Modern Poetry

[Leabhar]

Metrics have nothing to do with the memory in the sense that you use it. Many parts of Crane's Bridge are metrically perfect, but good luck memorizing them, or understanding them. "All free verse is bad" is the silliest argument I have ever heard. Free-Verse as it came to English, is far older than metric verse. It stems from biblical metaphor, and was used continuously through the Bible. It came back to English through Whitman, who borrowed its sense of simple to metaphor pattern, which helps to keep the idea in memory.

I didn't even say metrics were easier to memorize, I said poetry with a memorable voice and vivid language was memorable, but that rhymed meter was even more memorable. I never said "all free verse is bad", where did you get that from? You are putting words in my mouth.

Donne is hardly, also, a poet who should be held up for metric perfection; he was well known for jerking his metre around, and throwing out random trochaic patterns. Take his "Song" which starts "Go and Catch a falling Star" as example. The poem blends Trochees and Iambs into an inconsistent pattern.

Donne had a very poetic language though, which is why his poems are memorable to me. Anyway, jerking meter around is still meter, it is just abrupt sounding.

Have you ever scanned free verse? have you ever read contemporary poetry? Tell me some of the poets and poems you have read, and maybe I will be able to understand your association with contemporary and bad. As it is, you seem like someone who talks without knowing.

You're trying to brush my criticism off. Though I've read plenty contemporary poetry, some of the poets stlukesguild has posted. Heaney and Wilbur were my favorite of them but I still don't much like them. The most "modern" of the poets I actually like are Auden and Frost. I'm not randomly making a thread about how bad modern poetry is without even having read it. I've read modern poetry, and I dislike it. Why can't you take that at face value? Its almost as if someone is insulting your religion and you are insinuating they don't understand it. We all have access to the same content.

You would also note, that poets like Elizabeth Bishop are far more metrically perfect than almost any example you can really bring up. Every word of every line in Bishop's published poems was carefully chosen for both meaning and sound, sometimes taking her months of revision for one poem.

I'm well aware of Bishops meticulous nature, and her poetry is alright, but not good, and no where near ideal.

On topic more however, you still haven't acknowledged the poets writing today who use metre and closed form. What do you have to say to them? From what I have read, the New Formalism school, which seemed to hold your views on poetry, died out because they realized it was boring.

They are a pretty small group, correct? Anyway, I acknowledged that in the post you quoted. I'll repeat myself:

"When you use free verse as it is used today or even meters with too simple a language, it isn't really poetic anymore imo."

I'll expand on that. When people use meters today, and use modern speech, it doesn't sound right. There is no poetic language anymore. And then you have the convoluted language of modern free verse which relies on imagery, abruptness, strange grammar, etc, to feel poetic and mysterious because it has lost that former language. This is why modern poetry seems bland and tasteless to me. In fact it sounds a lot like babbling. I liken the decline of poetry with the decline of language. The root of poetry and all literature is in language, and any historian of English or any linguist will tell you, or even a discerning reader, English is declining and becoming simpler. It could be because of its widespread use in the world, or because of mass media, who knows? But the result is the same.

And just so you note, poetry has never been a "popular genre". Lord Byron and perhaps Tennyson are the best examples of "popular poetry", yet how many people read Emily Dickinson in her life time - trick question, the answer is less than 20, and none of them more than a handful of her poems.

Popular poetry, as in popular to people who read poetry is what I meant.

[Leabhar]

Dark Muse - True, free verse can be a freeing sort of thing, but modern poetry likes to abuse it. By the way, I like your poetry.

mortalterror - Thanks, good to know other people on the forum agree with me on this.

[JBI]

Honestly, you sound like some classicist yelling that vernacular is not suitable for verse, and everyone should be writing in Latin.

Your point on modern poetry, as you called it, listed names already established. You would note, that In Harmonium, Stevens's first volume was virtually unrecognized in its initial publication, but is, I would argue, the most influential volume on today's American verse. I have mentioned before, that you need to look for smaller publishing names, and lesser known poets, since those are who truly matter at this point. Poets don't become famous over night, and rarely become famous at all in their life times.

