Why read literature that lacks clarity?
Tim Romano


>   Since we are on the subject of Modernism here is what I read in
>yesterday's Cleveland Plain Dealer concerning our poet laureate's appearance
>at John Carroll University tonight.
>     "There's a waiting audience out there that was frightened away by
>Modernist poetry in school. You feel alienated from your own language, which
>is unpleasant," Collins says in phone call from his home in Somers, N.Y.
>"There's a syllogism at work here. The syllogism goes like this: I can read
>and understand English; this poem was written in English; I can't understand
>this poem."
>     Any comments?
>
>Charles