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Hi everyone.
I'm just contemplating a re-work of a poem where I allowed my personal passion and emotions to make it inhomprehensible to most readers.
I was wondering what views were out there concerning the issue of creating a peom that used poetic art perfecty, carried beautiful flowing rhyme and meter, and was music to the ear when read aloud, etc, etc...yet perhaps lacked that certain sparkle or real connection with anything. Against the poem which parhaps is not so perfect in form and beautiful on the ear...and yet manages to cross the internal filters of some readers and touch an achord within.
So I guess I'm also asking:- Which should carry the greater weight of influence when we write a piece. Technical form or Passion?
And do we need to carry an internal marker of how far we should target our poems to be for a certain identity or emotion or people group and accept that they will only reach a few. Or should all poems give most readers some connection or insight?
(Not sure if I've worded that last question quite right. Perhaps someone else can grasp my meaning here and re-word it better)
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Personal symbols can be a little like in-jokes -- very frustrating to those who don't know what's going on, so you often feel like the writer is deliberately talking over your head. There are ways to put in "keys" to let the reader into your poem -- like everything, this takes practise.
I generally judge poetry according to this rubric, which is not comprehensive but it does give me a guide. The rest... well, it's always going to be a bit subjective. You can always take the chance that people are going to get some meaning out of something that's entirely personal, and sometimes you're going to be right. It really is a matter of knowing your audience and being as honest as you can -- with yourself and others -- about what you're trying to achieve.
It could be worse
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I've always enjoyed poems which keep an emotional distance from their subjects and regard them with a certain cockeyed irony. But then I also enjoy poems which deal intimately with personal lives, so I'm on the fence. I think technical skill is underrated though, and you can have passion for form.
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges." - Gene Wolfe
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the prefect poem would have it all. it isn't often we achieve such heady heights.
i will say a poem you can't understand, no matter how beautifully written it is, has little worth to the reader
so it being readable to your given audience would be a main requisite.
after that i'd be happy to use Leanne's link. passion is a waste of time if your output is gibberish even if it sticks to a form in all the right places. great form is shite if you shoe horn the passion in.
You can hold the reins on passion. That's what a poem is to me most of the time. I'm a human being, so I can't (always) give in to my animal nature. So that intense energy is like a "demonic" force that I have to capture. Poetry is a religious, magical way of ritual for me. So it's a fight really. Giving intelligent form to wordless passion. It's painful, so it's been a long time since I could be as artful as to using traditional forms; though I get things into similar shapes sometimes. The more you study the stuff, even if you're not using those techniques in the poems you're making, they still can add to the nuances and scope and depth of what you write, and how you experience what you write.
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Hi cidermaid,
Interesting discussion point, though I don't know if I'd divide a poem quite along those lines. To leanne's point: I don't think the issue is that your passion or emotions made the poem incomprehensible. I think you used personal symbols that had meaning to you, but didn't convey a more universal meaning. I'm fine with the symbols as long as there is a key somewhere in the poem to unlock the meaning. With the key it all opens up. Sort of like the reveal at the end of The Sixth Sense: Wait if Bruce Willis is dead that means what we thought we saw wasn't what we actually saw. When there is no key the poem fails for me on some very real level. Passion and emotion are often the fuel we use to write. If your poem doesn't hold some level of emotion so that it conveys an emotional response on the reader it comes off flat. To misuse somewhat the title of David Orr's book the poem is Beautiful and Pointless. Without technical precision the poem feels muddled. So if we account for the comment on personal symbols and term passion what it is, if I'm asked to choose I'll take the passion. A good editor can fix technical flaws, but they aren't god to breathe life into the lifeless.
Just my thoughts.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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for me any poem without passion might as well be a brick..even if it is perfectly written...well so's me instructions for me DVD player
but 'passion' dont have to be personal its the way the author can bring or invoke a feeling or maybe a memory within youself or some amazing scenary or even another side of an argument..the passion can be almost 'felt' in the between the lines
hmmm..but then we all different anyways so for 1 person to another that 'passion' will be very different 
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[quote='Todd' pid='106557' dateline='1353429012']
Hi cidermaid,
Hi Todd,
I think in a way you have atually clarified what my post was intended to be about. I did mention at the end that I thought perhaps my phrasing was off somewhat. Perhaps the use of the words passion and emotion was not such a good choice. ( I obviously should have used personal symbols to be the right word / key in this post)
On a different note, I'm begining to feel more than somewhat wrong footed in all of my recent activity and in particular your reply has caused me to feel that I have commited some sort of crime of poor form, that means I need to be put in my place.