As for Mortalterror, a) you aren't Canadian, so wouldn't know anything about the poetic scene here. Though the same can be returned to me, I would argue American publishers have made the American scene more apparent to Canadians than even to some Americans. b) I gave these examples to avoid clichés, and as metric examples, not as "perfect" poems, as neither of them are, and both are incomplete in the form given to you. c) It is unfair to dismiss all poetry today as mediocre philosophical ramblings, as clearly they are not, as shown in the countless examples.

In total there are about 50 or so Canonical poets in English, that is, poets who are known for more than one or a handful of poems, and who are studied beyond a few works. Some would argue more poets than 50, some less, but I am thinking 50 is an honest number, if we set the cutoff at around 1970. English verse has been written since the 14th century, but for argument's sake, lets say 1500. That's 500 years, and 50 names, so lets say 10 a century, give or take. It is quite clear to anyone who cares to look, that there must have been bad poets who were published in those years. And of course, the factor of population is brought in, bringing us to a pyramid type shape, where more and more poets of skill appear at certain times. But lets say, that our century will be taking, I don't know, 30-40 or so of its own English poets. That leaves about 10s of thousands of people writing today out of luck.

The volumes of poetry one receives have been edited by many hands, and have been sifted, and sifted over generations. The volumes of contemporary verse someone buys today, have not had the same luxury. Clearly you are more likely to run into bad verse when going through contemporary verse, because bad verses from back in the 16th century or whatever have, for the most part, almost vanished from print. That doesn't mean that all contemporary verse is bad; far from it. IT simply means that the bad ones have not yet been taken out, and you must proceed with caution or with doubt. Fine. That does not mean one can dismiss unsifted poetry as bad, Lyrical Ballads was dismissed for the most part on first publication, yet proved to be one of the most important volumes of English verse in history.

In addition to this though, Emily Dickinson herself was largely ignored on first publication, yet she seems to me at least the best poetry of the American tradition, and perhaps a top contender for the best poet in the language.

To dismiss everything that is current is not only wrong, but also harmful. Say you do not care for certain poets, and state why, don't say "All contemporary verse is rambling nonsense. It is far from it.

[stlukesguild]

Modern poetry speaks to the present? How exactly?

At a risk of achieving nothing more than speaking into the wind I will still attempt to address your postings... not so much out of any misguided belief that I might be able to change your mind... one must be open to change for change to happen... but rather because poetry in general... and poetry as a still-living art form is something I am quite passionate about.

Contemporary poetry/contemporary art speaks to/of the present by building upon the past... not by seeking to merely preserve and recreate. That is the art of the mortician or the embalmer... not the living art of the artist. Artists build upon the past... but they also draw inspiration from the present. They use new forms, new words and draw from sources that are not yet accepted as worthy of "high art". The metaphors employed by Donne were often disconcerting... unexpected... even shocking. The theater of Shakespeare's day was as well-respected as television today. certainly there are times in which an artist employs archaic languages and forms... but they are acknowledged as such. The poets of today attempt to unveil a musicality... a visionary intensity... as it exists in the language that they have inherited: the spoken language of the present as well as the language of all that has preceded them.

It has never been so distant, poetry has never had so few readers (in relation to the amount of people, I mean).

That is absolute nonsense that shows a complete lack of knowledge of the history of poetry... one of the short-comings that you attributed to most poets of today. The latest volume by one of the more popular serious contemporary poets may only sell 5000 or 10,000 copies. An absolute pittance when measured against the sales of a popular novelist... but we are living in a time when quite admittedly... in the English-language-speaking world at least... prose and the novel reign supreme. Still I might ask how many readers did William Blake have during his life time? or Thomas Traherne? or Friederich Hölderlin? or Emily Dickinson? or Hart Crane? or San Juan de la Cruz? or Novalis? or even Dante, Virgil, Petrarch, and Ovid? The percentage of the population that was at all literate was far less than that of today, and without access to printed copies of books through the movable type the writings of Dante etc... were reserved to but a wealthy or scholarly few.

Modern form has been digested and analyzed, too.

