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