Yellow Marker Poetics

I am sitting with a used copy of the 1996 4th Ed. of Gary Geddes compilation of 20th Century poetry and poetics.  The publisher allowed him to add a note to the Preface especially for the 4th edition.  That note comes shortly after his advising the reader (student?) that he agrees with the ( then living) “Czech (sic) poet Cseslaw Milosz that poetry is [...]”

So what about an electronic edition?  The Lithuanian-Polish Czesław Miłosz, then teaching at Berkeley, might have a footnote, a reference – even a correction.

The reader who preceded me was not concerned with annotation or glosses - a yellow marker pen sufficed.

Did editor and acclaimed poet Geddes even after 3 editions not yet realize that he, too, might benefit from an editor?

Let the newly-minted teaching assistants and lecturers belly-ache: if the e-book has a competent editor and a facility for annotation we may not fall as far short of the mark as some paper editions of the recent past.

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A Song on the End of the World

I have placed a WAV example of Czesław Miłosz’  “ A Song on the End of the World”  or Piosenka o końcu świata at http://poets.aule-browser.com in Curl markup.

The Curl RTE browser plugin from Sumisho/CSK/Curl is required to see or hear the poem.  Links are provided to an English translation by Anthony Milosz and to the Czeslaw Milosz CD at Poetry Foundation.