Yes... it has been analyzed by critics and scholars, but it most certainly has not been absorbed or digested by the larger culture that appreciates art. Using the field of the visual arts we can see that Impressionism, that once disturbed, disconcerted, and shocked the art audience has been absorbed to the point where we can no longer even really grasp what was so shocking. It is so accepted that it has grown to the most popular art style. Picasso and Matisse on on their way to an equal absorption... but they still disturb a large portion of the art audience who cannot accept what they achieved. Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism are far from attaining anything that approaches the acceptance of Impressionism. The same holds true of literature. The innovations of Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Borges, Wallace Stephens, Hart Crane etc... are far from being absorbed.

It amazes me you equate not liking modern poetry with never having read it. What a bizarre insinuation. I don't like bananas either, but I've eaten them. Like I've been saying, the best poetry has to offer now is mediocre compared with past poetry, putting aside forms and content for a moment, it is still mediocre.

Again... your argument is but a rant without any proofs. You continue to make blanket statements as to supposed mediocrity of the best of today's poetry without offering any examples. Your argument, if it can be termed as such, comes down essentially to "Ah! the good old days! They just don't write 'em like that anymore."

to "tear the achievements of the past apart in order to re-imagine them" is called corruption.

No. It is called change or innovation. You seem to have a concept that there is some perfect ideal of what poetry was in the past. You even speak of this "ideal" several times. Poetry of the past itself is incredibly broad. We are speaking of everything from Gilgamesh and Homer through Dante and Shakespeare and Milton and Blake and Tennyson and Yeats... not to forget Ferdowsi, Tu Fu, Yehuda Halevi, Hafez, etc... Poetry of the last several millenia represents an endless array of forms and structures and themes and means of expression. Who, among this poetic world, do you imagine represents THE ideal that all others must be measured by? And you want us to believe that all of this music... all of this poetry... has come to an end because the poets of the 20th and 21st centuries have had the audacity to think that they might also add their own innovations to this body of work?

The most common argument people have against modern poetry, rhythmic or otherwise, is that it almost sounds like a five year old could write it.

Yes... this is most certainly one of the most common criticisms of contemporary poetry, literature in general, music, and art... made by those with very little education or understanding. It is also a criticism that is so broad that it is meaningless. I can easily find any number of Modern/Contemporary poets for whom the opposite criticism may be far more apt: their work is too intellectual... too complex... too hermetic or esoteric. I might note that a good portion of the art-loving public has always had the greatest difficulty in understanding or appreciating contemporary contributions to the arts. The great orchestras fill their seasons with performances of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin... nothing wrong with that... but they rarely present new work. Why? Because it is not as good? That is far too easy of an answer. Rather it is because it is far more demanding of the audience. New work challenges our ideas about art. It demands a far greater effort than most older art... not in that older work is less complex or difficult... but rather its innovations have been absorbed over time and over time the critics, historians, art-loving public and later artists have filtered out the weaker works so that only the strongest work survives.

Modern language is too simple and ugly, and modern poetry, like a five year old's writing, is convoluted and requires sitting there trying to think what the writer was trying to say [a strange thing since modern English is such a simplified language] for so long you stop caring.

Is it at all possible for you to put any more absurd statements within a single sentence. Again... these are nothing but sweeping statements that are impossible to really challenge because they essentially place your personal opinion as the final arbiter of taste and aesthetic worth.

The reason you stop caring is because the words themselves, even if they convey imagery, or even complexity, etc, don't have a lasting effect on the mind. Name one modern metered poem you can recite and remember like Kubla Khan or something? Modern poetry doesn't have the right language to go far enough in the mind. It simply fizzles and dies.

It really has been a long time since I have made a conscious effort to memorize/recite poetry, which is something I ought to return to. I don't doubt that there are those here who most certainly hold any number of Modern/Contemporary poems in their memory (JBI?). In spite of this... there are certainly any number of Modern/Contemporary poems are locked within my mind and held as dear as any number of novels, stories, symphonies, concertos, paintings, or other works. There are numerous poems by Rilke, Eugenio Montale, Octavio Paz, Dylan Thomas, Neruda, Theodore Roethke, Anthony Hecht, Richard Wilbur, etc... that I have turned to again and again... that echo in my memory.

Actually, they (older poems) read much more easily, because their poems last in the memory. They use vivid language. They use memorable words and sentences and strings of sentences, which is what poetry is.

