The Next Great Poets

[Whosis]

Does anyone know who the next great poets of the late Twentieth/early Twenty-first century are or will be? The last one I've heard of so far is Shel Silverstein and then Maya Angelou. I'd be glad to hear what new great poets there will be.

[MorpheusSandman]

We already have a thread on this subject: http://www.online-literature.com/for...century-so-far

FWIW, I think the best poet writing in the last 25 years (in English) has been Geoffrey Hill. While he started publishing in the late 50s, he's had an explosion of output in the last 25 years that I think has elevated him above other peers like Ashbery if we're just comparing that same time frame.

[Whosis]

I didn't check more than one page to see if there was a similar topic, but bear in mind I'm also asking about poets between Robert Frost and this century. I will certainly check out that other thread too. Thanks for pointing that out.

[desiresjab]

I keep mentioning Troy Jollimore because I think he is deserving. First, it takes the necessary brains, and he has those. Second, one must not be form-phobic. If a contemporary poet writes exclusively in free verse, his mind already does not interest me unless I behold a great genius.

Muhammad Ali did it in boxing. Except for his gloves he ignored every part of historical boxing technique. Like Whitman and Stevens in poetry, he was able to do this successfully in boxing. Unfortunately, every ham & egger after that thought he was Ali. It wasn't until Roy Jones Jr. came along that someone was good enough to do it again on pure talent. Ray Leonard was a mix of tradtional skills and incredible talent. Floyd Fakeweather is almost completely skill-oriented in his approach, subordinating awesome talent to the bullwhip of learned skills.

[MorpheusSandman]

Floyd Fakeweather is almost completely skill-oriented in his approach, subordinating awesome talent to the bullwhip of learned skills.

And he's proven unbeatable, so I don't know how you can mean this as a pejorative.

FWIW, art/sports analogies are always made of inherent fail. Sports impose arbitrary rules that make the game possible to be played; in art the only rule is what impacts people. In that regard, works/artists that play by and disregard established conventions can succeed or fail completely, and there's no objective measure for saying which it is (unlike sports where we have wins, losses, and other stats).

[Whosis]

I checked out Troy Jollimore's site for samples of his poems. He appears to write in free verse to me with no rhyme. I was wondering what standard you meant. He does seem brilliant, though.

[desiresjab]

I checked out Troy Jollimore's site for samples of his poems. He appears to write in free verse to me with no rhyme. I was wondering what standard you meant. He does seem brilliant, though.

He writes in different forms, which is something I like about him. His poem The Solipsist, is available to read for free. Going around to different sites, there are a dozen+ of his poems to read. I believe Walrus magazine has some of his stuff archived. I don't know the guy, but I would like to. He teaches about 300 miles from me. Yes, he is another professor poet. But at least he teaches philosophy and not English. You just know his head is moving big thoughts around and some of it sweats onto the paper.

[desiresjab]

FWIW, art/sports analogies are always made of inherent fail.

I don't like the word always. My sports anaolgies are always dead on. I don't like the word never either. My analogies are never misleading.

And he's proven unbeatable, so I don't know how you can mean this as a pejorative

.

Here's how: If you don't climb those big mountains when they are there still unclimbed before you, you will wash dishes in the Hall Of The Greats, instead of dining at first table with the likes of Robinson, Duran, Pep, Ali, Langford and the rest of the boys, no matter how much money you make or how popular of a draw you were back on earth. Boxing is a sport of conquerers, not pretenders.

He has cherry picked his opponents virtually all the way, avoiding anyone that might threaten his 0 in the loss column. I deal with deniers all the time who want to shine his balls up without consulting the facts face-on.

Leonard dealt with Benitez, Hearns, Duran and Hagler when they were all formidable. It would be ridiculous to name everyone that Robinson took on even when he was still green and they were veterans. Ali has the most gilded record in the sport when it comes to facing monster opposition at the top of their game. That is how you prove yourself.

You take on people when they are considered monsters, not after they have been exposed or slowed down two notches.

I don't hold it against Meadowlark Mayweather for being smart in terms of money. But a true old time boxing fan judges by an older standard of warfare.

