![]() ![]() (One could put this as “I intend not to intend.” Or, more precisely but more verbosely, “I intend that my intention will not determine the outcome of the process of writing this poem.”)Ī throw of the dice will never abolish chance, as Mallarmé wrote, but it is the human hand that tosses the dice and the human mind and will that decide the meaning of that dice toss’s outcome. That possibility cannot be evaded or denied, because poems, even the most aleatory or rigorously procedural, are products of human intention, including the intention to write an aleatory or procedural poem from which individual intention will be evacuated. But meaning is one of the possibilities that poetry offers, a not inconsiderable one, and poetry cannot help but offer it. Poetry offers many other pleasures and possibilities than meaning. What would "good" or "bad" mean in such a context? One may have a positive or negative response to a particular meaning one derives from a poem, but that would not apply to meaning itself, which simply is. ![]() I’m not quite sure what it would mean to do so, or conversely to presume that meaning is a bad thing. In response to an interesting and provocative comment from Nicholas Manning regarding my post on difficulty in poetry, I don’t presume that meaning is always a good thing (I propose, for one thing, that understanding can often be excruciating painful). ![]()
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