08-29-2012, 03:38 AM
I think any body of work with a unifying vision behind it is essentially going to expose the ego of the poet. If a poem is being cryptic for the sake of being cryptic, it has little vision behind it. And when I say body of work, I mean his personal, ego-filled oeuvre, that includes poems, essays, novels and so on. What I believe is that this is necessary, especially when we've even gone beyond the concerns of fragmented identities and ideological quagmires that the so-called Modernists addressed over a hundred years ago. I appreciate the building up of these visions, even when we hear it over and over about the failure of this approach in the likes of Hart Crane and Dylan Thomas whose poetic adventures I admire. And I like what Yeats said about poems' effects on each other. How they, poems and other forms of writing too I think, add to each other. Which brings us back to the ego of a poet that expects people to read and study his body of work as a cohesive unit. And from there, it's assumed that the work is important, and has abilities and tasks of its own, whether in a larger scope, or in the more immediate social environment of the poet. It amounts to how much time and how much heart the poet is willing to put into a lifetime of devotion to the world of poetry, which is a way of patterning culture and personal identity, and how honest and considerate he or she is. A lot of ego is usually a troubled ego, and poetry is a means of trying to preserve something, or better something. The ego is a very important aspect of honest, personal voice. When it comes to a poem, I believe it's more important to be true to the vision than to try to be thought of as a great poet. I'd rather read a book of bad poems that have something to say, than a book of poems by someone that simply wants to be a poet but cares little for substance.