this slice pretty much defines my working sense of poetry. I have contended always with poetry. that sounds like one of those statements to give interviewers, fine sounding but kind of full of emptiness. I think poetry should be at least as i9nteresting as Sir Denis Nayland-Smith tracking Dr Fu Manchu to the evil doctor's latest hide out, typically in a dank basement near the Thames. some readers are problem solvers, some read comprehensively. I am neither type of reader, and my writing resumes from that. I don't like noticing cunning, I don't like noticing the working. I believe this is a matter of taste, not a weakness on my part, nor an indictment against those who read that way. I write hopefully, that 'something' will show up. I read that way too. my interest in philosophy seems to be that the Philosophic Quest is so impractical and impossible that the words are found to be cut loose from 'normal' meaning, or maybe any meaning at all. so I read hopefully, to find the island of sense. and poetry is like that. confounding yet inviting. who said, he wants to say something, but is saying it anyhow? that phrase attaches in my mind to either Creeley or Williams. I like it for it underscores poetry's survival despite our attempts to make it. think of super-conscious writers like Ginsberg and Whitman, whose best poetry derives from when they are least clear on their intentions.