The United States has not engendered so many first-rank poets that we can neglect one. --John DerbyshireMy son-in-law informed me that the National Review was seeking poetry, so I went to their website and performed a Google advanced search for poetry, and I came across your article for The New Criterion (on line) titled “Longfellow & the fate of modern poetry.” I found the article very interesting, as the ideas in the article were similar to mine, except from a different point of view, i.e., the point of view of the unknown poet seeking recognition.The title was the first item to interest me, as I am a descendant of Longfellow on my father’s side and I have been decrying modern poetry for years. For me, Longfellow is not a “dead dead poet” as shown by the use of his quotation in my poem below:THE ESSENCE OF HUMANITYTHE CHILDYe whose hearts are fresh and simple, / Who have faith in God andNature, / Who believe that in all ages / Every human heart is human,--Longfellow, “The Song of Hiawatha”Nurtured by breasts and ancient tribal loreAnd Nature's nearness and a strong male roleModel, the active child must now exploreThe plains beside the twilight water hole.The black low lines of thunderstorms attackThe milling herd and sudden thunderclapsSoon start the stampede on a southern track.The Great Spirit is angry now, perhaps?Small waving hands and firebrand bar the pathTo parents, friends and relatives. He smiled.He knew how to divert a wild herd's wrath!So much depends upon the loving child.For where the charging, scared, lead buffaloIs shooed, the whole, wild, frightened herd will go.THE ADULTDid you know that a computer can write a poem?--Hypothesis refuted by F. R. LeavisMy Rolex watch tells me that I have lost,Forty-one minutes gazing through the goldGlass windows toward the lithe landscape embossedWith stores and shopping malls that I have strolled.My Harvard law degree reminds me, "TimeIs Money." Yet I gaze. Something is wrong . . .I seldom write my parents--no big crime.Their parents love the nursing home--belong.My Rolls Royce waits. The judge, jury, the press,My client wait. And yet . . . My children offAt college wasting money, I confess.My wife has her career. I dare not scoff.Till now I've never stopped to count the costBut feel . . . that something vital has been lost.Note: The location for each poem is the same, downtown Dallas, but 500 years apart.I consider Stevenson, Longfellow, Poe, and Frost first-rank poets, but I loathe Poe for his horror stories and his “Sonnet – To Science” to which I have replied:SONNET TO SCIENCEHear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. --DEU 6:4You cleared away the misty thoughts, displayedFalse gods the Greeks had made, and showed the pathTo find the Truth they sought. Their long decayedAnd dusty ruins sink beneath Your wrath.You gave the keys to power plants and carsAnd highways joining massive cities fullOf specialists investigating starsAnd ocean tides and gravity's strong pull,And earth for medicines to cure diseaseAnd manned space flight for all humanity,And digital machines sprouting drawing treesAnd drawings, charts and data; and for meThe summer dream beneath the green "BonsaiPoetry Tree" set free before I die.Your quest to have “four lines by a living poet” quoted reminded me of a quote I used:THE BASTIONS OF MEDIOCRITYThe poetic note I think most helpful at the moment is deliberately "minor" rather than "major." -- Denis Donogue, "Does America Have A Major Poet?"First you espouse the current party line.You must not show skill or integrity.That would reveal the general declineIn what is now proclaimed as Poetry.The universities are cranking outThe poets by the thousands. Metrical feetAre gone. The greatest nation is withoutA poet singing of its greatest feats.True poetry today is still submergedBy jealousy and self defense, which minorMinds exude, and excluded from print--purgedFrom public view. The haughty spurn the major.So a poetic leap toward greatness startsWith one enlightened Patron of the Arts.You asked, “But what were poets supposed to do?” My answer is presented below:EARTHRISEThe lifeless lunar landscape stretches outBefore my eyes in shades of grayish-white,And only craters love the endless drought--The heat of day--the chilling cold of night.A rising orb dispels the black of space,And strong emotions swell--too deep for Freud.The Earth, so pregnant with the human race,Is thirsting there to fill the awful void.Will mankind propagate among the stars,Or will some minor cosmic accidentChange Mother Earth into a planet Mars,Or will there be a method to prevent . . .And so as mankind walks upon the Moon,He views the planet from which he was hewn.That is, they were to replace Nature with Science, as advocated by William Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads (1800), Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse (1946), and Aldous Huxley in Literature and Science (1963).“It is just our bad luck that none of the things tried in the twentieth century worked very well.” I take exception to that statement as shown by my poem below written in 1989:RENDEZVOUS IN SPACEFor a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live--to learn, to discover, to be free!