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JH: If one does not realize that lists are being used in F1: GRANDUNCLES OF THE CATTLETRADE, what to make of the progression of words? If one knows of the schema of GRANDUNCLES OF THE CATTLETRADE, one may suppose the words are related. But if not, what then? None of the poem disappears, but a part of the reading does. In reading any poem, anyone misses out on lists and schema -- though one may speculate on the mystery of getting from one word or line to another, there is the suspicion, indistinguishable from certainty, that there are unnameable and imperceptible enigmas poetic, literary, and linguistic; inability to speculate on these enigmas impairs theory; inability to know these things as unenigmatic impairs the reading of a poem. Do these inabilities impair the writing of a poem? If so, is this impairment consistent? Would making a judgment for or against such impairment of writing poems be defined as a reading? Though unspecific, can the abstract be read, or only perceived?

AHB: I'll start with a quote from Jung: “Interpretations are only for those who don't understand; it is only the things we don't understand that have any meaning. Man woke up in a world he did not understand, and that is why he tries to interpret it .” an inability to speculate on enigmas is a reading, albeit (perhaps) not satisfying. or it is not a reading at all, like if you didn't even bother to look at the words. a geologist can get excited by a rock that someone else will registers as no more grey thing. confusion, annoyance, bafflement all can be part of a reading. I think reading is relationship, and it need not be a 'good' relationship. I've had all these attitudinal reflexes to work thru. when I 1st read Pound, and faced that jumble of languages that he throws at the reader, I felt dismay. why can't he just write in English? sometimes with Dickinson, I mean even now, I have felt similarly in trying to worry out her syntax. with Pound, it was all new to me, this sort of possibility. with Dickinson, I already 'got' her, trusted her, yet the how to read this feeling set me on my heels. I think the abstract can be read. some writing baffles yet engages me. I think I'm reading not 'perceiving'. aesthetics is a limiting function, assuming levels of effect. yet every work has an effect, and the hierarchy of that can only, I think, be seen as adjunctive, added on. what the hell could meaninglessness possibly mean?