One has in the past done one's darndest to persuade oneself that Bunting does not really mean what he says when he argues, if it can be called argument, that poetry is pure sound. (p. 56)

The analogy of poetry with music is a dangerous one for two basic reasons: first, poetry has severe limits in pitch, key, tone, and range; nor can it orchestrate; second, it does not have notes devoid of referrents as music largely does. Words mean—if the poet discards their meaning the hearing mind puts them back, just as it picks up echoes of its own tongue in an unknown foreign speech…. Another thing that makes it a dangerous analogy is that users slip between two aspects of music: one as a set of scale-systems of sounds, the other as a set of structural principles like sonata-form. This use of musical form is ultimately...