Of 2 on Difficulty

  (Consideration: When under the sway of a strong belief/ 
                  it is hard to avoid being overly harsh.)
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  Thursday on his blog I read "On Difficulty in Poetry: a revision"
by Reginald Shepherd.  Friday evening after making a "Richard 
Wilbur Benign Obscurity" search at Google/ I chose to access a 
return from Poetry International III where I read "The Mystique 
of the Difficult Poem" by Steve Kowit.  When I finished working  
my way through that lengthy review/opinion essay, I reread Mr. 
Shepherd's lengthy essay.  This morning I coursed through   
each essay in search of what I deemed especially important.     
I decided the penultimate paragraph in Mr. Kowit's essay      
was. I decided the final paragraph in section 3 and the whole 
of section 4 in Mr. Shepherd's essay were.  This essay is a 
straight-on examination of the matter of difficulty.  While 
their central philosophies regarding poem-making are not  
compatible, both authors see value in difficulty, but Kowit's
acceptance of difficulty is preceded by his insistence on
comprehensibility.  I prefer to background their philosophies
and foreground the diverse poets and theorists each cites,
none of whom is against difficulty per se.  Why?: because
this fact supports my conviction poets and poetry theorists
need to curtail the I'm-better-than-you-are game.
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  See directory2007 in Catmap.
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Rho00002