He is unbeatable because he has refused to face the best when they were at their best. That kind of talent and aura in opponents is sometimes not available in your natural weight division--you have to go up in weight to get at them. However, in Fakeweather's case, they were often sitting right in his own division, in fact begging for a fight. Or they were smaller guys willing to come up to his weight for a fight. He even avoided those on some pretext or another, the most notable example of all being Pacquiao. His steroid excuse and charade safely ensconced his 0 away from a truly dangerous opponent when he was at his peak. A fight with Pacquiao now is a farce, a swan song for the pino. But we will get that fight soon, now that FF has seen Manny decline, even kayoed several fights ago. This is what he has always done. I can go right down a list.

1 A fight with Pacquiao when it should have happened would have been the biggest fight of all time in dollars, and the biggest fight in two generations in terms of interest.

2 Cotto was also available before exposure.

3 Margarito was considered a monster before his fall from grace, and begged for a fight with Fakeweather. Instead, what happened? Miniature Pacquiao came up and faced the towering, plaster-fisted Mexican, and whipped his butt like a tow-headed stepchild.

4 De La Hoya was a shell by the time Meadowlark agreed to a fight. It was purely a money opportunity. No knowledgeable boxing fan took the golden boy seriously as an opponent at that point in his game.

5 Marquez was an elderly, puffed up former featherweight who had given Pacquiao a lot of trouble at lightweight. FF fought him 21 pounds higher than featherweight.

6 Baldomir was a plodding, mummy-like Argentinian bum with no punch who had hold of a championship because so damned many are available in every division anymore. Every alphabet soup boxing organization recognizes a different champion in most cases, because the organization gets a higher cut on championship fights. At the same time Margarito was begging FF for a fight and offering as much or more money than the Argentinian.

7 Judah had already done his seaweed dance for Tsyzu and been banged around by Baldomir by the time FF got around to a fight. He could have had him years earlier when Judah was formidable.

8 Mosley. Same thing. Had begged Fakeweather for a fight for years. It was finally time, once he had been manhandled twice by Forrest, lost twice to Wright and once to Cotto, and had slowed down to a plodder in the ring. He had importuned FF for a fight since the lightweight days at 135 lbs when he was really something and undefeated.

It really does not stop there, but that is enough to make the point.

The same thing happens consistently: a great or high profile fighter has faded, but at that point FF decides to get them on his record. He likes the name. It is famous. You do not fool history this way, though he has proven you can bamboozle your contremporaries. Am I supposed to put all eight of these guys at fault? Not one of the fights that did happen happened when it should have. All these guys were fighting each other. Did all eight of them avoid the biggesty payday of their careers?

What really peeves me is that he could have beaten all the guys he so carefully and obviously avoided, or so the reasoning goes, and mine, too. But no matter what I or anyone believe he could have done, you get into the Hall Of The Greats at first table based only on what you actually did do.

Mayweather is awesome, but history will not fall for it, my friend. It is not enough to beat past prime fighters or green ones with perfect 0's because they cherrypicked like you did to keep your 0. That stuff is not invisible on the record books the way FF seems to think it is. History will judge his boxing accomplishments not by how smart he chose opponents. Listen, it is quite transparent.

He is one of the greatest packages in boxing history, both in terms of raw athletic talent and acquired skill. His skill is no baloney. He is right up there with Willie Pep in terms of boxing genius. When you watch Pep you even see where some pieces of Floyd might have come from.

In the old days there were people who fought their oppenets with the caution of FF. People like Charlie Burley, who once had a fight with Holman Williams that was stopped for lack of action and both men sent to the showers. Their fights did not draw peanuts.

In those days a fighter, especially a black fighter, had to fight like hell if he wanted to win a decision. Fighters like Ray Robinson just decided to dispense with decisions altogether, as far as it was within their power, and knocked out everyone they could. No one should doubt that Robinson could have prevented the likes of Gene Fullmer from laying a glove on him, if he had chosen to fight in the manner of FF. He didn't, that is why he is at first table.

Anyone who disagrees is merely a ball polisher, not a real boxing fan willing to let the facts stand. Facts are the only thing history will let stand.

Even now, the opportunities for first table greatness still beckon. He will avoid the Russians like the plague. Don't look for him to challenge the middleweight Martinez, who is fading very fast, until he uses a walker. Too tricky and too much punch, too much risk for that 0.

History judges, and I see what they judge on. MW is not a first table fighter, nor do I at this late date expect him to ever try for history's forgiveness. Like Roy Jones Jr., he could have been.

