I don't think I could name five poets who I liked without doing some research. While I cannot say with certainty that there aren't five poets whose stuff is worth reading, I suspect that might be the case. And that's pretty much the only thing anyone remembers about him.
You don't personally care for poetry. That's not reason enough to say there aren't five poets whose 'stuff' is worth reading. How would you be a judge of that, knowing no poetry? There are enough people who do like poetry, going back thousands of years, to have supported the art throughout history. Proverbs and Psalms are nothing but poetry. I can understand your being indifferent to poetry. I can't understand your active hostility to it.
Poetry, literature, and the arts are all a matter of opinion. I can't think of a single opera singer worth listening to. That doesn't mean they don't have talent, but talent is lost on those who don't like what they're creating. When the question is about a person's favorite poets, the answer is, by its very nature, a matter of opinion, and that's the question I answered. Those who like poetry would have a different answer, I'm sure. Opinions are like that.
This is more than opinion. It is manners. I listed e. e. cummings as one of my favorite poets. You saw fit to comment that the only thing anyone remembers about him was that he wanted his name to be shown in lower case. If you had, for instance, mentioned an author as a favorite, I would not go out of my way to minimize or discount him. You are out of line and rude, Ken. You're undoubtedly aware that poet e. e. cummings preferred his name to be professionally shown in lower case letters, as you have properly indicated. Hal And that's pretty much the only thing anyone remembers about him.
Why are you insulted because I don't care for poetry? I don't like poetry so it should be no surprise that I can't name five poets whose work I admire. The fact that poetry doesn't sell very well suggests that mine is not an unusual opinion. If schools didn't push poetry, even fewer people would buy it. That doesn't mean that there haven't been some very talented poets. Art is, after all, a matter of taste and opinion. Not everyone is going to agree. I don't like liver and onions either, but that doesn't mean that everyone has to hate it. The best liver and onion cook in the world probably couldn't dish up some liver and onions that I'd like. That says nothing about the skills or talents of the cook, only that s/he is serving something that I don't like.
Ken, you obfuscating. I'm not insulted because you don't like poetry. That's ridiculous. I can only repost what I said the first time. This is more than opinion. It is manners. I listed e. e. cummings as one of my favorite poets. You saw fit to comment that the only thing anyone remembers about him was that he wanted his name to be shown in lower case. If you had, for instance, mentioned an author as a favorite, I would not go out of my way to minimize or discount him. You are out of line and rude, Ken. I repeat. I listed e. e. cummings as one of my favorite poets. You disparaged him because you don't like poets in general. Who's your favorite writer, Ken? Whoever it is I say they're trash because I don't like writers in general. You're clearly wrong here, Ken. I admit when I'm wrong and I'm wrong often. If you can't do that, it's your problem and not mine.
Something else that occurs to me. If you dislike poetry so much why even go into a thread about poetry and disparage poets? Can't you leave those of us who do like poetry to our own devices and just give us that space? Makes no sense. Its equivalent to me going into the thread about boats and ridiculing boat lovers just because I'm not in in that group.
I'm sorry, Dwight, but you're not making any sense to me. If you were a poet and you were asking about your poetry, it would be rude of me to speak ill of it unless you asked for my opinion. But I made a joke about Edwin Estling Cummings and you are not he, because he died in 1962. My response was to Hal's post, not yours, and I cannot understand why you would be insulted because I disparaged e.e. cummings? He's far too dead to be insulted and if he were alive, he probably wouldn't be here anyhow. I drink Moxie. Most people have never even heard of it and, of those who have, most don't like it. Now, if I were the inventor of Moxie, perhaps I'd feel insulted. But I'm not and, as a consumer of the soft drink, it doesn't bother me that others don't like it. I don't like football either, so if you asked me to name my five favorite football players or my five favorite football teams, I would probably make a joke about it because I don't think I could even name five of either. Without all your complaining, mine would have been one post, and on-topic at that. Once again, I ridiculed a dead poet, not poetry lovers. It wasn't actually ridicule either, just a comment about his lower-case naming preference, which I thought was stupid when we had to read his stuff in high school.
Once again, I ridiculed a dead poet, not poetry lovers. And once again, you ridiculed a poet I had just named as one of my favorites. It was insulting. I don't care for opera either but I don't go on opera sites and disparage opera singers just for the hell of it. I know you get this, Ken. Admit to this small faux pas so we can end this.
,Yeah, Poe is definitely one of my favorites but Aeschylus is probably up there in the top 3 or so. He isn’t known for poetry per se but he definitely tried his hand in it and produced some profound observations: “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” Note: translating from Greek to English leaves a lot to be desired. Then, there’s Homer and Solon and yes, my 7th grade English Lit teacher would roll over in her grave if I didn’t write Longfellow.
"You may talk of Gin and Beer when you're quartered safe out here, And you're sent to penny-fights and Aldershot it. But when it comes to slaughter, you'll do your work on Water, And you'll lick the bloomin' boots of him what's got it." (Many verses after this) What Poem? What Author? Hal