Why don't poets like to provide information on the fixed points of background to help the reader? Clearly, they won't want to tie everything down and leave no room for interpretation, but if this was an edition of an old poet you'd get a helpful endnote briefing you on Anaximenes, and maybe on the story being Longley's poem (since he was happy to relate it in an interview to enlighten his readers). There's plenty of food for thought without also being made to go hunting for the relevant data too - and I think I'd feel happier reading with the aid of endnotes than with the aid of Google, never quite knowing the relevance or reliability of my search results!
Why don't poets like to provide information on the fixed points of background to help the reader? Clearly, they won't want to tie everything down and leave no room for interpretation, but if this was an edition of an old poet you'd get a helpful endnote briefing you on Anaximenes, and maybe on the story being Longley's poem (since he was happy to relate it in an interview to enlighten his readers). There's plenty of food for thought without also being made to go hunting for the relevant data too - and I think I'd feel happier reading with the aid of endnotes than with the aid of Google, never quite knowing the relevance or reliability of my search results!