More "Hokum from the last Century":

1. A poem is a static object whose purpose is to provide fodder for academic analysis.

2. The "Beats" were "know-nothing Bohemians."

3. Modernism in the arts either never existed or was an abject failure; the truly great poets were those who continued Victorian and Edwardian models.

4. The Language Poets are intereting in theory, but their poetry is dull.

5. MFA programs created a renaissance in verse.

6. American poetry needs the influence of more imaginative, surrealist poetry from Latin America to correct its inherent dullness.

7. American poetry is a minor branch of the poetry of the British Isles.

8. American poetry is most interesting because it is "American." It is self-sufficient; it is most American the further it gets from either coast.

9. American poetry is interesting to the extent that it resembles French poetry.

10. American poetry is interesting to the extent that it transcends its mid-western, corn-pone nature. It can only be written in either the Eastern sea-board or the San Francisco Bay Area.

11. It is perfectly possible to be a poet without learning a foreign language.