"Experienced poets worry less about whether their own poetry is worthwhile and more about whether the whole endeavor of poetry is worthwhile -particularly in their own era. " --Nick Piombino, a few days ago.

I don't agree, or maybe I'm inexperienced in this sense, because I have never wondered or worried whether poetry itself is worthwhile. And what does the era have to do with it? Why would poetry be more (or less) worthwhile in some periods than others? That makes no sense at all to my way of thinking. What would it even mean to say poetry is not worthwhile? I cannot even imagine this, let alone worry about it. I might loathe myself at times, but never the part of me that is a poet.

It sounds like something we ought to do--wring hands about whether poetry can save the world, etc... That gets tiresome fast, and in any case is based on an OVERvaluation of poetry. Poetry ought to be able to save the world, it cannot, therefore is has no value. Well, by that measure, no human activity has much value.

On the other hand, I do wonder whether my own work could possibly make any contribution to this grand enterprise (poetry, not world-saving). Self-doubt is not necessarily the result of inexperience, either (though in my case it probably is). There are very great poets who have doubted themselves profoundly.

I am obsessed with judgment, with whether it's good or not, whether I like it or not. I differ in this from my academic colleagues, who don't really think that much about whether they like what they are studying or not. Admirable objectivity, or simply the deadening of the sensibility? Entirely too much talk about liking and disliking? Or not nearly enough? This is not to say I don't change my mind. I love being proved wrong, though it doesn't happen nearly often enough.

I was glad to see Kenneth Koch recommend Saintsbury in "Making Your Own Days."