The name I've heard, but I have no idea of the content.
I can't think of anyone I respect who was not already writing in 1918, though; Dylan Thomas has some nice tricks, which I've shamelessly used myself, but basically he wrote gibberish clothed as art; the exceptions are 'Do not go gentle', which is about exhorting his own father to be in death the same asshole that Dylan so admired as a child, and 'Remember the procession of the old-young men'. That is scarcely known - Dylan wrote it as part of his war work for the sound track of a film about pre war Wales. Either the copyright was swallowed by the owners of the film, or more likely Dylan despised it, because it made sense. That is a pity, because it's one of the best poems in the English language, and had he been minded to write more like it, he would have enriched the language, but he followed the trend to write nonsense instead. At least he kept rhyme and assonance, but almost nothing he wrote, excepting the above, means anything at all - and anyone can write rhyme and assonance if it doesn't have to mean anything. I prefer Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, who cheerfully wrote nonsense and called it nonsense. For a more learned opinion on Thomas, see Professor Douglas Hofstadter, who rips all pretence of meaning from 'How soon the servant sun' by attempting to translate it.
And Dylan Thomas is for me the pick of the bunch since 1918. But it's true that I have not made great efforts to read more since that date. I was given a book by Seamus Heaney, and consider it devoid of inspiration, yet he's got a big name.
I am glad if other people can enjoy modern poetry, but it drives me nuts.
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I can't think of anyone I respect who was not already writing in 1918, though; Dylan Thomas has some nice tricks, which I've shamelessly used myself, but basically he wrote gibberish clothed as art; the exceptions are 'Do not go gentle', which is about exhorting his own father to be in death the same asshole that Dylan so admired as a child, and 'Remember the procession of the old-young men'. That is scarcely known - Dylan wrote it as part of his war work for the sound track of a film about pre war Wales. Either the copyright was swallowed by the owners of the film, or more likely Dylan despised it, because it made sense. That is a pity, because it's one of the best poems in the English language, and had he been minded to write more like it, he would have enriched the language, but he followed the trend to write nonsense instead. At least he kept rhyme and assonance, but almost nothing he wrote, excepting the above, means anything at all - and anyone can write rhyme and assonance if it doesn't have to mean anything. I prefer Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, who cheerfully wrote nonsense and called it nonsense. For a more learned opinion on Thomas, see Professor Douglas Hofstadter, who rips all pretence of meaning from 'How soon the servant sun' by attempting to translate it.
And Dylan Thomas is for me the pick of the bunch since 1918. But it's true that I have not made great efforts to read more since that date. I was given a book by Seamus Heaney, and consider it devoid of inspiration, yet he's got a big name.
I am glad if other people can enjoy modern poetry, but it drives me nuts.