On Wed, 10 Mar 1999, Yakob Leib ha Kohain [Jacob Leib Cohen, Ph.D.] wrote:
 
> I once attended a reading by TSE at the University of Chicago in the
> mid-1950's. During the Q & A at the end, someone asked him what some
> line or other meant, to which he replied (and here I quote from memory,
> but the gist is accurate), "A poet, including myself, often writes from
> inspiration and has no more idea what a poem may mean than its reader."
 
Eliot has a slew of lines like that. He observes somewhere that if (!) he
ever republished "Ash Wednesday" he might include an epigraph from Byron's
_Don Juan_:
 
        Some have accused me of a strange design
        Against the creed and morals of the land
        And trace it in this poem, every line.
        I don't pretend I quite understand
        My own meaning when I would be *very* fine;
        But the fact is I have nothing planned
        Except perhaps to be a moment merry...
 
He also has a line about meaning serving as the bone to distract the
watchdog while the poem burgles the house. Both of those offer a pretty
interesting commentary on the crossword puzzle approach many (most?)
critics and readers have brought to _The Waste Land_.
 
Bill Freind