The Ball Poem and other reading mistakes

      I find myself still thinking back on The Ball Poem, and of course the outlandish reading of it. But what really gets to me is the thought that in some instance I’ve probably done the same thing, if not quite to the same extent. To me, one of the most beautiful things about poetry is that it can mean so much in so few words. This poses another problem though, so much is left unsaid and we oftentimes make it our own. In all honesty I don’t think it’s a bad thing. There are poems I’ve read dozens of time and I’m always finding something new in them, something new in myself. We all share this collective consciousness, a conglomeration of ideas and notions, and we use it to read beyond ourselves, within ourselves. Maybe I’m too young to understand all of what that means, but I must remember to “let be be finale of seem” (The Emperor of Ice Cream, Wallace Stevens). To me this line has meant letting go, acceptance, remembering, and so much more than I could ever put into words. Just one line from the hundreds of poems I’ve read, and I think about it all the time its meaning changing with me over the years.  Perhaps this is the beauty of reader-response theory; the ability to make our own readings more real and better understood.