Sleeping Well in Quietude

As I was saying about J.V. Cunningham, he was a fulcrum of 20th century formalist poetics. More than that though, he was no apologist for his verse, and in fact would answer Ron Silliman and his quietude dis with no uncertain acknowledgment. In fact, he did, and in verse:

For My Contemporaries

How time reverses
The proud in heart!
I now make verses
Who aimed at art.

But I sleep well.
Ambitious boys
Whose big lies swell
With spiritual noise

Despise me not!
And be not queasy
To praise somewhat:
Verse is not easy.

But rage who will.
Time that procured me
Good sense and skill
Of madness cured me.

I'm not seconding that emotion although I do believe he touches on a third rail of truth. There is a certain ponderous psychosis in some contemporary American poetry, a well-earned lunacy albeit, but one that needs a little tempering with, if not quietude, then calm, sometimes.