HG Poetics:

"My long-poem work & poetry in general poses something of a challenge to the supposed keepers of the modernist/postmodern poetry flame. This is, I guess, at least one of the factors behind my longstanding margin-of-the-margins status, from the days of Buffalo List unto the day of Blog.

By having the chutzpa to shuffle the 'lineage' with a new long poem, and asserting its legitimacy as such; by counterbalancing the Pound/Williams/Zukofsky/Olson stream with an emphasis on Crane/Joyce/Mandelstam (Russified by a narrative which begins with a search for a lost cat named Pushkin); by insisting on rhyme, and stanza, and narrative, and character(s), & personhood, and continuity, & 'readable' (allusive) meaning (at least to a limited extent) - this stance as a whole calls into question any number of literary-historical shibboleths regarding US poetry, its sources, directions, etc.
& yet I have the funny feeling I will win this battle, because I think my poetry is more alive & complex than all their theories, mutual-aid networks & anthologies put together."

I guess someone wanting to read that sort of long poem would be more likely to turn to Derek Walcott. This alternative is hardly marginalized: Walcott has won the Nobel prize after all. And a huge mainstream of American poets and critics would agree on the importance of "personhood" (traditional subjectivity?) and readability. You've got to admire Henry's sense of self-importance, though!