I think that comments on poems are no less liable to various obscurities and outright errors than the poems themselves. In reading a poem, I assume that the poet has something to say and is asking for my opinion on how well it got said. Sometimes I have to guess what the poet meant, and if I guess wrong, then my commentary will go astray. When someone comments on one of my poems, I also sometimes have to guess, but I still try to assume that the commentor was motivated by the desire to help. It's often tough to hold myself to that, of course, when what I really want is for the whole world to collapse in awe. But if a criticism is obscure or seems wrong-headed, these forums give me the opportunity to ask for clarification. It helps me to think of our business here as a conversation. I always hope that all discussions of literature will be primarily conversational rather than merely judgmental, although that's an ideal not always realized. Like any conversation, our exchanges will have moments of impatience and irritation and, if we're lucky, of lucidity and revelation.
Richard
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