At lunch, a friend volunteered that writing emails and texting seemed to have reduced her attention span. I knew what she meant. I, too, grow impatient with suspense novels that exceed the point of reasonable tension, or folks who tell a story but have trouble getting to the point. Bu

A year ago, my blog contained a complaint about a poem in Harper’s that struck me as too inscrutable to mean anything to anyone except its author who, incidentally, won a Nobel prize for his art. Recently, a reader replied to that blog, offering his understanding of the piece. The i