Unlocking the poem

Got a marvelous book of poetry and poetics in the mail Friday -- _Unlocking the Poem_, by Ottone Riccio and Allen Beth Seigel. Riccio ("Ricky") led a poetry workshop in Boston for 40 years; I attended for about 25 years, during the fall semester when I was teaching at MIT. Part of Ricky's teaching method was to issue challenges, like

"It is a dark night, with no moon. You see a bright star in the southern sky. It is blue -- the light is blue -- unmistakably blue, and it does not move. An...