Wednesday, March 08, 2006







Especially this paragraph:




Anonymous said...

Oh, how much I agree with your last two paragraphs.


Rob Mackenzie said...

Cheers, Rob.

I've added in extra paragraphs now, just to confuse everyone reading this. But I realise you are talking about the last two paragraphs before the edit.

You are really going to do NaPoWriMo in April, aren't you?

Jim Sheard said...

It is, of course, intellectually dishonest to grub up allusions and difficult references to clart up a poem. Equally dishonest, however, to deny yourself your own range (or the range of your voices) for the sake of accessibility.

Szirtes is spot on, as ever - a poem has to deliver itself without external structures; and it can do so without abandoning them. But it's also true that poems use all sorts of devices - metaphor, evocation, allusion etc. - to open out into spaces beyond themselves. Successful deployment and control of such things is what matters.

Anonymous said...

I agree with your two new last paragraphs too, and Jim.

Enjoy yourself in London and escape safely from it. I presume this is the Angel visit? You star!!!

April? Hummm, I don't know yet.


Rob Mackenzie said...

"But it's also true that poems use all sorts of devices... to open out into spaces beyond themselves. Successful deployment and control of such things is what matters."

Jim, that's as good a way of putting it as I've heard. I hope I don't embarrass you by saying that that's why so many of your poems work for me.