I've been in situations professionally, politically, where I could not easily voice objections to certain things, in order not to give "ammunition" to the other "side." For example, a colleague has some weakness (don't we all?), but you still want this colleague to be promoted. You don't want those other colleagues on other side of the divide to take what you say as an argument for THEIR side. Often I have said what I think anyway, just because I cannot stand NOT to allow an argument to remain unvoiced. That's why I value open minded people like Greg, who recognizes a certain truth in the characterization of the new formalism. That's why, too, I sometimes criticize work within the general language/postlanguage camp, things that I OUGHT to like but do not.

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Greg also posts a poem, I presume written by himself, and asks why it is not a good POSTMODERN poem, and not simply a bad poem tout court. First of all, I would object to the notion that there is a generic "postmodern poem." Doesn't each poet have to justify his or her own style? Isn't that Phillip's criticism of New Formalism, the blithe complacency of it all? You shouldn't be able to just slide by on a period style, even a faux-Victorian one. I could point to the ways in which Greg's poem fails to employ any strategy with any consistency. Yes, there can be a consistent purposiveness even in disjunction! The "bad writing" (i.e. the phrase "nicely and earnestly") does not seem redeemed by any higher purpose. The first line sounds utterly sophomoric. Forgive me if I am misinterpreting the question being posed here, which seems to depend on the assumption that there is some lower standard of writing for avant-garde and conventional styles. If anything, the avant-garde standard is far higher.