"I cannot think about my poetics. If I do I destroy it. The only way I seem to be able to 'protect' what I write is to 'forget' about it. Could that be what makes me so bitter? But but but....it seems the difficulties (sorry about that) are what keep me going. Out."
As the putative author of a selected poems called Unprotected Texts I can't not respond to Jim's lucid remark. But how to respond?
I don't think we all have to feel the same way about writing. I don't believe that poetry is one immutable thing.
For myself, poetry and poetics are so deeply intertwined that it makes no sense to pretend otherwise. That being said, that's not to say that there isn't a lot of fuzzy feedback in between the two or twelve of them.
And that's one of the difficulties for me, Jim.
I can't not question what I'm doing. I can't not think about all the ways I'm not getting things right.
