137

JH: I think one thing we have in common as poets is a responsiveness to words that carry large definitions. My poems often contain names from Greek and Roman mythology, each name a word that has a story (with variations) as its definition. Worcester has a vast collection of stories as its definition. Concerning our recent discussion on inspiration, a poem presented in our mind may not be introduced to the page unless it calls a name other than ours. Names familiar to us, or bearing familiar enticements, are welcomed. Can words other than these familiars be heard? If so, are they heard after the poem is written? Are these words the poem itself speaks, along with anyone who recites the poem via reading, speaking, or hearing? Is the recital of a poem the only true mimicry a human can perform? It occurs to me that in Antic View #136 I didn't address the interaction of novel titles and drama quotations in "The Pierre Corneille of Eugène Sue" (& etc), so I'll close with a few remarks on this topic. In "The Pierre Corneille of Eugène Sue" (and other poems in this series), it can be proved that the words after a line's final quotation mark come from the second speaker, but some of the poem's words that follow a line's final quotation mark might be found elsewhere in the Corneille drama (or in any Corneille drama, in other authors' dramas, in other texts); since the phrase that contains them is invisible within the poem, their every instance in the Corneille drama is indistinguishable outside of context. Perhaps this allies with the possibility of the drama phrases being found in the novels assigned to them: the words after a line's final quotation mark could be from the novel assigned to them, and the words quoted from other lines within the poem could possibly be found in the novel newly assigned to them. If a novel's title obscures/replaces a drama's title, what does a drama's excerpt obscure/replace? Note the title of the poem. Speaking of which, there are seven other instance of the poem's title within the poem. The poem's title is an unlineated couplet - "of" could be seen as enjambment spelled out). A "false" (i.e., "inappropriate") title is the first line of a couplet, for a space would separate it completely from "its" (actually, the drama's) phrase. The couplets allow comparison and contrast between a drama's phrase or word (if not the entire drama) and a novel's contents, as well as comparison and contrast of the two genres. The titles within the poem are a display of visibility and immobility. A title is sometimes a word, sometimes a phrase, echoing one or another element of the couplets' second line.

AHB: Intriguing thoughts about your work. Speaking of which, are you writing much? I have not been writing much poetry, not for lack of wanting to. This quiescence has been documented by the lack of posting to Antic View: all my fault. I have not seen much of your work pass thru Wryting-L, our home away from home. I probably have queried this before, but do breaks in your workflow bother you? I am inured to them myself. I feel a sense of maturity that I do not go bonkers when I cannot write. An additional question is are there works of your that you do not show? I can see one’s that are not satisfying to you, but how about any that you like but still wish not to present publicly. Two years ago I did an art showing, just me (part of my Masters project). Of course I wanted to show the pieces that I liked, but in going thru my work, I decided to show pieces with which I was not happy. I am not a trained artist so I cannot save paintings with technique, therefore, I had some really amateurish work on display. Regarding them as they are, in context with my oeuvre, made sense, and I think this value came across, tho I still was embarrassed by how poor so many pictures were. One should not be embarrassed by one’s experiments. In all cases, I was groping towards something. Now, I do not mean to limit my question just to whatever amateur work you have created. Is there a realm of your work that you will not reveal? Is this question even answerable???