Either way, I def don't seam to be able to speak the right lingo and now I'm getting a little hesitant about opening up again. I am genuinly intreasted in developing my writing skills and this thread was something that had occured to me as relevant to how I should approach a re-work, or indeed a new piece. However, there was also the element that I was just trying to be jolly and join in with as much as possible. (Newbe feaver, i'm stumbling around all over the site having a go at everything). But somewhere along the way it has developed into an entirly new beast that i'm not sure I'm ready to deal with. (As mentioned on the original post, it represented such a crap and difficult, personal .... and still ongoing, time of life), I supose i share some of Rose love's sentiments...I joined the forum to have something jolly in an otherwise, never-ending desert of crapness.
On reflection, i think my original choice of where to post my poem was about right for where I am at in my poetic skill base and as I said above i'm currently feeling wrong footed and that i'm in the wrong place.
My appoligies if I have miss judged you or your words in this..this is a bit of a knee jerk reaction perhaps....Billy mentioned developing thick skin in one of his posts as one of the fruits of belonging to this site...I wonder how long this will take.
so if the intention was to crush me and convince me that i'm not worthy - rest assured on a job well done...if on the other hand I'm an emotionally disturbed silly moo...please feel free to give me a slap and tell me to get over it!
Oh and I really did appreciate the time and trouble you took with the critique...you were right...damm it!!
[quote='Todd' pid='106557' dateline='1353429012']
Hi cidermaid,
Hi Todd,
I think in a way you have atually clarified what my post was intended to be about. I did mention at the end that I thought perhaps my phrasing was off somewhat. Perhaps the use of the words passion and emotion was not such a good choice. ( I obviously should have used personal symbols to be the right word / key in this post)
On a different note, I'm begining to feel more than somewhat wrong footed in all of my recent activity and in particular your reply has caused me to feel that I have commited some sort of crime of poor form, that means I need to be put in my place.
Either way, I def don't seam to be able to speak the right lingo and now I'm getting a little hesitant about opening up again. I am genuinly intreasted in developing my writing skills and this thread was something that had occured to me as relevant to how I should approach a re-work, or indeed a new piece. However, there was also the element that I was just trying to be jolly and join in with as much as possible. (Newbe feaver, i'm stumbling around all over the site having a go at everything). But somewhere along the way it has developed into an entirly new beast that i'm not sure I'm ready to deal with. (As mentioned on the original post, it represented such a crap and difficult, personal .... and still ongoing, time of life), I supose i share some of Rose love's sentiments...I joined the forum to have something jolly in an otherwise, never-ending desert of crapness.
On reflection, i think my original choice of where to post my poem was about right for where I am at in my poetic skill base and as I said above i'm currently feeling wrong footed and that i'm in the wrong place.
My appoligies if I have miss judged you or your words in this..this is a bit of a knee jerk reaction perhaps....Billy mentioned developing thick skin in one of his posts as one of the fruits of belonging to this site...I wonder how long this will take.
so if the intention was to crush me and convince me that i'm not worthy - rest assured on a job well done...if on the other hand I'm an emotionally disturbed silly moo...please feel free to give me a slap and tell me to get over it!
Oh and I really did appreciate the time and trouble you took with the critique...you were right...damm it!!
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Cidermaid, I meant nothing by my post. I wasn't even trying to correct you. I didn't see your lingo as necessarily wrong, I was just building off what Leanne had mentioned and wanted to contribute to the thread. No one here is trying to put anyone in their place. Look if you were to stack rank all of us next to one another you would see a vast gulf in various areas of competency. You are better with form right now than I am. You tap into the rhythm of it better. It's more natural for you. It's likely that no matter how much work I put in I'll be limited in that respect. That said, I'm still going to work at it. So, I would say yeah get over it. There is no hidden passive aggressive slap down in anything I wrote. I don't view anyone on a different hierarchy level. I can learn from anyone and hopefully I have something to give back.
I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you started this thread.
On critique: I struggled with a poem for about 15 years. The content was too close to me emotionally. I kept overwriting it. My skill didn't line up to my expectations. I had a very seasoned poet critique me and basically say: less is more be more subtle. I agreed but it still took me a few years to pull it off. Eventually, all of it both the writing and the critiquing start to click. It's always hard when you start. Try not to worry about what anyone might think just assume that most people have good intentions toward you and your work.
Hopefully, I didn't get into things you don't really have an issue with.
*The thread may now continue 
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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11-21-2012, 04:44 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-21-2012, 04:46 AM by Leanne.)
cidermaid, our intention is never and will never be to "crush" anyone (I'm actually a little taken aback that you might think so) -- advice in Serious Critique is generally intended to allow you to see more detailed possibilities for your poem. Whether or not you use the correct terminology, we will if we're familiar with it and in time you will become familiar with it too.
There's no requirement for you to post in Serious Critique anymore, at least not until you feel more comfortable with your writing -- it does take time (that word again) to develop the confidence (or thick skin, if you like) to know what changes you'd be happy making and which suggestions are just someone else trying to impose a personal choice on you (which happens less often these days, because for the most part we have excellent critics in that forum who do their best to remain as objective as possible).
