I commented at Geof's blog (against an interpretation of Geof's) that I interpreted the asterisks poem to be an apology for its speaker's English asterisk--so plain a translation of the asterisks around it. Marton Koppany then e.mailed me the following about the three pieces: "I just read your comment on Geof's text (it goes without saying how happy I was with that essay). I don't think that my original intentions are necessarily important, or that a poem should 'talk back,' but I'd like to confess to you (for curiosity), that I didn't realize (at least consciously) that my colons and the image of the surfer constituted a division sign. I'm happy with that extra-meaning which suggest the same things - on a different level - I wanted to show. First of all, I simply wanted to make a comment on your turned commas, which (from my point of view) also made an insightful comment on my question mark sequence. The BACKWARD moving of the surfer, and the suddenness of his moving are very important to me! As if one could (thanks to a colon), continue backward, and withdraw/delete some meaning, or reach back to some original meaning or to a "state" of meaninglessness - or simply get 'home.' Plus I know how much you like 'the ocean,' and I'm also a water-fan.

You are absolutely right about the asterisks. The 'real life' starfish-asterisks stand for Gomringer's and Huth's 'Silencio' and 'Silence.' And my claim is that my 'sorry for my English' has similar relation to the "real life" starfishes Gomringer's and Huth's empty space have to 'Silencio' and 'Silence.' I tried to metacommunicate my difficulty in communicating, and that's a kind of silence, and also kind of communication. (The silence or emptiness of Gomringer's inner space is not absolute either!) The core of my little joke (if it works at all) is, that I reversed the subordination between the inner and outer components of the poem: my "sorry for my English" is a metaphor for starfish!"

His comments about the surfer's going backward confused me a bit. So when I discussed the poem here, I said nothing about it. Later, he e.mailed me that the copy of the poem, which I reproduced here in an earlier entry, was backwards. The correct version is above. Marton thanked me for my comments at Geof's blog, then went on to say, "(One more thing: I didn't mention Scylla and Charybdis about the colon because I didn't want to over-explain the piece, but that was my basic 'vision' anyway."br>

"Yes!" said I. "I saw a division of sea and sky, and sea and shore, that the surfer is defining--among other things. Ha, I did not see the dots as rocks, though! Nice touch, and flowing from the myth." Forwards/backward was another dichotomy active in the piece, and a hint of what was ahead that the surfer was leaving.