Endnotes in poetry books
 

Lately I've been paying more attention to the endnote pages in other people's collections. Obviously I'm doing this for selfish reasons: I'm trying to figure out whether to add notes to the collection I've been sending out (and sending, and sending.....)

Certainly notes make sense if it's unlikely that the general reader would know something. For example, I appreciate being told that certain words in the poem are from a plaque on a certain statue in a certain place, like the notes in Patrick Hicks's This London. I'm helped by biographical information like the material in Ned Balbo's The Trials of Edgar Poe.... But I don't need (for example) to have Latin commonplaces translated, or to have explanations of Jewish holidays such as Jehanne Dubrow provides, so I wonder if other readers do. On the other hand, I noticed when I was reading on Thursday that people of student age seemed not to be getting a number of the references, and I don't want to leave them in the dark.

So: whether or not to translate common phrases? explain landmarks in Saint Paul? tell where literary allusions are pointing? and so on.

My question for you all is this: In notes, is there such a thing as too much, particularly from the publisher's point of view?

Maryann:

It's not easy to know these days what sort of information may be considered common knowledge or to know if a particular allusion will be recognized. Perhaps this has always been a stumbling block for writers, but some social critics seem to think the well of common knowledge has gone woefully dry in recent times. I taught high school English and humanities for 32 years, and I used to shudder at how many of my students frequently drew a complete blank when what I thought was a common reference came up in reading or discussion. And I was teaching mostly college-bound seniors.

I suppose a writer needs to find a balance between overkill with endnotes and no notes at all. For example, if a foreign language expression can be located in a good dictionary (summum bonum or joie de vivre), then I see no need to include a note in order to compensate for the reader's lack of knowledge, or worse for his laziness in refusing to look up the expression.

All of us have gaps in our knowledge and understanding. Being a good reader requires a certain amount of work. Nonetheless, I'm irritated as a reader if a writer drops a line or passage from another language into his work and expects that I should be fluent in ancient Greek or medieval French or modern German.

Richard

I used end-notes for the first time in my most recent collection and was happy with the device because it did away with the dreaded footnotes. I invented a rule of thumb - if the reader needs to know something before they read the poem, use an epigraph, if there's something that might merely puzzle them and they care enough to follow it up - let them have slightly more generous notes at the end. For example, a poem that was written to be sung to a particular hymn tune had this specified under the title, but the weird conceit that fed a poem about G. de Nerval's lobster was tucked away at the end, along with the confirmation that I was indeed suggesting that "Dover Beach" may have been written under the influence of post-coital tristesse.

I like the idea that the readers can choose whether they need a note. The poet does not appear to be presuming them ignorant or suggesting that there are things they really ought to know.

I look forward to reading others' views.

Oh, I always put the notes at the top of the poem. And I love notes. I put them in whenever I can. Sometimes they are only tangentially relevant, but I'm a note groupie and I'm proud of my notes. Why would I let them languish at the end of the book where they might very well be overlooked?
Possibly, well just possibly, I have TOO MANY notes, but that makes up for all those poetry books where poems, so elliptical they appear to be written in Linear B, stand naked before us and dare us to make sense of them.

As a reader, I appreciate a "Notes" page. Two great examples that come to mind are the "Some Notes" page at the end of Hapax by Alicia Stallings and in Richard Wilbur's Collected Poems 1943-2004 - (notes for six sections). There should be a balance and a logic to notes, not over-done, never trying to "explicate" the poem. I dislike footnotes in poetry books.

There are cases where the notes are more intriguing than the poems. This happens occasionally with Amy Clampitt, I think.

You can go the T. S. Eliot way and have the notes complicate things even further.

[I'm generally against endnotes. The poem should sit in its own mystery, I think.]

Maryann,

I've read many poems in my time that have left me thinking "Smart-arse" (sorry!) because they refer to something way out of my sphere of knowledge. It can come across as pretentiousness on the part of the poet.

I agree with Richard who said:

Mind you, it can go the other way and poets can also insult their readers' intelligence by assuming they don't know stuff. I once went to hear a fairly well-known female British poet who began her reading of a poem by asking the audience if we'd heard of Corfu, and another poem was prefaced with, "Have any of you ever been to the east coast of America?" At the interval a number of us walked out, one man telling her that he had a subsequent engagement!

A balance is needed, as Catherine said, and footnotes etc. can always be ignored if 'Yes, I knew that' applies.

Thanks, folks. Interesting variety of opinions here, including the PM professing dislike of endnotes per se. So I'm just as uncertain as ever, but I think I'm going to supply a few brief endnotes anyway.

I've never been either to Corfu or the East Coast of America, though I do know they exist. However, I have been to Mousehole, Bogshole and Corstorphine and I bet few of you can say that, or even pronounce them.

And that would make an excellent note. I shall just have to write the poem that goes with it.

Maryann,

Perhaps I’m atypical, but I’ve never felt insulted by the presence of notes. If it turns out that I already understand the passage, then reading its corresponding note gives me the additional pleasure of feeling superior to the anticipated audience. If the passage baffles me, then I’m glad to have a handy reference.

