----- Original Message -----
From: "Janet Jackson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 11:53 PM
Subject: Re: Accessibility
> After thinking about it for a few days here are my current thoughts
> on accessibility.
>
> I would say that different poems are accessible to different
> people, as with paintings, sculptures, music, novels, films.
> It's remarkable that there is any agreement at all on which
> poetry is most valuable (I don't like the terms "good" and "bad").
>
> We don't have to "understand" poetry in the intellectual-content
> sense - but for it to have any value I think we do have to be able
> to connect with it in some way. The reader's mind needs to do
> something other than saying "Huh?". If it takes more than two or
> three readings to get anything at all to happen, I'd say there are
> better uses for that reader's time. Like reading somebody else!
>
> If nobody at all can connect with a poem, I say it's
> a waste of space and time.
>
> If one can only connect with it after doing a PhD then
> its value is, to my mind, limited.
>
> The most valuable poems have many levels of meaning and give you
> more (more "access") every time you read them. (As with other
> art forms; I think this is especially the case with music and film)
>
> Janet
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
> Poems at Proximity:
> http://www.arach.net.au/~huxtable/janet/proximity.html
> ------------------------------------------------------
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