Carlo Parcelli wrote:

>My use of the notion of "arcane" was meant to be in contra-distinction to
>yours.

Understood. I meant to give an example of something that was both arcane
and, paradoxically, all too relevant. With the example of "statistical
probabilities", following upon your example of Nash, the point I hoped to
make was that the poet who would use these mathematical facts of
contemporary life as the subject of an epic poem would do better to devise
a way of presenting the subject *dramatically*. Rather than holding up the
"raw and undigested" technicalities themselves, such as by embedding the
mathematical formulae into the work, or by alluding to Nash (for sake of
example) or quoting from his works, the poet should attempt to show their
*effects*.  This is, of course, merely an opinion of mine. I happen to
think Pound is at his best when he finds a way to dramatize.

>[...] with the rise of hundreds of scientific and technical specialties not
>to mention specialties outside of these two general disciplines we have
>"arcana",
>if you will, which profoundly effect the utility of our everyday lives. In
>large
>part Pound sought, mistakenly, a return to a culture not as reliant on
>'specialties.'

Not sure I would put it exactly that way, but yes, Pound sought to return
to a culture organized around crafts and trades where the principle of
*individual workmanship* still had meaning.  I doubt he would have thought
too highly of the work of someone who measured the probabilities of 50-year
weather patterns to arrive at a trading price for puts and calls on
degree-day insurance policies and weather derivatives.


>I [...] sought to put myself in the center of the concern for the everyday
>arcana that
>is science and technology. Your email seems to suggest that to engage this
>arcana
>in its original forms violates some sort of communication with the poetry
>reader.
>Let's leave aside the obligation of the reader because, generally, this is one
>'obligation' the reader has no intention of meeting.

Isn't there a typo above? Didn't you mean to write "obligation *to* the
reader..." ? Or did you?  "Of" or "to" -- is the crux of the
issue.  Thinking of the poet's obligation *to* the reader, I wrote that the
poet must subordinate exposition to drama.  Not because difficult
"technical" subjects are not valid subjects for poetry -- the effects of
science and technology upon our lives is, of course, a valid subject for
poetry-- but should readers *of poetry* find themselves reading a primer on
statistical methods?  Poems and primers both may instruct; poem must also
*delight*.
Or do you have in mind a modern equivalent to, say, those ancient poems,
little more than mnemonic devices really, that seek to fix in the memory
arcane (yet relevant!) lore on the medicinal powers of plants and stones?

Tim Romano