Again, I am glad we have you here to inform the rest of us illiterates just what poetry is and what memorable words, sentences, and strings of sentences are, for it is obvious we have been lost without you.

When your poetry doesn't even conform to grammar, or is written like prose, how is someone supposed to remember it long enough for them to form a favorable opinion? That was one of the main points of meter and rhyme.

Is that so? Then of what use is meter and rhyme to Dante's Comedia or Milton's Paradise Lost which we most certainly are not about to be able to memorize. Arguments for and against standard meter and rhyme go back to the Renaissance... and earlier and I doubt that any one's opinion... not even the Pope's... is going to be held as "infallible" any time soon.

When you use free verse as it is used today or even meters with too simple a language, it isn't really poetic anymore imo. Really, take the most famous Heaney poem and the most famous Donne, what is more easily remembered and easier to recite? Even though Donne's are more complex and written in old language, they are more memorable. Using Heaney as an example, one can even describe his use of language in his poems as sort of stagnant and simple. Modern poetry goes along with the decline of intelligent language.

Again... you make these blanket statements without offering the least shred of proof. Why not take what you feel to be one of Heany's strongest poems and show us just what is so weak about it in comparison to Donne or another older poet?

There never were as many people using the emotions of the Napoleonic Wars or the violence in Ireland or anything quite as much as the holocaust is capitalized on. Countless films, novels, poems, etc. It is kind of sick. The holocaust garners and immediate emotional knee jerk response.


So let me understand this... because many artists have dealt with the Holocaust... certainly one of the most defining and horrific events of recent history... of all history... that immediately makes all Holocaust-related art but a shallow means of capitalizing on our knee-jerk reaction to the subject? So that means that subjects as cliché as love, nudes and landscapes (in painting), etc... are a guarantee of artistic banality regardless of the individual art?

[Dark Muse]

Dark Muse - True, free verse can be a freeing sort of thing, but modern poetry likes to abuse it. By the way, I like your poetry.

Thank you, and I do agree that it does get abused in some ways. I do not agree with all examples of contempary poetry

[JBI]

You'd be surprised, on the subject of war as a subject. Of course, the Holocaust/ww2 at this moment seems the most horrific thing in human history and, arguably, it may be. And I will agree, the Holocaust in particular makes me a little queasy. But that doesn't make it a less important subject.

The French revolution in particular seems the backdrop of the romantic movement. Countless poets write about it, and even more, countless poets wrote, and write about industry, and war, and such.

Historically, poetry seems to be greatly, to an almost unthinkable extent, influenced by Sidney's Defense of Poesy, which preaches the poet shows the "golden world." in direct reaction to the platonic idea of poets as liars. In truth, this sort of narrowed the field of convention until Wordsworth, I would say, but even then, we get dark and passionate statements.

After Wordsworth, we seem to move into a wider range of possibilities with poetry. If you flipped through books of 19th American century poetry, I wouldn't doubt you would find countless volumes of civil war poetry, not to mention 1812 poetry, and Mexican war poetry. These have, of course, been sifted, as people simply don't care as much now, and nationalistic ideals in verse seem to be less important to contemporary audiences.

In truth, almost every major event in history has had its poets as commentators. The western verse tradition, in the way we see it, stems from the Trojan War! just think on that. The source of Western Poetry is a war. I think H.D. perhaps has the best criticism on this, with her long poems comparing her situation in air-raided England to that of gated-off Troy, awaiting destruction. The link is there, it isn't a new subject, it is just an event which we see as more revolting, because we are closer to it (and perhaps its industrial elements, and industrial modes of killing make us even sicker).

[stlukesguild]

JBI... I agree that the distance has made the Napoleonic Wars and even the First World War far more palatable. There are still Holocaust survivors... and their Nazi tormentors... living. It is also incredibly disturbing even in comparison with the Soviet Stalinist purges and the genocides of Mao because it was undertaken by a modern, industrial, educated Western nation. people who also gave us Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Goethe, Rilke, Durer, Paul Klee, Max Beckmann, etc... The Holocaust challenges every notion of educated, cultured humanity. It laughs in the face of the notion that mankind is essentially good... the measure of all things. It spits in the face of the idea of a covenant... of divine retribution. Anything that man CAN do he WILL do. It also presents a nagging doubt... "could it happen here?" We can easily dismiss the genocides of the Napoleonic Wars as events from another time and place... far less sophisticated and humane than ouselves. We can even ignore the events of Maoist China as but representative of a pre-industrialized, poorly educated non-Western, Godless nation. But the Holocaust showed the world just the sort of evil that can grow in our own back yard.

