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In a message dated 17/01/2005 15:33:54 GMT Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes: I'm really curious what you think a reader will get out of this. What impetus, what reason does the reader have to work through these apparently random associations and -- squinting mentally -- find some situation or theme that connects them? Or do you think a (sophisticated) reader will do so spontaneously? In line 16, do you mean "Dasein"? Yo, Dasein it is, thanks. & a good question to which I have no good answer. A few quick thoughts, though: * I'll nick a caveat (because I haven't been writing poetry for a long while let alone talking about it); Wordsworth: "But I was unwilling to undertake the task, knowing that on this occasion the Reader would look coldly upon my arguments, since I might be suspected of having been principally influenced by the selfish and foolish hope of reasoning him into an approbation of these particular Poems . . ." well, that's obvious, but so is all of this. * Also, I am suspicious of poets who write always-already-canonically, whose methods big up academic close reading as the best (or worse, the only) venue of ultimate value-giving. But sometimes I'm one of them. John Ruskin: "I have no patience with apologies made by young psuedo-poets, 'that they believe there is some good in what they have written: that they hope to do better in time,' &c. Some good ! If there is not all good, there is no good. If they ever hope to do better, why do they trouble us now ? Let them rather courageously burn all they have done, and wait for the better days". * I think (probably pretty uncontroversially?) that not all poetry needs to be -easy- to read. Probably some needs to be very difficult to read. (I can't -think- of a situation in which such difficulty is -intrinsically- worthwhile, rather than connected with some other worthwhile matter. But if there were such a situation, it would probably be quite difficult to think of itself . . .) * The impetus to engage with this difficulty, to join-the-unnumbered-dots, is transmitted through the same channels as the impetus to pick up a book in the first place, or to read the second line if you don't like the first. If a text is uninteresting "by itself", you might still -try- to become interested in it if, e.g. a) a friend wrote it b) somebody whose poems have previously interested you wrote it c) somebody who has previously been interested in things which interest you has recommended it d) it contains one or two bits which really interest you a lot. * Poetic reputation is a good name for the overriding impetus-delegator, with others niggling and jiggling. But for those who can't rely on their distinction to remotely callibrate, fuel and prime interpreting machines, there is a back-up system. Readers who have previously had impetus to make sense of intractable tracts (somebody doing a dissertation on Charles Bernstein or the Gawain poet, somebody whose job is to read through piles of phone-tap transcripts) often become comfortable in the presence of texts which they only partly understand. This might be a bad thing. My hunch is it's good. It allows for rambly, browsy perusal, plundering skimming, reading full of half-insights, opportunistic intensifications of attention, switches among different modes of information-gathering, private reactions, speculations, throw-away chuckles. As well as just maybe leading to deep and demanding critical engagements, I think this kind of reading is important in its own right. It's certainly a kind of reading which I (slightly guiltily) enjoy doing. * Is -connecting- all that matters? (less applicable to this poem, which I thought of as having a pretty distinct theme, but -- I would certainly admire, get a kick from, feel attracted by, any poem which juxtaposed, juxtaposed and juxtaposed, without becoming infected by the little wormies of accidental association). * What makes a poem experimental? The possibility of failure is a pretty good demarcation criterion. The blind leprous emperor has no clothes. Still don't know how I feel about this one. * Lots more I could say, but this has already gone on longer than I expected. Sorry if I read a bit stuffily. Thanks for looking at the poem. I'm going to restore this stanza: our powerful navy shall no longer meet, the wealth of France or Holland to invade; the beauty of this Town, without a fleet, from all the world shall vindicate her trade. in the fourth canto. It comes from Dryden's "Annus Mirabilus" (sp?) which is partly about some of the same things as that canto. Best, Jow