some of my interpretations of Robertson and Armantrout

I was taught that poems should be self-sufficient. A good poem, like a song, should have its own meaning for the reader... though we are all reading the same words, there is no "right" or "wrong". A poet knows that once a poem is written or published, it is vulnerable to be anatomized and criticized... but in the end, it is to be appreciated and shared and understood by someone else... thus is the healing power of writing.

Robertson's Residence at C_____ (on page 194-5) reminds me of Girl, Interrupted and Plath. Who is Robertson writing to? I believe she's writing to herself. The poem flows like a set of commands that someone should obey. I feel Robertson is trapped outside her own emotions, and she is trying to breathe herself back to life through this poem. "Say self because [you] can". The first part of the poem attempts to builds the reader (herself) to feel "Marvelous. Spectacular. Brilliant." From then on, the poem becomes less abstract, she mentions Kate Moss, pink, death. "Misplace the death," is Robertson numb because someone died? "Say trying to possess or not," is she speaking of letting someone go (as opposed to denying their death and keeping them alive as long as you can in her heart). "If you thought love was ironical," if you equaled love to happiness and it only brought you pain. "If pleasure emancipates, why aren't you somewhere"... if you're as happy as you believe, then why are you dead inside? The final word "sincerity" acts as a sign of sincerity, that after all the commands, should the reader (herself) be offended, or defensive, it was all in good intention.

Tuesday's repetition reminds me of Chapter 26 of Nobokov's Lolita: "Don't think I can go on, Heart, head-everything. Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita, Lolita. Repeat 'til the page is full, printer." This (very short) chapter demonstrates the narrator's obsession with Lolita, up to the point where she's all he thinks of and he doesn't write anymore to cut brief the redundancy. For me, Tuesday is a poem about obsession. Clouds are a sort of Rorschack test (inkblot test), where what one sees can be associated with one's mind. And these clouds remind her of these different women, who come together and share a same-ness as each of them "crumbles" in different ways and have different clouds associated with them - but in the end, they're all clouds.

Armantrout's The Plan makes sense when viewed from the second part, with the first part in mind. Two people planned to meet, anxiously. "Who told you you were visible?" comes across as the omniscient "God" scolds the writer for believing things would be different this time. That the other was actually going to understand the writer's point of view but "like this palm's impression of a tree - flashing scales," the writer slowly realizes she is being deceived. The palm tree looks like a tree, but, like Plato's theory of forms, it doesn't follow the initial image of a tree. Instead of being a copy of a copy, it is a copy of a copy of a copy of a tree. Flashing scales are broken scales, if one were to weight themselves, the result might or might not be accurate. The question remains: to discard, or to fix the scales? "But sweet! You don't understand! Like a lariat made of scalloped bricks," all expectations fall apart. You are not a brick wall, but almost. "circling a patch of grass," maybe there's still hope, but "Who told [me I was] visible?" Nobody, I was just hoping.

As I was reading Armantrout, I was wondering if her form was necessary and if they added any dimension to the poetry that William Carlos Williams, e.e.cummings, or George Herbert haven't already perfected. What differenciates a good writer from a bad one is their ability to compact meaning in a few words, but is there a point where concise is too concise? There's a haiku and Armantrout's The View.

I might be entirely wrong in my readings of the poems by doing reader-response criticism rather than a post-structuralist or formalist one, but I believe it is the only possible reading.