Asking questions is never "poor form" and nobody here will ever think less of you for admitting you don't know something and trying to find out. Sometimes we have the answers, sometimes we hash it out with quite violent exchanges of words (but never spill our drinks), because in poetry there are very few absolutes and a whole universe full of questions.
Please keep asking, and know that you're most certainly a valued member here.
(11-21-2012, 04:33 AM)Todd Wrote: *The thread may now continue
It could be worse
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Another thing to note, the critique forums have this sort of philosophy (any other mods correct me if this is off base):
Novice: We don't expect much knowing the lingo (when I started I'm looking up (not googling--boy would that have been nice) assonance, strophe, and a hundred other terms. We expect the poetry to hopefully have a spark, some good things going on, and likely a lot of issues. We try to restrict comments to one or two things because it's overwhelming. At least it was overwhelming for me. If this were emergency medicine it's the clear the airway stage.
Mild: This is mostly when people are unsure if a poem works. It's a good place to experiment on initial drafts. There's a broad range of skill here. We tend to comment on two or three things to work on for the same reasons. Emergency medicine: stop the bleeding
Serious: If you were going to publish this or polish the poem fully. You place it here for more complete feedback. The poem can still have anything between serious flaws to minor issues. Terms are usually better understood here, but skill levels again vary. Emergency medicine: annual physical.
That's not a complete description of the forum levels or even a perfect one. It's mostly just the way I approach critique in the forums. Serious is a bit of a drink from the firehouse. With your poem specifically cidermaid you had a lot in there and a mild answer might have come across choppy and lacked clarity. I understand though that it can be a lot to take in. It is for all of us.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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OK...I've still failed to communicate what is on my mind / heart.
But hey who cares.
To Todd:- thank you for your kindness and after I was so snotty - message taken with the same grace it was given. And sorry guys for being so irrational...another crap day is more to blame than anything I guess.
So please unless everyone has lost the will to live...lets get on with the thread...
To everyone else..sorry about that...normal service will be resumed soon.
Some of your replies / thoughts have been really helpful - thanks.
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Irrational is the curse of the poet
When you first start writing seriously, your emotions bubble very close to the surface and sometimes it's not easy to separate them, or pick the right ones to use at any given time. We know, because we've been there.
Are still there, sometimes.
So... personal symbols?
It could be worse
You can build up your own use of symbols. An autobiographical reference can usually be understood as simply that, autobiography. After reading a few of somebody's poems on similar subjects, you can build for yourself the context of the poet's materials. There are so many symbols that people are used to taking in certain ways. Making symbols your own, making them work in your own personal symbolism is a large part of working with them.
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(11-21-2012, 05:50 AM)rowens Wrote: You can build up your own use of symbols. An autobiographical reference can usually be understood as simply that, autobiography. After reading a few of somebody's poems on similar subjects, you can build for yourself the context of the poet's materials. There are so many symbols that people are used to taking in certain ways. Making symbols your own, making them work in your own personal symbolism is a large part of working with them.
Quite so. Many people have recurring motifs that run through their poems -- their purpose need not be spelled out clearly, but it should always serve to build a more complete picture of the poet's thoughts. Motifs/symbols should add, not detract.
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Billy mentioned the perfect poem....I suppose (if ever such a thing were to exist - I'm a sceptic on this) that again, not only is it deeply personal but each of us would have two perfect poems....one that is the best poem that would ever flow from our own pen - the piece we hold up as the pinnacle of our creative achievments. The other is the poem from the pen of another, that gives us most pleasure to read. As T/ angel said we're all different and as was seen on the fav peom thread, it is amazing how many different styles and forms come forward as having exceptional merit. (One man's elixir is another man's poison).
So far I think Billy summed up my original enquiry best for me Q: passion is a waste of time if your output is gibberish even if it sticks to a form in all the right places. great form is shite if you shoe horn the passion in.
From this i return to the second part of my original question (which felt like one of those, how long is a piece of string ones)...what should we use as a benchmark to asses the cut off point from one to another?
I sort of guess that i've answered my own question by being here ( on a poetry forum).....in that the critique of a good cross section of your intended audience is probably the best benchmark.
For me this then begs another question. Is it possible to have a perfect poem? (Is this the holy grail of the poetry world?)
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(11-21-2012, 06:33 AM)cidermaid Wrote: For me this then begs another question. Is it possible to have a perfect poem? (Is this the holy grail of the poetry world?)
I hope not. Perfection might, conceivably, be attainable -- but what would you do then? The perfect poem would mean that the journey was done and there was nothing left to learn.
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The Perfect Poem....(worshipful hallelujahs and golden light)
I don't know. I think its an unattainable goal that we all drive for. All poems are as perfect as you can make them at the time. I'd actually be scared to see no areas to fix in a poem after having it sit for five years. I'd be afraid I was stagnating. There's such a subjective element to writing anyway. It's more gymnastics and less track--though the Romantics would tell us that there are performance enhancing drugs. All we can shoot for at any given time is the best we are capable of doing.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson
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