An admirably thought-provoking start to this exercise. I wanted to complain that a poem ought to consist of symbols that more clearly impart meaning—but then again, a word might carry a variety of clear and less-clear meanings, depending on the reader, and that's often a good thing. I wanted to complain that a poem ought to make sense when read aloud, but our interpreter has offered a suggestion of how the thing might do so. On some level, how one feels about the legitimacy of this piece may be governed by that unanswerable question of where one “draws the line”—between music and meaning, symbol and sense, experiment and enigma. Personally, I had trouble perceiving it as anything but an evocative piece of visual design.
The critique is very thoughtful; it certainly made me give this more attention than I would have otherwise. The last line makes a great point, since to some extent, anything we read is a “tune yet to be invented.” However, the notion that the poem contains “crescendo and diminuendo” doesn’t seem to have any basis. We can certainly imagine that it represents terrace dynamics, i.e., non-gradual changes in volume, but the repeated symbols are all the same, indicating no nuance, only difference.
Not my kind of poem, but a great choice for this event because it made me think carefully about why.
Best,
Jean
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