It all depends upon who is pronouncing one's writing "competent." Another,
or oneself? And if the former, then which of the others ? It is a term that
tends to melt all over, like "pretty" or "interesting" when applied to art.
I should not want to have certain notions of competence, mine or someone
else's, in the saddle when writing a poem. (And you may well respond that
that is only too clear!) I value certain kinds of incompetence then, for
were i the equal of the task, why bother? where would the vulnerability
come from? __that is how i hear Allison's phrase: that competence in poetry
is an inept term, unless one argue for another meaning almost entirely of
"competence," as that which also assigns a creative role to incompetence.
david
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