Of course, you could make a list of all the bits you’re considering endnotes for, then Google them. If a section’s potential obscurity is clarified by said oracle, you could dispense with the note. Folks who don’t have access to a search engine at home can often access one at the local library. However, many genuine poetry lovers—especially the older ones—are not computer literate, I suspect, so you’d have to decide whether you want to exclude them. Poetry books sell slowly enough as it is, so you may not want to risk alienating anyone who seriously appreciates verse.

Anything with non-Germanic, non-Romance letters, you can’t easily Google. Yes, I had to learn the Greek alphabet in college, and when I sound out a Greek word, it’ll sometimes suggest a root that I recognize as being from Greek, thus enabling me to reasonably guess at meaning of the text. But what a tedious process! (I’ve been reading a lot of MacNeice lately, and I sure wish he or an editor had included translations of his Greek phrases in the edition I have.) And Chinese, Arabic, etc. bamboozle me without notes, companion volume, or gloss.

I wonder whether it makes a difference how many books you’ve already had published. I mean, to an editor judging whether to publish your manuscript. It could be that many such editors consider it presumptuous for a first-time author (no matter how many magazine or chapbook credits you’ve had) to “show off” with endnotes. I have no clue about that.

Mark

John said:
I know how to pronounce those places, but our friends abroad probably wouldn't know that 'Mousehole' rhymes with 'tousle'. Near here are two villages called Bozeat and Cogenhoe, pronounced locally as 'Boze-yut' and 'Cook-ner'.

Sorry for going off-piste slightly, Maryann, but these place names demonstrate that some help is often needed, and should be offered. As Mark says, it's fairly easy to look up certain things; I never mind checking something in the dictionary but I don't want to have to do major research to find out what a phrase in a poem means!

"If in doubt, help the reader out." How about that for a rule of thumb?

Further thanks, and a report: As I put together the notes I think are needed to help the reader, I learn things about the collection, or about my tendencies, or both. A lot of biblical allusion. A lot of Latin.

Not that I didn't know I use these a lot (duh) but when the notes are all together on the page, the tendency looks a lot more concentrated than it seems to be in the poems themselves. And I'm concerned that some kinds of "concentrations" could count against a collection--which means I have doubts about it that I didn't have before. Ah well.

Then please add those notes, Maryann. I've forgotten most of the Latin I was taught.

Interesting discussion. I'm not fond of elitism, but I'm also not fond of anti-elitism. Someone I deeply respected used to walk out of poetry readings if the intros were longer than the actual poems. You could read the impatience on her face. An old teacher said "Assume an intelligent audience," and I kinda liked that. It's also true that, in this age of google, any phrase I don't know I can look up at my desk.

On the other hand, when I love a book, I end up reading everything. Even the copyright page! So some people will love notes, and some will frown, depending on their *own* predilections, and nothing will change those.

But here's what I miss: One seldom sees, these days, any kind of poetic statement. I don't know why this is. Frank O'Hara once wrote, in a very funny piece, "It's all in the poems." But of course it's not, and people lacking a sense of humor take his jokes as serious statements, without realizing *they're* the ones being mocked! ;) Others avoid them, I suspect, because they're worried they'll say the wrong thing. Others worry they'll end up looking foolish. But I really *want* a note from the author, describing what she's doing, or trying to do, or what she believes art is. Kate just sent off some poems, somewhere, and made me write the ars poetica they requested. She said "She said "Stop watching that football game, and give me 125 words. Right now!" Which actually is about the word count of a sonnet, and how long can 14 lines *really* take to write? ;) Knocked it out at halftime... :eek:

So here's my crazy view. Endnotes are optional. But a poetic statement should be required. I know that sounds nuts, but just knowing it sounds nuts may mean I'm not as crazy as I seem... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

You're right, Bill. But I think it's also very much a question of what is customary.

Often a writer will only be asked for some kind of comment on his/her work if/after it has made a significant impact, so presenting your own ars poetica, uninvited as it were, might well come across as being a tad presumptuous.

I would like to promise to include an ars poetica in my next book-length publication, but, uhh, should I include it with my submission or wait until they've agreed to publish my work? (Slippery slope, see?)

It's weird how a field with such extravagant potential can get dulled down by conformity and norms.

Duncan

It's far less trouble for know-it-alls to skip the endnotes than it is for know-nothings like me to try to reconstruct omitted information...especially when poets don't even provide enough keywords for us to be able to Google things.

Let's say that a poet is using (or, more frustrating still, altering beyond recognition) a rarely-used poetic form. How the hell am I supposed to look up a form whose name I don't even know?

It's a Catch-22: in order to Google it, you have to already know it...in which case you don't need to Google it.

Patronize me. Please.

John, you will really impress me if you can say you've eaten stargazy pie.

As for endnotes, I've never used them, but next time I'll think about it. As Oscar Wilde once said, it is difficult even for the most modest of us to remember that other people do not know quite as much as one knows oneself.

