On Sat, 24 May 1997, Ken Edwards wrote:

> I feel it is precisely the openness/ambiguity of Raworth's texts (which
  some, including some on this list, may feel uneasy with) that makes him
  a useful model - ie there's scope for creative misunderstanding 

  By contrast, Prynne's interventions in the world, while
> devastating at times, are for me too perfectly formed, too complete in
> their ethical assurance to do anything with. 
> 
  - I suppose it just depends what you want to -do- with poems.. "creative
misunderstanding" is a hint - if Prynne's poems fail to provoke
creativity, or immediately to encourage a writerly response (beyond the
essentially unwriterly active Barthesian reading) that is anything but
strictly emulous, how does this stop a reader from doing other things with
them?  If they are "too complete" generously (or generatively) to inspire
further creativity (or acts of additive completion), why is this to their
disadvantage?  It seems to me at least as likely that a Prynne poem will
be widely misunderstood, as one by Raworth (does anybody -understand- Her 
Weasels Wild Returning? or For the Monogram?), though I can't really see
that this could be a criterion for quality other than for a writer whose
principal interest in accessing a text is in preparing her or himself for
their own acts of composition.  Whilst such preparation naturally occurs
in reading, for anyone who writes (I imagine), it seems a little
pre-emptive actually to distinguish between writings (or writers) in terms
of how they might aid such preparation - maybe next time I read, in a
different year, a different poem, my mood will effect the reverse
relation.  Anyhow, this is not the only way to judge quality - indeed,
it's a pretty specialised and exclusive way.  Can there not be an
"openness" that obstructs or precludes "ambiguity", simply by
underdetermining potential meanings?  And must such an underdetermination
equate meaningfully with freedom?  Must "assurance" mean the opposite?  

I see the point you're making, Ken, and agree to a certain extent, but I
also think that Prynne's poems tend to be seen as rebarbative
or austere simply because they are obviously the result of painstaking and
sustained attention, rather than of a freer or more aleatory procedure
that is more readily theorised as generous. (But which might also be
theorised - without really emphasising any politics - as impatience)     
 
 - Re: "some may feel uneasy" - I think maybe I do; but maybe it's that I
feel too at ease.  Not that the poems are 'easy' in any way, but that
their openness can create a 'freedom' where any choice is radically
undifferentiated from any other.    

Best wishes, keston.

 ps - I enjoyed your reading very much, and keenly await the publication
of "bird migration in the 21st century" - the police sirens and candles
seemed to cohere equally with the text and the birds' shrieking outside, a
real supporting ensemble!   



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