Elizabeth Bishop: from coterie to canon by Dana Gioia

"The mid-century generation includes at least a dozen figures besides Bishop for whom one might claim major status—Theodore Roethke, Robert Lowell, Robert Hayden, Weldon Kees, Randall Jarrell, Gwendolyn Brooks, John Berryman, William Stafford, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, Kenneth Rexroth, and Thomas McGrath. To this list others might add Karl Shapiro, Delmore Schwartz, Muriel Rukeyser, John Ciardi, Josephine Miles, William Jay Smith, May Swenson, and William Everson. Among such worthy company, how did Bishop come to her current preeminence?"

I hate the idea of "major" poets. It almost always sounds ridiculous. Writers whom noone in her right mind would call major (McGrath), or writers with vastly inflated reputations (Roethke) or wonderful poets who are only done a disservice by the "major" label (Kees). Who are those "others" who would add William Jay Smith to the list of major poets? Doesn't a list like this damage the truly talented poets, like Robert Hayden, included here?