A slight factual error has been kindly pointed out to me. It turns out chimps don't read poetry at all. Well, if Kenneth Koch can try to teach polar bears to write poetry, I can certainly try with chimps. Seriously, though, is it too much to ask a critic to try to understand what it's about before passing judgment? For a critic to orient the reader, or a teacher the student, just enough so that the text will no longer seem difficult, if the difficulty is due to a lack of knowledge of the relevant context? Is it outrageous to point out that this is essentially the same process that the teacher performs when the text is by Milton or Shelley, and that the difficulties and challenges are comparable in all meaningful respects? The difference has to do with prejudice: even my second graders a few years ago "knew" that poetry always had to rhyme. Almost every nonpoetry reader's cultural default for poetry is essentially Victorian, but someone who sets up shop as a critic should at least be aware of twentieth-century developments.