Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.
George Eliot (1819-1880)
I like the poem very much, but I can't say much for most of the commentary on it. The poem sufficiently glosses itself and most of the commentary is puffed up and going nowhere. Not the piece I cited. But others. One would think that WCW had invented imagist poetry.
A favorite of mine. I've always seen it as the perfect embodiment of the last lines of Archibald MacLeish's "Ars Poetica."
ReplyDeleteA poem should not mean
But be.
Dear Fred,
ReplyDeleteI like the poem very much, but I can't say much for most of the commentary on it. The poem sufficiently glosses itself and most of the commentary is puffed up and going nowhere. Not the piece I cited. But others. One would think that WCW had invented imagist poetry.
shalom,
Steven
Steven,
ReplyDeleteAgreed--the commentary does get a bit overheated.
It seems almost as if there is a law that says the shorter the poem, the longer the commentary/analysis.