Hi Alan,
First, let me thank you again for your review. I really do appreciate your generous reading.
Didn't Robert Frost say something like, "Poetry is the one legitimate way of saying one thing and meaning another"? (Whatever he meant by that.) Puns, ambiguity, equivocation, irony, metaphor, conceit, allegory, "as if"s of all kinds, why, the whole linguistic code (because it *is* a code), they all stand around on their street corners, hats down, smoking cigarettes, and talking out of both sides of their mouths. I think they're following me.
Maybe some people are born with a mature, distinctive poetic voice, but most have to grow into it more gradually. But I see it every semester, and it's a thrill to hear writers becoming more skilled and confident and versatile with sounding like themselves.
I sometimes do a course in which we read a different poet each week and we try to identify the sound, style, technique, subjects, attitudes, etc. of each. Then everyone has to write an imitation. NOT parody or satire or response. But a genuine counterfeit. I think this is very useful. (How many people learn guitar never by playing anyone else's songs?) Two years ago this motorcycle-riding sophomore from Philadelphia wrote on his very impressive knockoff of Philip Larkin, "Philip Larkin is really cool. I'd like to sound like him more often."
Cheers,
Greg
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