I've had a number of thoughts reading this piece, which strikes me as overly long, but with worthwhile moments. I don't think he was completely and absolutely clear on what he wanted to say.

It seems to me that to at least a certain extent, he's talking about overconfidece in poets, posturing, or at times he's talking about what I call "enjoying the role" which I see as the only bad reason to write poetry. Nobody could write poetry thinking they'll get rich, nor could they do it for fame. Enjoying the role is, I'd suggest, the most common bad reason to write poetry. I think he's talking about this, but shifts the blame over to poetry itself, as though poetry is by definition arrogant, when we all know good poetry can instead be empathetic and clear and expressive. My first reaction is to suggest that he's gettting at the symptom, not the cause. After all, any art form can be arrogant from time to time. The film festival just celebrated a week and half of glamour, parties, interviews, and oh yes, films.

He talks about "white space," as arrogance, about "unnecessary difficulty" and "aplomb" or the "preening insistence that each morsel is sublime." And it would be difficult to argue against the idea that there is poor poetry out there. Yet at the same time his essay admits that we dig around to get to the diamonds because it's worth it to get to "psychological truths not available in routine social discourse."

I think his real point is that poets should be more self-critical, should avoid posturing in favour of simple dedication to good work. Ideal poetry doesn't come from an arrogant place but somewhere that's probably actually quite humble, because as soon as it's being written for any kind of reason based on arrogance or posturing, something important and essential evaporates.

Anyway, it's late and I'm rambling. I'm really tired. Will type more later...