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For me, "accessibility" along with its cousins is one of those words (others being codependence, dysfunctionality) that we could easily do without. "Accessible" sometimes, maybe usually, seems a euphemism for "not difficult or strange in any way," suggesting too that readers are wheel-chair-bound. The demands that a poem makes on us are much more interesting that the demands we make upon the poem. I've never been sure what "liking" has to do with any of this, knowing, of course, that we're more prone to "like" the familiar and comfortable that all that other stuff. Hal "The dirt is the mark of your deep love of the tool." Halvard Johnson ================ [log in to unmask] http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard http://entropyandme.blogspot.com http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com http://www.hamiltonstone.org On Mar 26, 2006, at 12:49 PM, Douglas Barbour wrote: > This is a hard one, &, as Jon & others have shown, it's different > for each of us. I often like to deal with poems that seem (at > first) in-accessible, if I already trust the writer (for many > different reasons; I will try poems that don't at first feel all > that accessible if they have been recommended by someone I trust). > But, as the various remarks so far suggest, what 'we' mean by > 'accessible' is not all that clear. I don't really care about > 'meaning' as such, & certainly what attracts me to poetry first are > other aspects, music, rhythm, language play, all that stuff (which > may be what catches your next door neighbour, too, Jill). But there > are poems I will read that lack many of those things. I'll read a > lot I don't even like that much -- the first time. The test, then, > becomes what will I go back to, with love, delight, etc.... > > (But then I review a lot, which takes away some of my 'choice'....) > > And there is that difficult test, that sometimes something not > liked all that much at first becomes beloved as one tests oneself > against it. Perhaps certain poems test us more than we test them... > > > Doug > > Douglas Barbour > 11655 - 72 Avenue NW > Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9 > (780) 436 3320 > > Listen. If I have known beauty > let’s say I came to it > asking > > Phyllis Webb