This kind of statement really depends on what you mean by "worthwhile". Writing doesn't have to (and rarely does) give raw information to provide worth. Sometim

This kind of statement really depends on what you mean by "worthwhile". Writing doesn't have to (and rarely does) give raw information to provide worth. Sometimes it just points in a direction, sometimes it just collects people together over a single topic, sometimes it's just for fun. One day another of Saroyan’s friends, the poet Ted Berrigan, got a look at his latest one-word poem, eyeye, on a sheet of typewriter paper. “He said, ‘What the fuck is this?’” Saroyan recalls, “which I thought was a promising response.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68913/you-call-that-poetry https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68913/you-call-tha... A poem should not mean But be. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/17168/ars-poetica https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/17168/... In a world that's meaningless and mostly empty there's time to waste reading and writing and discussing nonsense poetry until it starts to make sense. I think you're right that Saroyan found the responses to his poetry more interesting than the work itself. The Reagan administration went in trying to dismantle the National Endowment for the Arts, citing Saroyan among others, wound up eventually inflating the budget, and was rewarded with Immersion (Piss Christ). I think it's funny too. https://www.arts.gov/open-government/national-endowment-arts-appropriations-history https://www.arts.gov/open-government/national-endowment-arts... So what if he was high and having a laugh? It exists, it's been read, noticed, observed, considered. "You could feel him in a room at his typewriter, like a monkey or a cat with a little extra brainpower." It does not have to be liked, it can be "banal". https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/books/review/Hell-t.html?_r=1&ref=books https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/books/review/Hell-t.html?... As for the analysis, you may have overlooked some of the more nuanced conclusions. The North American field cricket chirps 33 times a minute. Big Ben, six-o'clock, 1924. Tic-tac (1969). Obviously there's is an oversight in the claim a clock only makes one sound Tick Tick. A pendulum clock swinging to two distinct sides will in fact make two sounds. And extending lighght to L-I-G-H-G-H-T is absurd, this is visual art and it's not the same at all once that's done.