Interesting turn to the Prynne thread, bringing in Zukofsky and Williams
(without implying a commonality of approach). I'd say that so many of the
problems "understanding" these poetries, finding the "meaning" in it /
them, stem from a generic reading practice which is taught in school,
where poetry is sometimes a utility which provides object lessons for
comprehension classes. Today's task: (1) read Keats' Ode To Autumn (2) say
in your own words what the poets _means_ etc etc... Or at anyrate, such
was the practice when I went to the village dameschool on the back of my
father's oxcart, when beer was tuppence a pint etc. And some local
evidence suggests that this hasn't changed much, beyond the obvious
exceptions of a few clear and dedicated individual teachers. And Yes, many
of my favourite poets (not to mention some I can't abide) are tough to
"understand" in this sense, i.e.  precis, comprehension. Perhaps even, and
why not, some of them *choose* to put a level of resistivity into their
work to thwart this stultifying process.

In practice, however resistant a work is to this kind of response, it's
damned difficult _not_ to make some kind of understanding of just about
anything: look at the way one starts to "interpret" dada, automatic
writing and the like. We're interpretive beings, albeit falteringly at
times. Read Stein and you find that one reading is never enough - there
are always so many readings, plural, that call to be applied - and after
that a blast of Zukofsky feels like Janet'n'John [i.e.  pretty
staightforward - J&J were school readers back in the bronze age, now I
hope defunct]. So often - in my experience - it comes down to how you read
(Journalists to Stein: Why don't you write the way you talk? Stein to
journalists: Why don't you read the way I write?). Do you use the same
reading skills for, say, Shakespeare as you do for, say, Dickens, or, say,
Blake? I don't, I have to learn how to read just about everyone, one by
singular one. 

Zukofsky quotes Einstein (tho no scientist I've spoken to can spot the
quote so it may be Z made it up): "Everything in the universe should be as
simple as it is - _but not simpler_." This suggests to me that - for Z
anyway - the "truth" of poetry is something simple, but something that
it's desperately important not to over-simplify. I'll drink to that, but
then I drink to so many things. Bunting, in his most sweeping manner,
opined that the "meaning" of most poems is trivial / banal - and cites
Ariel's song from the Tempest, "Full Fathom Five", as an instance: what
the poem says is, Your father's drowned, and when Ariel sings it it's a
lie anyway. And yes, both these asserted the aural sense, the sound
"meaning" of their work, though I'd suggest there's more to it than that.
But there's no substitute for learning to read 'em in order to get close
to it.

I'd like to think that the guys in the critical theory labs could help out
in the learning to read stage, suggest shortcuts, "save the time of the
reader" as we librarians say. But, my experience suggests that it's not
like that. I enjoy some of the theoretical models they produce, much as I
like reading some of the descriptions of The Soul In Prayer produced by
mediaeval theologians - but they're about as much practical use to me as
those rarified works too. Meanwhile, the consumer theory labs have come up
with a working model of "accessability" where you don't have to put in the
time learning a new voice, because the "accessable" text is pre-formed in
a generic, easy-to-handle language - No Special Tools Needed! Simply
follow step by step home assembly instructions on all products. And it's
great, it works, up to a point, for what it does, and you don't even have
to reject other modes of writing of course. 

But those difficult individuals are still out there, ready to make demands
on your time and your mental resources, standing stones in an age of flat
pack. Some of the wretched things aren't even finished! Bunting wrote of
Pound's _Cantos_: 

There are the Alps. What is there to say about them?
They don't make sense. Fatal glaciers, crags cranks climb,
jumbled boulder and weed, pasture and boulder, scree,
_et l'on entend,_ maybe, _le refrain joyeux et leger._
Who knows what the ice will have scraped on the rock it is smoothing?


There they are, you will have to go a long way round
if you want to avoid them.
It takes some getting used to. There are the Alps,
fools! Sit down and wait for them to crumble!


This is not intended as a defence of difficulty for its own sake - far
from it - it's very hard to earn that depth and not many do. I'm simply
suggesting - at rather great length, I'm afraid - that what I get back
from a poem or a poet is directly related to what I put in. These days,
pooped at the end of another library shift, my ability to respond is
strictly limited, it takes an age to get going. Often I end up
"understanding" or finding a "meaning" which is completely other to my
expectation - that's the reward.

RC




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