The reading, listening, and buying public did not decide those writings were great. The academic establishment did. If you’ve been following what has been happening in business with literary publishers, the ‘buying’ public is NOT buying. Nor does poetry sell or make money.
Shakespeare wrote great stories. It wasn’t his prose that sold. It was his story. Neither James Patterson nor Clive Cussler are/ were particularly great writers — they are great storytellers. Hemmingway was a shitty storyteller but a phenomenol writer.
I didn’t read yur piece because I dont’ really care what other people think of me. I scanned through it. If you for one moment think I’m impressed because there are some famous literary names, you are mistaken. I have a brain, and a damned good one. I was reading 2 to 4 books a day throughout my K12 years. I have been reading a book a day since — that’s the past 52 years. I loved poetry for a very long time. However, the difference between poetry and prose is musical cadence — not capturing emotion in short sentences.
What you overlook is that most people who commented on my piece agreed with me — they did NOT read modern poetry, and they all agreed that the difference between poetry and prose is musical cadence. Just because some English graduates have been brainwashsed to believe that this and that is the measuring stick doesn’t mean it’s true. People can be miseducated.
As I scored As for all my college classes in English, I think it’s somewhat presumptuous of you to think that I didn’t get the same earful that others got. The difference is that I am a critical thinker, an independent thinker, and I’m quite happy to say that the emperor has no clothes.
