Harriet has been experiencing technical difficulties the past several days, meaning our writers couldn't post, and we couldn't publish your comments. We've resolved the problem, so look out for a barrage of new entries.

In the Spring issue of American Poet (put out by the Academy of American Poets) Lyn Hejinian gave an interesting answer to what is by now (especially around these offices) a rote question. She was asked, "What are some creative ways to promote poetry?" to which she responded:

Poetry doesn't need promotion. People need time. A revolutionary way to promote poetry might be to criminalize capitalism's theft of people's time.

It's an answer that brings to bear the issue of poetry's place in our wider culture and one which raises lots of terrific questions. Should poetry be something that is sold to consumers just as any other product, or is it indeed something special, something that carves out space in our daily lives, apart from all the buying and selling that seems to occupy us today?

"Concepts, too, have feelings," Carter Ratcliff says in his afterword to "Arrivederci, Modernismo:"

I am not saying that a concept -- "number," for example, or "constitutionality" -- is literally capable of emotions. What I mean is that there is an emotional tone to the understanding of such things.

An art critic, a writer who specializes in the analysis of mute artworks, who intuits the messages and emotional tenor of physical objects -- perhaps such a writer is more comfortable talking about "emotions" in this broad way. But by 1974, when the poem first appeared, Her Majesty Modernismo had already been deposed by poets who said "I wanted to be more myself," including James Merrill, who went from writing poems such as "The Black Swan" to writing more personal, personable, poems that explored -- among many other things, of course -- his immediate family. I could never really understand this historic shift.

About half our readers come from search engines and other places looking for poems to post on their blogs. Here’s a few linking to us today:

1. Can’t you put up some more?
Chris Frizzale on the The Stranger's blog complains about our Heather McHugh selection. What he might not understand is the complicated world of poetry permissions.