--Richard BachMARYA MOREVNAYour art is diligent and professional, but cartlike,And in an age of rockets it is doomed! --Yevgeny YevtsushenkoThe blasting roar of rocket motors throwsHer through the summer sky. She will endureThe waiting. Her pale-green gown gently showsThe curves proclaiming that she is mature.She reminisces reckless youthful days,The Vanguard-Sputnik days when she was firstIn space and young Apollo only playsAt chasing her around the world--then burst!He did not die, though he was wimpy andWeak; and eighteen sequestered years have wroughtBody and mind--matured the plans he's planned,The dreams he's dreamed, the power he has sought . . .Relaxing her alluring body, sheRests on a bed of stars and dreams of me.APOLLOAdornd she was indeed, and lovely to attract thy Love, not thy Subjection. --John MiltonFoes wish me, like Prometheus, chained to thisRock they call the Earth, forever tortured byA Proxmire vulture, so that I would missMy only chance for you and wish to die,But racing roaring rocket motors leaveThem all below and now the search begins.Strong, sharp eyes scan the summer sky. BelieveI will find you! If I fail, no one wins.There are no chaperones up this high. WhyShould I not stare at your posh, pale-green gown?The plans I've planned are working well. Soon IAm moving up and closer, closer, downAnd closer. Contact! Now we can commune,For we are mind to mind--but must part soon.“Free verse did not work well.” I agree as shown by my three criticisms below:THE NAKED POETS"But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said.--"The Emperor's New Clothes", Fairy Tales (1835)Hans Christian Andersen (Translated by Jean Hersholt)They're lost in the gainsaying of the gayWalt Whitman and the gold thread merchants whoSay only the wise and prudent scholars maySee the threads that the worms of free verse grew.The outraged public has wished to abort,But still their putrid product wins awardsAnd prizes, grants and Government support,And obscure foreign bards receive rewards.So human dung is being served uponA university owned silver plateBy naked poets with their best smiles on,And real American poets must wait,Suffering poverty and broken heartsAwaiting a true Patron of the Arts."THE NEW BARBARIANSThe songs of Homer and the fame of Achilles had probably never reached the ear of the illiterate barbarian. --The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward GibbonAnti-establishment, long hair, free verse,Sex, anti-war, illegal drugs, Day-GloColors, outrageous clothes and music, curseWords, earrings, guts--a lifestyle to bestow.Now over thirty, long locks sheared to findEmployment, kids and debts, fine houses, grassTo cut, new cars to drive, the daily grind,No spare time, energy--now middle class.All emulated by the next New AgeTrying to be more awesome than the past,But still just imitation. The old sageSees Poetry's slow pendulum aghast!Tenured in colleges and GovernmentAnd universities--establishment!THE CONSERVATIVE REBELLIONModernism was a bad joke. We can start over. --The New ClassicistsWe've had enough of Ginsberg's Howling, drugs,Immoral living, Kesey's acid testAnd filthy words, and filthy biker thugs,And cigarettes and pot and all the rest.We can begin again with Wordsworth's Quest,Emotions recollected tranquilly.Out with the weird, the ugly things. The bestOf thoughts, emotions, true nobility,Accomplishments, intelligence, true love,Style, creativity, taste, chastity,Wit, wanderlust, artistic beauty ofThe metrical line, serendipity . . .There’s still time to assuage a centuryOf Modern barbarism in Poetry.“We have lost narrative poetry . . . any attempt to revive interest in narrative verse would be futile.” I have tried to revive narrative verse by writing a sonnet sequence on the history of technology titled The Ascent of Man, which begins with “The Spear” and ends with the exploration of space.I would like to conclude with the following thought:THE BONSAI POETRY TREESurely here the creative battle to maintain our living cultural heritage--a continuity of profoundly human creative life--must seem worth fighting; must be seen as a battle that shall not be lost. -- F. R. LeavisFar from the University's pine treesSo watered, manicured, and tall; far fromThe fertilizer's reach; where most plants freezeAnd die; a true bonsai will not succumb;Its roots: the glory, grandeur, culture, andPerspective that the classics can imbue;Its trunk: the ancestors who could understandThe past's worth and its every shade and hue;Its branches: patterns of new knowledge rifeWith implications forming mental fuel;Its leaves: the current generation's life,Enduring fashion and rebellion's rule.An austere scene of lonely crag and sand--America's literary wasteland.The New Criterion, December 2000, had the following article: "Longfellow & the fate of modern poetry" by John Derbyshire (http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/dec00/longfellow.htm)Here is a retort to it by Bob Grumman: (http://www.geocities.com/compoems/text0001.html)and above is the relpy I e-mailed to John. His reply was "I think you have invented a new literary form."BIO: Thomas Newton was born at Fort Ringgold, Texas in 1942. He received a B.S.E.E. degree from Lamar University. He is presently a civil service electronics engineer in Orlando, FL. His poetry has been published in Pulse and in Hatteras. He lives in Winter Springs, FL with his wife and the younger two of his four children.