Since my first book is mentioned in this discussion, I thought that I would jump in. I certainly wish that fewer readers needed explanations of words like "Tashlikh," "mama-loshn," and "daven." Wouldn't that be nice?

Niestety (as the Poles say), when one writes a poetry collection with a particular cultural, religious, and linguistic slant, some notes become necessary.

Notes are especially necessary if you are sending your manuscript to book contests where the first-tier readers are graduate students. As the former administrator of a major book contest, I can tell you that it's a good idea to underestimate a reader's knowledge (at least initially). Notes can always be removed from a manuscript once the book has been accepted for publication. At that point, "to note, or not to note" becomes a matter of personal taste.

John, the east coast of North America (south of Canada, north of Mexico) does not, alas, exist. You are misinformed. What people think is there is entirely a creation of the University of Chicago school of criticism, made up to serve as a straw bugbear. (Just like the San Francisco Bay area poets and Berkeley were made up.) I should know: I get mail via New York on the "east coast". It's dreamlike.

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.

Ah, Julie; I have been waiting for someone to agree with me. That is exactly how I hoped a reader would feel. I think the endnotes are like the session after a poetry reading where the people who have been listening come to meet the poet and ask their questions. If they don't want to, they needn't.

The notes themselves, I realise, are often the sort of spoken links I'd use during the course of a live reading. Not erudite expositions, just gentle oiling of the mechanism that links poet and reader/listener.

And - something nobody else has said - the notes are another way of hanging on to the poems, all the small souls of them, before the readers finally take ownership and carry them off and they are lost to me forever.

And yes, I was smiling as I wrote that. But only just.

That's what I was going to say. Footnotes can be distracting, presumptuous, and pretentious. Someone (was it Empson?) warded me off the poetry and out of his book with swarms of footnotes. Endnotes are the way to go - I think Dick Davis does them well in A Trick of Sunlight, for example.

I agree with Ann - footnotes distract you out of the poem - endnotes invite you back in.

Frank

Endnotes get my vote too. Footnotes can mess things up.

In the poetry collection I'm reading at the moment there's a villanelle called "Penelope's Threads". The title has a footnote - "After the Trojan war, Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, waited on Ithaca for his return, but as the years went by her suitors became more pressing, claiming she should give Odysseus up for lost and choose a new husband. Penelope agreed that if Odysseus was not home by the time she had finished a large tapestry she would re-marry, but each night Penelope unpicked the day's work on the tapestry, buying more time for Odysseus's return."

Hello Maryann

I have always viewed it as part of our mission to educate our readers, to introduce them to new ideas and new ways of viewing the world. This can be as simple as introducing them to obscure words and concepts. We are writers and educators all in one. Of course, my poems might be a special case because, being as I am also a historian as well as a writer and poet, I bring in a lot of ideas from history and from my reading. That having been said, I am not in favor of overly erudite or obscure poetry. Above all, in my view, poetry should communicate and not confuse the reader.

As John remarked, the body of the poem, including the title and epigram, can also elucidate without going to the extreme of endnotes. Eliot evidently felt the need to explain the often obscure historical and literary references in The Waste Land -- although on the other hand, I have often thought that the very long list of notes to The Waste Land is partly meant as a joke and is not to be taken totally seriously! :D

In any case, obviously, not all of the poems we write will be as freighted with obscurities as Eliot's landmark poem. I do think sometimes that endnotes can appreciate a reader's appreciation of a poem but they can also be pedantic and dull. So use your own judgement as to what is needed. Good luck, Maryann!

All the best

chris

Absolutely, Chris - I couldn't agree more. A lot of modern poetry is, to me, completely unintelligible, which any number of footnotes, endnotes or epigraphs won't alleviate!
Poetry should be accessible, and a poem should not need explaining to the reader, or its writer has failed in their duty to communicate.

Little-known foreign phrases, or anything else that might cause a problem, of course, need to be noted somewhere to help the reader, but I don't mind much whether it's at the bottom of the page or the back of the book; mostly I just want to read the poems, enjoy them and understand them!

I'd say, don't fret about this issue too much; let the poems speak for themselves for the most part, and just help the reader with a few notes about something you consider too obscure for them to either work out or find out easily.

Same applies to music I suppose, and art, and science. William Empson's already been mentioned in this thread, so let me quote him

• "Poets, on the face of it, have either got to be easier or to write their own notes; readers have either got to take more trouble over reading or cease to regard notes as pretentious and a sign of bad poetry"
• "I think many people (like myself) prefer to read poetry mixed with prose; it gives you more to go by; the conventions of poetry have been getting far off from normal life, so that to have a prose bridge make reading poetry seem more natural"

Tim,

Absolutely. This open secret has been with us at least since Dante. Odd that we forget it, over and over again... ;)

Thanks,

Bill

Chris,

I humbly submit, as counter-example: Pale Fire! Now, *that* was actually extreme... ;)

Thanks,

Bill