Anyone who comes to poetry with a big enough chip on their shoulder to ask one of these questions isn't capable of understanding it, because they aren't interested in understanding it. The goal of a question like these isn't understanding- it's the confirmation of a pre-existing opinion that some kinds of poetry are good (the kinds I understand) and some are bad (the kinds I don't). There's no answer a poet can give that will be both true and satisfying to the questioner, because the only answers the questioner is looking for are:

"there's a serious lack of poetry performing the same work that it did a hundred years ago."

"Modern poetry goes into dusty books to die, like unitarian sermons. The world moves on while poets pace and fret their hour upon a stage for which the curtain opens hardly ever."

"a large percentage of contemporary poetry is so sucky"

Which are fine, if that's what you think, but if you do, what are you hoping to gain by asking a poet about it? Clearly he writes what he wants to write, and it may not be what you want to read, but, well- if all aesthetic judgments are valid, that includes those of a poet you don't like.

"Anyone who comes to poetry with a big enough chip on their shoulder to ask one of these questions isn't capable of understanding it"

As a thought experiment you might try reading these questions out loud in a normal tone of voice instead of the belligerent frat-boy voice you're clearly using when you read them in your head. The idea that asking why rhyme is largely absent from modern poetry marks someone as a mouth-breathing philistine who prefers Top 40 radio lyrics to verse is idiotic.

craftsman and teacher and I can state that until the student has mastered the time tested fundamentals of his or her art form or craft they [students] have little chance of just [in this case] winging it according to their 'feelings' and making the end result resemble anything that a thinking person is interested in studying, perusing, or immersing in.

It doesn't matter if the student declares himself a poetry master between one day and the next. Wishing doesn't make it so.

Rhyme, meter, scansion, and etcetera were all developed for damn good reasons. Dropping them because they are too restrictive for the artistic temperament translates into being too damn lazy and undisciplined to learn the necessary background and master the fundamental tools of the art form in the first place.

Only one poet in a hundred or perhaps a thousand can drop all the tools of yore and strike out to craft 'prose' poetry and make the end product worth studying. This is why most contemporary poetry produced by 'masters' is utter crap.

...called Edgar Allen Poe "the jinglemaker" because his poetry rhymed. I submit** that this was the turning point when rhyme went out of fashion.

There, now I've answered question #3.

*I don't remember which

**without anything to back my statement up

DanielMee--No, you weren't the only one who enjoyed it.

Mr. Pinsky was doing us the favor of answering these questions with concrete examples, instead of making us slog through yet another horrible essay of pet peeves. What is it about the web that makes everyone so bellicose, writers and readers alike?

Better yet, by not tying us down with his own opinions (not many, at least), Mr. Pinsky has left us to form our own. Yay! Ginsberg's poem is toothless! Dickinson's was profoundly self-aware! You can have your own opinions here, too!

Now, does anyone else out there see the smile, maybe a little wounded but not cruel, behind the "yes" answer to Question 9, or am I the only one?

--DarcyLarcy

a master poet today as well as a stunningly effective writer in general. Of course there are still no flies on Thoreau or Emerson either.

What poetry masters say about one another is more amusing than inciteful, because they are speaking from the 'perspective limitations' of their own personal mastery of their craft. Weird, eh? I have had experience with this sort of thing in other art forms.

The best critics are those that are only mediocre in the craft that they are critiquing. This allows them to have a broader perspective -- usually anyway -- than that of the absolute masters of that art form or craft. This presupposes, however, that said critics are earnest, conscientious and scrupulously fair and impartial in their analysis and assessments.

The best critiques come from the generation following the generation that turned its back on the 'old ways' of doing things. They have the advantage of disinterest on their side.

appreciated the delivery methodology. It was insulting and mocking regardless of intentions.

Considering the nature of these responses, however, I rather doubt that Pinsky will venture to be a smart ass again in print for a general readership forum. He will probably restrict his penchant for pranking-thus in the Poetry Fray, where undoubtedly his brand of juvenile humor is 'appreciated.'