[Max Goodman]

A poem shouldn't mean but be (MacLeish). But it's natural to want to understand a poem. To what extent should a poem be understandable? Are there types of obscurity that draw us in and other types that push us away?

I'm frequently attracted to things I don't understand in Wallace Stevens, and almost always put off by such things in other poems. I can't put my finger on what it is about Stevens's obscurity--if that's the right word for it--that attracts me.