Reading in anthologies

 I remember the revelation of reading the Complete Works of a certain poet. [Wallace Stevens]. I was maybe 14 or 15.  Anyway, reading in an anthology gives a false impression. You find that the poems are more uneven in the complete works. Some fall flat; some are dull or incomprehensible (especially if you are 14); some good ones never get into the anthology. It seems as though the anthologists only read other anthologies and choose the same ones out of inertia. (Can an anthology be plagiarized?) Even the weaker poems provide satisfaction, and make the ones you like stand out even more. The dullness is part of the over all experience of finding out for yourself what is interesting, and finding out what poetry is really about: a process of large numbers of failures punctuated with tenuous and temporary successes.  

Also, books of poems are works of art in their own right. They have organizing principles. Who would know that Lorca's "La guitarra" is part of a sequence of poems, and that this sequence of poems in its turn is part of a book of poems? The anthology does not give you that information. Even your professor might not know this, using an anthology of poems selected by someone else. 

Many people, even famous people, in my own field I have heard say over the years: Oh, I don't really like / read / understand poetry.  It's odd to me because I would not have gone into the field to read modern Spanish novels. Nothing wrong with the modern Spanish novel, but I wouldn't have felt compelled to go into the field from reading Azorín, Gabriel Miró, Benet, Marsé, Laforet, or even Goytisolo. My late colleague Bob Spires asked me in the intrerview: why don't you study fiction?  I had no great response, but now I would say: all of you are already doing that.