rope-ladder

To read a good poem is like climbing down a rope-ladder, line by line never sure there is another length below you that can hold you, and not sure it reaches all the way to the ground.

unsure reader

Some poets read their poems flawlessly, with gusto and verve. Others read with hesitancy and uncertainty, stumbling over words, as though the poem was still composing itself. I respect the poet who reads with suspicion of what has been written.

irritable reaching

One should be capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without an irritable reaching after fragments and illogic. [Apologies to John Keats]

authority and uncertainty

Both lyric authority and lyric uncertainty have great attraction.