I subscribe to the London Review of Books, and it publishes new poetry, which I never read. But when a writer quotes poetry I'm always desperate to read the rest of it (that I never actually go and find the rest of it is perhaps quite telling).
It is the sense-making that I am looking for. I want to understand the poetry, rather than admire it.
More and more I find art is about clarification and description (even if the description or clarification is of an unreal thing).
I am just about to give some tours for the Hayward Gallery, of the British Art Show. I think my tours will be about the act of storytelling, and how for the artists in the BAS it seems like storytelling is analogous to the process of making art.
I see the process of talking about art to be analogous to the process of making art, and I also see a big part of talking about art as telling a story - talking about discontiguous ideas as if my words could connect them.
For me, description and interpretation are another form of artistic production. So really, when I'm talking about the artists, and the way they use storytelling to make art, I'll also be telling a story. And when I'm talking about making art, I'll also be talking about talking about art.