I think that two kinds of 'notes' are being discussed here, & Aileen gets
at that wheh she talks about the kind of 'talk' that one might use to
introduce a poem at a reading. I'd agree that that kind of information
(which I sometimes find useful or at least interesting) belongs somewhere
else than on hte same page as the poem (probably at the back of the book).
But I can see both footnote signs & the notes themselves as part of the
poem, & then it belongs right there, in or with the poem (but as I said
before, I have done that, & with poetic aforethought). If the latter formal
process works, it brings the reader in to 'reading' all the aspects of the
poem as the poem...
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
But the dead are wholehearted about being dead,
no half measures no shilly-shallying:
they're committed, dedicated
to purposelessness.
Al Purdy
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