Here are some notes about Robert Kroetsch's The Hornbooks of Rita K. I thought I was going to be interviewing him; now I just want to keep them somewhere, just in case.

ROBERT KROETSCH - postmodernist poet/critic - talks about "fierce principles of closure" of the lyric.
RK = RK (Robert Kroetsch = Rita Kleinhart) - is the female alter ego a way of subverting his identity?
constant uncertainty about who's speaking; Rita, Raymond...or Robert?

HORNBOOK 23 - "By that act of disappearing--and I believe she willed it--she gave freedom to her poems."
- I assume he's talking about the Voice, or the Speaker--the Poet. By making his own voice disappear, the poet frees the poem.

HORNBOOK 76 - "The river of no (surprise) flows over us. / Nothing is new."
- Ezra Pound - "Make it new." RK's frustration with inability of concrete (words) to express abstract (infinite)?

HORNBOOK 66 - "I speak to no one, knowing you will recognize that I speak to you."
- The Beloved? The Reader? The Critic? D) All of the Above.

HORNBOOK 3 - "the pathology of grammar."
- artist's intent vs. imperfect realization

HORNBOOK 97 - "every published poem is its own elegy." "failed translation" of "poems as they existed above the clouds."
- so why write at all?

HORNBOOK 74 - "Poet, no thyself."
- sublimation or denial of ego or voice

HORNBOOK C - "Poetry is a changing of the light."
- Twilight Arch - art from nothing but shifting light patterns - transcends all expectations of art

HORNBOOK H - "the poem but an echo of itself" - echo, mirror, reflection; "returning the sound" echoes 4 times

HORNBOOK 73 - "When I tell you / that I love you / I am trying to tell you / that I love you."
- Brilliant and beautiful. I love this poem. It encapsulates everything RK wants to say about his frustration with language's limits, in 18 powerful words.

THE HOLLOW HORNBOOK - "One must attempt the impossible poem."
- the postmodern ideal. The word collages come close, and the word collage has potential, but pure randomness is NOT poetry, I'm afraid. You want pure randomness, get a poetry fridge magnet, throw all the words at the fridge at once, and keep what sticks. But don't call yourself a poet afterward.