Jehanne, thanks for those points. I'm especially struck by the observation about graduate student screeners--and regretting that I didn't think sooner about endnotes.

Bill, every time I think I'm sure enough about what I intend to even consider writing an ars poetica, I'm overcome with the dreadful suspicion that I really should be doing everything differently. And the poems seem to be writing me, rather than the other way around, so often that I wonder whether I can really claim to have an intention. It's a subject that probably deserves its own thread.

Jehanne said:
I'm sorry but I find that just a tad condescending of you, Jehanne!
I'm not Jewish and I've never heard (or seen) any of those words before in my life. Naturally I know about bar mitzvahs, Hannukkah and Yom Kippur - stuff like that is very common knowledge - but the ones you mention? Uh-uh. People like me DO need, and appreciate, footnotes, endnotes etc of things that are totally outside our sphere of knowledge. (When I'm reading a poetry book, maybe in bed for instance, I haven't always got Google to hand!)

I'm of reasonable intelligence but my husband is very brainy and can occasionally baffle me with stuff, then get all surprised when I don't know what he means. I make my point by saying things like, "OK, what does p.s.s.o. mean, then?" It's 'pass slipped stitch over', from a knitting pattern and he knows squat about knitting! I rest my case.

Actually, Jayne, since Jehanne's notes do explain those words, you're supporting her actual choices very effectively. And concerning those words, and most other Yiddish expressions that appear in her book The Hardship Post, end notes were the right choice for me as a reader as well.

Her notes about Jewish holidays (not Yiddish words) were simply the first examples that came to my mind of notes that were more than I needed and that set me wondering how one decides how much to explain. Your precept "When in doubt, help the reader out" seems to apply.

Thanks, Maryann. You always reply so promptly! Do you never sleep?

A poet who recently judged a contest wrote in her blog about what turned her off. Among her bugaboos:

.

http://networkedblogs.com/5Rg24

I happen to like end notes; if a note explains something I know, I feel validated; if it gives me new info, I'm effortlessly smarter. What's the problem?

Jayne, my answer was ironic. Of course, you don't know what those words mean. That's precisely why I included end notes. And it's also why I was surprised to see my book cited as an example of a collection with unneccesary end notes.

I really don't see why the notes should be at the end. Surely they should be with the poem they relate to. Otherwise I might never look at them at all.

Jehanne,
I apologise unreservedly for misunderstanding. Er... we often say over here that Americans don't 'do' irony - Oops!!! (We also say the Germans don't have a sense of humour; wrong again.)
The notes in your book would appear to be a very good idea, IMO. I don't mind admitting my ignorance about certain things!

Maryann,
John has a good point, I think. Footnotes v endnotes? Pros and cons with both. I hope you make a decision you're happy with; I'm sure you will, ultimately!

Jayne asked:
Janice answered:

I used to wonder that myself, before I discovered she is twins--maybe triplets?

I think endnotes--without any reference to them in the poems themselves--are the least obtrusive way to go.

That way, Maryann and her well-rounded ilk :) aren't sent scurrying back and forth from the poems to the endnotes, forced by curiosity's sake to look up references to stuff they already knew. But dilettantes like me can muddle through the whole book as best we can and then--woo hoo!--stumble across the Captain Midnight decoder ring at the end. Everybody's happy. Or at least I'd like to think so.