[JBI]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, but the question remains will these things be shocking to later audiences? I feel detached from most history, and I think a detachment from even World War 2 seems to already be beginning. In terms of topic, the general emotion of WW2 will probably transcend into any other generation, allowing the poetry to be quite effective (I think, in this case, of Thomas Hardy's Drummer Hodge, which is quite the freighting poem).

I think really, in truth, the thing with the Holocaust was that people realize, if this is how bad it was this time, the next time will be too destructive for the world to handle. There is then, this movement to tell, and educate, brought about by the lowering of nationalistic feuds, and higher literacy rates.

One could take, for instance, the Pavel Friedmann's I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a fantastic, yet gut wrenching poem, for example, and say that this, if anything, will transcend into the next generation. Yet of his contemporaries, I doubt all will transcend the way this poem does.

As time passes, we will become more detached, and forget the bulk of the world war 2/Holocaust poems. The good ones will remain, and the historically significant ones will be remembered, but even of World War 1 verse, we already can see Owen as coming out as the most enduring, while others seem to be already forgotten. There was far more verse written and preserved in that time period than is known to the public - time detaches the population from events, no matter how catastrophic. It's a fact of life.

That being said, that does not mean such poems cannot be good, far from it. It simply means that these sorts of events attract a lot of poets, and like all poets, only a few of them are good poets, and fewer great poets. The Holocaust/ww2 itself is not an improper subject for poetry, as I was trying to point out, but rather one of many subjects, that seems to be one of the most popular amongst the generation right after.

[stlukesguild]

Surprise, surprise, I'm siding with Leabhar on this one.


Yes... no surprise here. You always take the opposing view if only to perpetuate the illusion of your rebel status.

In addition, StLuke has a nasty habit of insulting the intelligence of people he disagrees with.

Making sweeping statements as to the mediocrity or down-right badness of the whole of Modern/Contemporary poetry... without offering the least examples by way of proof... makes it almost impossible not to question one's critical acumen.

Leabhar doesn't sound foolish to me at all, and neither do JBI, or StLuke. You all make good points, whether your opponents choose to admit them or not.

Again... sweeping statements about the complete lack of poetic merit or aesthetic worth of Modern/Contemporary poetry, use of such tired clichés as "The Emperor's New Clothes" or "even a child of 5 could do it", and declarations that the poetic contributions by members of LitNet easily outshine the best examples of Contemporary poetry are all comments that can only undermine how seriously one can be taken. You may prefer Hemingway to Proust, and I the reverse... but I would never be so close-minded as to suggest that Hemingway or the whole of Modern American prose is without merit simply because it is not to my personal liking. I have no problem with admitting that there are endless mediocre and bad poets out there... and many being published and receiving accolades (Maya Angelou?) Neither do I have a problem with the notion that certain times, places, cultures have achieved more of real aesthetic worth than others. Personally... from what I have been exposed to I have no illusion that poetry today... at least in the English-speaking world... can match the achievements of poetry in the English-speaking world during the first decades of the 20th century: Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Frost, Crane, etc... On the other hand... there is a world of poetry out there little of which has been translated... or translated well. There are also poets such as Milosz, Heaney, Rilke, Montale, Wilbur, Hecht, Pasternak, etc... whose work is most certainly of real merit. Which will stand the test of time... only time can tell.

[Virgil]

When did we let random words and psychotic babbling become mainstream poetry and when did real poetry become "outdated"?

I haven't read the entire thread, but while I think you're over reacting, I do agree that there is this strain of contemporary poetry is crap and yet considered worthy. Check out crap like this by such a well known poet:

BEER
from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell
by Charles Bukowski

I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can **** me!"

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.
...[Snip]

http://www.charlesbukowski.20m.com/bukowski_poems.html

Frankly this is crap.

[Virgil]

In truth though, I personally think the influence of Wallace Stevens is the most powerful thing holding back American verse today, as his works seem to be echoing behind almost all American poets after he became popular.

