A few years ago poet and critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote of Yale Art School dean Tony Smith’s directorship of the Venice Biennale (1968), finding Smith the “most anti-academic of academics.” Per Schjeldahl, Smith opposes “rationalist theoretical tendencies,” preferring “artist’s initiative and the viewer’s intuition.”
I appreciate Schjeldahl’s pointing to intuition as a key exchange element between artist and viewer, poet and listener / reader. Evasive as it is, intuition becomes the sine qua non for influential reading, much less reader response. The contrasts of a projected plan vs chance become the quanta of exchange between writer and reader. Expectations influenced by a reader’s experiences contribute to an initial schema for intake. That plan is set in place. The text, if poetry, changes everything if the reader is ready for chance. The narrative operates in spatial dimensions for irreversible transport, influencing future planning, giving chance agency position for change.