No one is asking him to go out and beg for brain damage. When great challenges are there, you take them. That is what great fighters do. I am just speaking for history, man. That boy is not first table yet, he is second or third table. He will be toasting Mogan David with the likes of Fullmer himself, while Robinson and Pep quaff Henri Jayer from a firkin or a goblet.

[mortalterror]

Muhammad Ali did it in boxing. Except for his gloves he ignored every part of historical boxing technique. Like Whitman and Stevens in poetry, he was able to do this successfully in boxing. Unfortunately, every ham & egger after that thought he was Ali. It wasn't until Roy Jones Jr. came along that someone was good enough to do it again on pure talent. Ray Leonard was a mix of tradtional skills and incredible talent. Floyd Fakeweather is almost completely skill-oriented in his approach, subordinating awesome talent to the bullwhip of learned skills.

Ali's style owed a lot to Willie Pastrano whom he trained with under the supervision of their manager Angelo Dundee, and watching Jersey Joe Walcott. To imply that he was completely original would be an overstatement. Like Roy Jones Jr, much of his style was based entirely on his natural speed, and as both men got older it worked less and less well. Ali adopted his punching bag, high guard, shell, rope-a-dope second style later in his career when he could see the punches coming but no longer had the reflexes get out of the way. Roy Jones Jr just got hit and went unconscious when he got older, meanwhile his rival Bernard Hopkins has great form and is still a champion at 49.

A quick google search shows that Walt Whitman was influenced by the Bible, Shakespeare, James MacPherson, Scott's Border Minstrelsy, McDonald Clarke, Martin Farquhar Tupper, and I'm sure a host of other poets. Wallace Stevens influences were guys like George Santayana, William James, Charles Eliot Norton, Ezra Pound, the English Romantics, the French Symbolists, probably the imagists, and some of his contemporary friends and Modernists like William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and E.E. Cummings.

And he's proven unbeatable, so I don't know how you can mean this as a pejorative.

Having an unblemished record is not the same as being unbeatable. He's one of the top 50 fighters of the last hundred years but he should have lost his first fight with Jose Luis Castillo who landed about a hundred more punches, mostly power shots in their bout. If he hadn't ducked Paul Williams, Antonio Margarito, prime Miguel Cotto, Kostya Tszyu, and Manny Pacquiao he'd have picked up a loss or two. There's no such thing as unbeatable, just unbeaten.

FWIW, art/sports analogies are always made of inherent fail. Sports impose arbitrary rules that make the game possible to be played; in art the only rule is what impacts people. In that regard, works/artists that play by and disregard established conventions can succeed or fail completely, and there's no objective measure for saying which it is (unlike sports where we have wins, losses, and other stats).

Agreed.

1 A fight with Pacquiao when it should have happened would have been the biggest fight of all time in dollars, and the biggest fight in two generations in terms of interest.

Are you sure it would have been bigger than Tyson vs Lewis, or Whitaker vs Chavez?

Mayweather is awesome, but history will not fall for it, my friend. It is not enough to beat past prime fighters or green ones with perfect 0's because they cherrypicked like you did to keep your 0. That stuff is not invisible on the record books the way FF seems to think it is. History will judge his boxing accomplishments not by how smart he chose opponents. Listen, it is quite transparent.

It's worked so far for Rocky Marciano and Joe Calzaghe.

[MorpheusSandman]

I don't like the word always. My sports anaolgies are always dead on. I don't like the word never either. My analogies are never misleading.

I think you missed the point; there is an inherent and key difference between sports and art that makes any analogies faulty from the get-go. Even Frost's clever quote that "free-verse is like playing tennis with the net down" reveals this fault; you NEED the net to play tennis AT ALL; you DO NOT need meter to write poetry, and as good as Frost was there have been better poets that wrote free-verse. Art is not a game, you don't "win" or "lose" at it, you don't compete against others who are playing by the same rules.

Here's how:

I don't care enough about boxing to really argue this (and it occurs to me you've written more on this subject than all your posts on poetry combined!). I will say, though, that Mayweather seems to me to be as good as his era would've allowed him to be. It's not his fault that he didn't have rivals as tough as Foreman or Frazier was to Ali. As for "cherry-picking," I just don't see it. I didn't get into the whole Pacquiao controversy, but nothing of what Mayweather said or did suggested to me he was unwilling or scared to fight him. As for the others, I don't see how the fact that they had all lost at least once in any way lessens the fact that Mayweather beat them (most of them quite handily). So, they lost or weren't at their absolute peak; that means they were incapable of beating Mayweather? What does that say that even good fighters didn't have a chance at beating him were they not at their absolute best, and even then the matter would hardly be certain? Anyway, it's not as if a few losses kill the reputations of great fighters; of all those considered amongst the best, how many are unbeaten? Not Ali, not Robinson, not Lewis, not Frazier, not Foreman, not Leonard, etc. Mayweather knows that to be even in that company he had to fight the best, so I really don't think it's been about avoidance or scared of losing.

