About Cheryl's "Town vs. Gown"

Cheryl, me darlin' poetess, your observations hit smack-on, both about the Ivory Tower Academic Posetry & the stuff the rest of us do. I happen to be a street kid from a clan of poet loving folks, and was considered the heir to my Dad & the Dads before him(..but he''ll have ta work hard to be as gud as his fadder.."). I went to college & literally abhorred the disecting of Poetry that went on. Mine was an Oral tradition of 1000's of years & the dead posetry stuff & Lego structures made me nauseous. I have nothin' agin' gematria or sacred numerology formatting one's stuff & many a great poet has taught at colleges all over the world making it a better place. I rank the Academic Ice Cutters below the poor folks who come to open mics to read a poem they wrote about a loved one who died & everyone in the family said they shud read it to others. I also come from a tradition where Bards had musical accompaniment and some of which was low down and dirty. The Hip Hop Slam Dunkers are part of that but will mellow out with age if they don't burn out & I think the whole Rap Hip Hop phenom is a scene where a part of our culture are expressing themselves poetically on varying scale of quality, but doggerel or true poetry it is still alive & well as are the Minstrelry of Modern music w/their lyrics. I don't hate Intellectual Academic Poets who throw in Persephone hoping to get laid, and consider their noble efforts a part of the wide and varied whole. But having experienced the Beats, Ginsberg, Montgomery, etc., in their habitat I can only quote from the final verse of my Poem, "BeBop 50's Evocative Collage" in their honor: "I have a Vision --BeBop! I honor the living Poets, Who wail cool, To free America!" That we might be lucky enuff to inherit the mantle of what some call the Twilight of American Poetry, And Wail Cool To Free Ourselves, Our America and Our World.