[New-Poetry] Re: even Bob & Spx can "get along"

[Barry Spacks]

On Jun 7, 2009, at 8:03 PM, Bob G. wrote:
>
> Oh, gotta do this one for Barry: poets who think innovation is
> everything.  And those who think it of little or no value.

    Classy, Bob -- thanks. Of great value, surely, but never  
"everything"

   While I'm here:

	The balloon poem:
	
		"Hold on to your" -- given that the string is already unheld --
		puts in my mind the default "hat" or "hats" to follow, by
		poetic implication broadening the cautionary moral.

		As to your four layers, a nice modernizing of Dante's
	        four levels of meaning in the famous Letter to Con Grande:
		Literal, Historical, Tropilogical,  Anagogical.

		To apply his scheme to the balloon, we have (briefly):
	
		(1) LITERAL: kid loses balloon (maybe, pace Annie, a-good-thing);
		      need for caution in general as follow-up admonition.
		(2) HISTORICAL: typical happening (loss, accident) on "this
			bitch of an earth."
		(3) TROPAIC: a figure for loss of "attachment" (Buddhist touch) plus  
(parental)
                         admonition...but further: generalizing loss- 
potential (hats)
                        -- we might all be swept away.
		(4) ANAGOGICAL: things rise toward God-realm (shades of
			the "Rapture"!)

    L'chaim, and hats off to Judy, friend both to Lion and Lamb,

     SPX
>