Dave writes:

I don't really see any discussion or development going on, more like an endless string of tautologies that trip themselves up and then you have to start over again with the definitions.

You say you believe in a poetry beyond the ideological cliche or political position yet you constantly stress how your poetic beliefs stem from your centralist political beliefs and how Poetry should mirror those beliefs.

So what's up with that?

I've been at a music practice, hence the delay in responding to your question, Dave. I think what interests about literature, from Homer to Virgil to Dante to & so on, is that human choices & passions & speculations & dreams & guile & drama - all these things - trump the verbal systems that would contain them, be they religious, political, what have you.

Poetry only concentrates this effect & makes it more elegant and musical (as Dante is more musical than Joyce, despite his best efforts).

This is how poetry is beyond politics, at least in one of its dimensions.

I don't have "centralist" beliefs; I said that beneficial change comes to our earth from the center of humane values, & I said it was "central" only in the sense that it proceeds from life itself, that which survives & overcomes death & destruction - through its own wisdom, & through divine intervention (grace).

I think of poetry as a branch of this basic (yet mysteriously dual) life-force; a kinship recognizable in its freedom & unpredictable integrity.

I think that covers most of my supposed tautologies. But thank you for asking.