Bill Knott demonstrates how to read a poem. Compare his ever-the-amateur reading (amateur in the old sense of someone doing something purely for the love of it) with this reading of Rae Armantrout by professional critic Marjorie Perloff: Knott’s reading is all about discovery, while Perloff’s is all about canonization.
The point is not to say we ought to replace Perloff with Knott, but to suggest we ought to replace Perloff’s intentions with Knott’s intentions whenever we read. That is, we ought to read as amateurs, not pros. Real poetry is written for the former, I think, though I’d be lying if I claimed that most poets don’t contemplate the reactions of the canonizers. Without the good offices of John Fuller, after all, Knott would never have discovered Digby Mackworth Dolben‘s poem.
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
I was just catching up on Bill's posts right before I came here. You are spot on, as usual, though I fear the cruel torture you might face from Bok and the rest who are involved in the slow-motion "cultural trainwreck" without, apparently, being aware of it.
don't need no chop sticks to sip this home-brew<br />and<br />am watching Rooster Cogburn for the first time<br /><br />the more I sip<br />the better the movie gets<br /><br />Hepburn really makes John Wayne "work"<br /><br />as far as acakneemic poets and their Tues/Thur 7 am classes<br /><br />I slept threw them and flunked out! Some dumb fucking luck, huh?
Odimus et amamus, Bill—as Catullus might have writ had he not been ripping off Anakreon ("love and yet I do not love, / I am crazy and I am not crazy"). I read all this somewhere, in translation, of course….<br /><br />And Ed—your reply reminds of a famous Tang stand-up comic who had a bit about a guy named Benjamin. The poor guy had somehow offended the Goddess, who laid a curse on
Well said,Joseph<br /><br />I'm with Knott & the amateurs: doing it 'cause I love it. You're probably tired of me saying it again, but it bears repeating: academics have killed poetry.<br /><br />Funny how the greats, Pound, Eliot, Williams, Oppen, Stein, Joyce,Stevens,O'Hara, Crane, Sandburg etc. etc.—not a bloody one of 'em was an academic.
I somewhere have read that Tang quote…<br /><br />I think that it is famous…<br /><br />and that famous painter? wasn't me.<br /><br />I said : "if the foo shits /w-hear it."<br /><br />which I copped from my Chinesse Muse in 1959<br />when I ate her with My Golden Chop Stick !
Joseph, thanks for your kind words—<br /><br />can't remember the famous painter who refuted his critics by asking, Does the bird pay any attention to the ornithologist?<br /><br />It's not just in the arts of course, but the sciences as well: cf a piece in the May 14 2007 issue of The New Yorker, "Crash Course," by Elizabeth Kolbert, re two paragraphs from page 74:<br /><br />