[MorpheusSandman]

Having an unblemished record is not the same as being unbeatable. He's one of the top 50 fighters of the last hundred years but he should have lost his first fight with Jose Luis Castillo who landed about a hundred more punches, mostly power shots in their bout. If he hadn't ducked Paul Williams, Antonio Margarito, prime Miguel Cotto, Kostya Tszyu, and Manny Pacquiao he'd have picked up a loss or two. There's no such thing as unbeatable, just unbeaten.

Fair enough. I'm still not sure if I'm buying the "ducked" arguments. Most of the greats lost; most of them more than once. It makes no sense for a fighter to fear losing to greats in their prime, since beating them in their prime is the only way to be great.

[desiresjab]

Are you sure it would have been bigger than Tyson vs Lewis, or Whitaker vs Chavez?

I don't think there is any doubt about it. You are probably kidding, since Lewis and Whitaker were never wildly popular. Tyson was a shell by the time of the Lewis fight. People who didn't know any better gave him a chance.

I agree about Calzaghe and disagree about Marciano. Calzaghe avoided opponents, Rockty fought old men because that is all that was left, which was not his fault. I don't know of him ducking anyone, unless retiring is considered ducking.

Ali trained with Pastrano for a while but I believe he didn't have much impact. His style did not really change from amateur to pro. Pastrano was fairly clever, so it is conceivable he picked ip a bit. He did not fight at al like Walcott either, though I am sure he admired such beautiful style. He never had the little walk away move or any of Joe's cute stuff.

The important thing is what we agree on. Your eyes are open. Congratulations.

[desiresjab]

Castillo put on a hell of a fight the second time around, but I still judged that fight for MW. I am more likely to award points for blocking punches than for having them blocked. Take away all the frenetic ctivity and Castillo really did not land much.

Whether it makes any sense for MW to be afraid of losing to elite fighters, going by behavior, he is. Undefeated fighters at the end of their careers are exceedingly rare. He is also exceedlingly proud of that.

I am willing to admit another possibility, however, for at least part of the blame, though not all of it. His extreme dislike of Arum may indeed have something to do with his reluctance to face Pacquiao, Margarito and Cotto when they were on top of the world. We see that this did not stop him from fighting Cotto once he was washed up a little more and well exposed. Come to think of it, I believe Cotto had by then changed promoters.

He hates Arum, though probably not as much as Arum hates him. Arum is a disgusting, greedy Jabba the Hut who is pissed off because MW cut him out of the big money loop. A fighter's legacy had ought to be more important to him than a piss fight with Arum, though. One of the problems is that I am sure MW is completely convinced that he has shown more than enough to reach the top of the all time list. That makes him a bit delusional. But he has so many delusiuonal fans who back everything he does or says this probably reinforces his belief.

The only super test left is Gennady Golovkin, who is a middleweight but a kindly small one. Because he is a pulverizing KO artist with skills to boot, MW will never look his way.

Let's peer at his next fight with Maidana. The matchup will seem decent until they appear in the ring together. Maidana will actually be slightly smaller, since he is really a junior welterweight who came up. Maidana is slow, has no footwork and has been whipped by semi-scrubs. To top it off, he is a good puncher but not a completely devastating one like Golovkin. He is what is known as a swarmer rather than a great puncher. Castillo was a swarmer, too. But he was also reasonably fast with his hands and feet. That is why Maidana is another easy victory. More cherry picking. There is nothing else to expect from MW at this point.

[desiresjab]

I think you missed the point; there is an inherent and key difference between sports and art that makes any analogies faulty from the get-go.

I don't think I missed it. Maybe you are saying one should never make an analogy at all, since they are all inherently faulty. Analogies are rough paralells. Simile probably has something to do with similar. Anyway, I am fond of sports analogies, so I hope you will excuse the peccadillo and look for similarites rather than the differences.

(and it occurs to me you've written more on this subject than all your posts on poetry combined!).

