-=> Quoting Sondra Ball to Robin Arnhold <=-
Hi, Sondra,
 SB> Hey, I'm sometimes adrift in poetry, too.  However, when that
 SB> happens,
 SB> I believe in myself enough to announce that the poem that set me adrift
 SB> is "a terrible poem".  After all, the purpose of writing poetry is
 SB> communication; and if no-one understands the poem, then the poet has
 SB> failed to do his or her job.
Not everybody understands every poem, though.  I, for one, tend to be
rather literal in my thinking and writing, so understanding the symbolic
imagery frequently found in poetry requires a lot of effort on my part,
which basically means I'm not going to read most poetry for 'fun'.  On
the other hand, literal thinking can make for great humor.
  
 SB> I started graduate school in English lit, but quit early on, without
 SB> getting my degree.  One of the things that annoyed me was the way
 SB> everybody went around interpreting everything.  Hey, to quote Freud,
 SB> "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
 
Although I wouldn't want to say that to, say, Fidel Castro .
 >invitation only.  Of course, I went out and bought the book ('Stalking
 >Joy' by Margaret Benbow).  After nearly 35 years, the stuff is still
 SB> 
 SB> Yolu are a friend of Margaret Benbow!  Impressive!
It seems Margaret has a reputation I don't know about--not remarkable,
considering that I don't follow poetry.  It has been a dozen or more
years since I've seen her.  They've moved around quite a bit for
employment reasons, and I didn't even know they were back in town until a
few years ago when I chanced upon a letter in the newspaper she had
written to the editor about some issue involving the public school system
here.
Take care,
Robin
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