Some of us went down to Santa Cruz on Saturday. The talk was fun. Thanks Juliana for the invitation and for presenting there.

I want to pick it up from where I left of. Meaning VS Significance. Here goes:

I think I might be agreeing with Scott's blog,that the use of the word "meaning" is either getting too narrow or needing adjective to define what kind of 'meaning' exactly is in question. Scott used the word "subtextual." I like that, and I take it to refer things usually proposed when one discusses a poem formally, like " I think, by X, the poet means Y because X and Y are related during the century the poet was writing." Or "because phrase A and phrase B are together, the poet means C."

Now, to introduce what I am proposing by the word "significance," I want to say the following (maybe this is related to our "stake" portion of our workshop, actually):

A poem can be significant without "subtest" (or representional) meaning.
But to be significant, the poem has to be something or do something. Such as, it can make us scrutinize language, it can make us question our understanding of things, it can take us somewhere intelligent in variety of aspects.

I guess significant poems educate me in some ways. Usually the non-traditional way.

To Jessea's Q: I guess, in my earlier blog, I hadn't nailed the term down quite as firmly as I am doing here (maybe? what do you think?). I'll say Scott's work and JM's work fight with the "subtest" meanings. That's what similar about them. But how Scott's work and JM's work is significant is not the same thing.
(btw: thanks for dinner suggestion yesterday. excellent choice!)