"I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance." --Wesley Snipes

Saturday, March 13, 2004

Corey's Cartesian Grid

Joshua Corey's classification grid for contemporary poetry interests me but raises a few questions:

1) Is this sytem only suitable for contemporary poetry, or can we place, say, Chaucer on the grid as well?

2) If we place Chaucer on the grid, where does he belong on the X axis? How about Kenneth Koch?

3) If it's not obvious yet, I'm beating the dead horse (is it dead?) about the "difference" between "funny" and "serious"--something I see as almost always a false distinction, though, it must be said, a very convenient one.

4) Why is this classification system useful? Will/should/does it help one decide which books to read? ("Hey, Tony, you'll really dig Twemlow's new book--it's very x+, but slightly y-.")

I'm not in any way making fun or bashing--I'm just interested.


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