that toilet quote is great.
<<My frustration is that some readers keep looking for meaning in poetry. Why
should a poem have to 'mean'?! A tree is, a rock is, a wedge-tail eagle is,
a poem is.>>
a bit of MacLeishism eh.
meaning is good, but not when it's insisted. I hate bafflement, I
think it's almost a loophole for modern poets (especially finnish
ones, I've noticed) to ramble & splay themselves, and sometimes cover
up the fact that they're not really saying anything. I value cohesion
over bafflement.
KS
On 27/11/2007, andrew burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Good ol' Ron S has done some research for me (and you) again. Here's the
> last para of a review of John Ashberry's selection for his last ten books:
>
> 'I concede that £12.95 is a steep price to pay for what many will consider
> to be insurmountably baffling. But bafflement is part of the condition of
> modern poetry, and if there's a modern poet you need on your shelves, and in
> your head, it's Ashbery. As Geoffrey Hill - also an essential poet - once
> said, public toilets have a duty to be accessible, poetry does not.'
>
> I love the Hill quote. The rest of the review is interesting - read it at
> http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/poetry/0,,2216060,00.html
>
> Nicholas Lezard hails the later work of one of the truly essential poets,
> John Ashbery
>
> *Saturday November 24, 2007
> The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>*
>
>
> *Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems*, by John Ashbery (Carcanet,
> £12.95)
>
>
> My frustration is that some readers keep looking for meaning in poetry. Why
> should a poem have to 'mean'?! A tree is, a rock is, a wedge-tail eagle is,
> a poem is.
>
>
>
> Andrew
> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/aburke/
>
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