In truth, one must look elsewhere - good poetry is always out there.

What? Wallace Stevens is a great poet. He's the premier American poet of the 20th century. That's like saying Shakespeare shouldn't have influenced anyone. But frankly which poets are so influenced by Stevens? I don't see who is emulating Stevens, exept perhaps A.R. Ammons.

[JBI]

I don't think, though, that many academics, or major poetry readers take Bukowski seriously. I find him a complete joke, I must confess, though I was shocked to see a volume of his collected works in an Italian book store in translation when I was over there. It was greatly upsetting, to say the least.

[Virgil]

I don't think, though, that many academics, or major poetry readers take Bukowski seriously. I find him a complete joke, I must confess, though I was shocked to see a volume of his collected works in an Italian book store in translation when I was over there. It was greatly upsetting, to say the least.

Well, he's not in academics because he's very contemporary. But unfortunately he's got a real consituency and I think it is influential enough that one day he will be discussed in classrooms.

[JBI]

What? Wallace Stevens is a great poet. He's the premier American poet of the 20th century. That's like saying Shakespeare shouldn't have influenced anyone. But frankly which poets are so influenced by Stevens? I don't see who is emulating emulating Stevens, exept perhaps A.R. Ammons.

That's not what I am saying. I am saying his voice is too powerful, to the point that everyone seems to be talking in a similar voice to his. Of course, no one metrically is as close to Stevens as perhaps the names you mentioned, but in terms of metaphor, his concepts are the most apparent. He, in my opinion, created the modern concept of metaphor in American poetry, and seems more influential than even Eliot, or Frost.

Wallace Stevens is a supreme poet, one of the top 5 or so from America, I would wager (in my opinion of course). But like all great poets, he seems to have set the creativity bar too high for most of the people that followed.

Poets learn to write poetry well by reading good poetry. Certain things stick into the poets head like metre, or concept of metaphor, or anything else you can think of. I am just of the mind that Stevens's work has entrenched itself in the mind of almost every subsequent American poet, to the point where he can be heard, breaking through, in almost all their works.

Another poet who seems to do this is William Carlos Williams, whose stylistic developments, in addition to metaphorical elements seem to have become commonplace conventions. He too can be heard in the works of many contemporary American poets, though I feel less assuredly than Stevens.

What I meant by him holding everything back is that his influence is making too much of the poetry too similar, and poetry needs to be innovative, in the sense that it surprises new readers. There are those who seem to have innovated out of him, one that comes to mind first is Rita Dove, who I find is an undervalued poet on these boards, yet even so, the bulk of poets in America writing today seem to sound Stevensian to me.

[Virgil]

That's not what I am saying. I am saying his voice is too powerful, to the point that everyone seems to be talking in a similar voice to his. Of course, no one metrically is as close to Stevens as perhaps the names you mentioned, but in terms of metaphor, his concepts are the most apparent. He, in my opinion, created the modern concept of metaphor in American poetry, and seems more influential than even Eliot, or Frost.

Wallace Stevens in a supreme poet, one of the top 5 or so from America, I would wager (in my opinion of course). But like all great poets, he seems to have set the creativity bar too high for most of the people that followed.

Poets learn to write poetry well by reading good poetry. Certain things stick into the poets head like metre, or concept of metaphor, or anything else you can think of. I am just of the mind that Stevens's work has entrenched itself in the mind of almost every subsequent American poet, to the point where he can be heard, breaking through, in almost all their works.

Another poet who seems to do this is William Carlos Williams, whose stylistic developments, in addition to metaphorical elements seem to have become commonplace conventions. He too can be heard in the works of many contemporary American poets, though I feel less assuredly than Stevens.

What I meant by him holding everything back is that his influence is making too much of the poetry too similar, and poetry needs to be innovative, in the sense that it surprises new readers. There are those who seem to have innovated out of him, one that comes to mind first is Rita Dove, who I find is an undervalued poet on these boards, yet even so, the bulk of poets in America writing today seem to sound Stevensian to me.

You make a lot of sense JBI. I do think that modern American poetry stems from either Stevens or Williams. There seems to be two branches. This is roughly speaking of course.