Coteries Categories Individuals

          
                                    
                                             
See prior Stephen Burt posts: kh00027 and kh00028.     
As strongly as I am against literary packaging,   
which arises from the human need to label things,
I cannot figure out why I consistently allow the    
ruminations of others to draw me into that habit.
Yes it is a memory aid, and yes in the sciences it
is essential, but it tends to limit the scope of 
what a given maker actually makes.  Scientifically,
I am in the category of humans who are less than   
five feet tall.  In the realm of poem-making are  
those who prefer to be members of a coterie and/or   
to be identified as being a maker whose works are  
examples of a specific categorizable nature.  I   
find nothing wrong with that.  But yesterday          
Mark Wallace led me to a post by none other than   
that erudite independent John Latta, a post I had   
already read or at least glanced through.  I read  
it, and realized that my willingness to let Burt  
or whomever have hir say without my trying to be   
confrontational lessens the worth of what I say.  
So this is how on Wednesday, May 27, 2009 
Latta wins.                                             
                                               
                                         
                                               
                                              
kh00029