These concerns with layout and orthography are interesting, but I wonder how
much of this is related to the "poetic act" as such, I mean the actual
performance of a poem. Yesterday I bought for 300 yen a first edition of
Robert Graves "Poems (1926-1930) (Heinemann: London, 1931). Several of the
poems appeared in limited editions (then out of print). Those poems probably
appeared in a different layout to the one in the later edition, moreover,
the poet often has a greater say over matters in smaller print runs and of
course in privately published works. The question of intention is a red
herring because it simply doesn't take into account of the process of
publication, of those involved and the editorial decisions made en route.
For example the size of paper? The font used. The actual physicality of the
book. Doesn't that make a difference? When text is italicized what are we
supposed to do as readers? Adopt a different voice, tone, pace, ??" Perhaps
there is a convention? What takes greater priority the text as it is
presented, its aesthetic appeal, or its function as discourse markers for
the performance of the poem? Do the spacings signify an attempt to create a
new form of punctuation, or are they merely there for the visual pleasure?
Does this beg the question of whether the concern with layout and
orthography is primarily one to do with design of a poem rather than its
performance, and that this aesthetic concern is not far removed from the
bibliophile's predilections for books of x quality?
Regarding ED, it is just pedantry that keeps many scholars in employment,
and the anxiety about her spelling reflects her position in the canon --what
of the thousands of other women writers in the colonial period and the
nineteenth century?
Final Point
Here in Japan it is very common now to include a CD with a book. This is
surely the way of poetry, from now on a book of poems should include a CD
single or album of the poet reading his/her work. I don't mean those famous
actoers reading Dylan Thomas products, I mean alternative or nonmainstream
poets --such as those on this list.
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