ah … stempleman & beckett get down to it.

over at the soph discussion board, miss emily is getting severely dissed:

“Does anyone have any convincing arguments against my opinion, or reasons why Dickinson should be considered great? Because at present all I see are dozens of dashes, weak images, and a scant philosophical underpinning.”

“While her poetry seems to be pretty good to me, I can’t see anything much better about it than with other poets. I think that maybe the only reason that she is popular is that there were 1800 poems of hers discovered at once and the original ones released after the edited ones probably also sparked more interest in her.”

“A possible reason for everyone “loving” Dickinson is that even when were in grade school, we would hear that Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest poets ever, and since we have heard that so much, we just think she is.”

“Comparing her to Walt Whitman seems ludicrous to me. Her poems seem incredibly dated. They’re important, and they’ve apparently inspired many poets. Great, but what relevance does she have today? When your best work can be equaled by teenagers who are just learning about you, there is something wrong. ”

o … i don’t know how to stem this tide … or if i should even try … arguments about “greatness” are generally pointless and full of unpleasant wind … but the generation of thought around matters of value might be worth something … why does any poem matter? or why not? or how could it? and who gets to say what’s great and valuable and important? and who gets to turn any poem into a commodity? or a monument?