An exaggeration, but still disturbing, since that may have been my single longest post. Let's get back to poetry, and I don't mean Ali's.

Of course I understand that the notion of lists and literary rankings is inherently faulty as well. But they are fun and not completely without meaning. As with mythical matchups in boxing, one gets at many interesting things simply by discussing relative greatness, whether the actual concept is meaningful to literature or not.

I was the one who came on here with all these rankings. Old habits. I hope I have not diverted attenion from serious discussion.

What I notice about my own rankings in lit is their changeability as I learn more and read more. Some authors and areas are black holes, others are personally well lighted. It is not as if I have even read all the authors under discussion sometimes. That is why I dont take my own rankings too seriously, though I may try to defend certain opinions here and there. For a fact, I am more interested in the opinions of others than my own, even when I disagree with them, since mine are already known to me.

I am wondering, do you speak or read Latin?

[mortalterror]

I don't think there is any doubt about it. You are probably kidding, since Lewis and Whitaker were never wildly popular. Tyson was a shell by the time of the Lewis fight. People who didn't know any better gave him a chance.

I agree about Calzaghe and disagree about Marciano. Calzaghe avoided opponents, Rockty fought old men because that is all that was left, which was not his fault. I don't know of him ducking anyone, unless retiring is considered ducking.

Ali trained with Pastrano for a while but I believe he didn't have much impact. His style did not really change from amateur to pro. Pastrano was fairly clever, so it is conceivable he picked ip a bit. He did not fight at al like Walcott either, though I am sure he admired such beautiful style. He never had the little walk away move or any of Joe's cute stuff.

The important thing is what we agree on. Your eyes are open. Congratulations.

Whitaker and Lewis weren't popular but they were still the best in their divisions and Chavez and Tyson were popular enough for both of them. You are forgetting that even though Tyson was just a shell of himself by age 28 he still drew crowds and sold tickets. When he finally fought Lewis Showtime and HBO worked together to make the fight happen and it nearly set a pay per view record at the time.
6/8/02 PPV Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson 1,970,000

Lewis only did about 400k ppv buys when he fought other fighters.
11/17/01 PPV Lennox Lewis vs Hasim Rahman II 450,000
11/11/00 PPV Lennox Lewis vs. David Tua 420,000
4/29/00 PPV Lennox Lewis vs. Michael Grant 340,000

And even Tyson's numbers were slipping from what they once were.
10/20/00 PPV Mike Tyson vs. Andrew Golota 450,000
1/16/99 PPV Mike Tyson vs. Francois Botha 750,000

Down from the high of the Holyfield fights.
6/28/97 PPV Evander Holyfield vs. Mike Tyson II 1,990,000
11/9/96 PPV Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield 1,590,000

The Chavez vs Whitaker fight only did 740k ppv in '93 which wasn't the kind of figures Tyson and Holyfield were drawing at the time but in terms of raw skill and interest among boxing aficionados it was a major event equal to Duran vs Leonard or Jofre vs Harada. When I picture how the Pacquiao vs Mayweather fight could have gone down I usually picture Pacquiao as Duran or Chavez and Mayweather as Whitaker or Leonard. Also, people knew enough about Whitaker for him to pull 7.1 million viewers on regular HBO when he fought Felix Trinidad in 1999.

Besides, is a mega fight one that pits the best of an era against the best, or is it just the one that sells the most tickets? In my opinion Pacquiao vs Marquez and Morales vs Barrera qualify as super fights and Mayweather vs Guerrero or Ortiz just qualifies as a swindle no matter how much press or money they garnered.

In regards to Marciano, I don't fault him for only fighting 40 year old ex-legends and light heavyweights since that's all he had to work with. I fault some of his fans for thinking he could beat Wladimir Klitschko, Mike Tyson, and Muhammad Ali. His reputation among some of the old guard is blown massively out of proportion.

Fair enough. I'm still not sure if I'm buying the "ducked" arguments. Most of the greats lost; most of them more than once. It makes no sense for a fighter to fear losing to greats in their prime, since beating them in their prime is the only way to be great.

Mayweather definitely ducked some fighters. The list of guys he didn't fight is too long to explain otherwise. Miguel Cotto fought better competition and he's half the fighter Floyd is. I'm not sure that Floyd is scared of anyone, but I think that his 0 is a marketing strategy which he is well aware of and stubbornly protects for business reasons. Money is more important to him than greatness.