seems definitely to be a Thing that there is a bias against the long poem. Poets apologize if they are introducing a poem longer than one page. Why is this? I have heard it said of Sylvia Plath's "Tulips", "Gee, this is a LONG poem!" (It is not). Poets through the ages: Homer, Horace, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Gwendolyn Brooks, Edna St Vincent Millay have all written voluminous, even book-length poems. Wot's uh, the deal?
2. There seems to be a bias (at least in 'the Academy') against micro-poetry; that its not real poetry, not serious poetry. Seriously? (except for haiku). It has also been said to me that the 8 line triolet is too much of a straight-jacket for a current-day poet. Really?
So, we are writing to the Short Attention Span, just not to the tweet?
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