09-25-2012, 11:25 PM
The reader isn't responsible for the writer, as far as I can see. When I talk about writing a lot about understanding in notebooks, I mean understanding things in different ways, and I can use those ideas in poems, and I write about different ways my own poems can be understood from my own point of view. One person, in himself, can have different points of view about the same thing at the same time. As reader and as writer. And new ideas and feelings can surface.
Did you mean tainting a perception the writer might have had that would have been acceptable to other readers too if the critic hadn't misunderstood and made the writer change it? In that case, the writer was uncertain enough to allow that to happen, for better or worse. And the writer must not feel very strongly about his original intention. Or in the case of the poem I mentioned earlier, I wanted that specific poem to carry a more specific message, and had been sensitive about the last lines myself. More liked it than didn't like it, but I felt they may have liked it for reasons that I wasn't pleased with; and I made the choice to change it. I was able to formulate the lines I removed, into another poem that shared more room for the effect they seemed to be having. While other poems I want the critics to tear apart, even though I'm happy with it as it is. "Solid" is a word I read a lot here, and I think that has a nice feeing; but I like some poems to have a more fluid flow, where the writer's point of view is there, but it's limited because the poet isn't reflecting but talking out of the moment. That's not to say that it's stream of consciousness, automatic writing, because it's not.
Usually you can find enough about a person's mindset from the types of expressions and opinions he addresses. And you can narrow down his experience, at least enough in relation to the poem in question, to find the thought patterns he's working with, and the appropriate emotional responses, and system of logical connections the work is founded on. The fact that you can't always do that should be an inspiring thing; that your work as a critic has not become obsolete. And frustration and confusion can be very inspiring. As challenge and conflict are.
Did you mean tainting a perception the writer might have had that would have been acceptable to other readers too if the critic hadn't misunderstood and made the writer change it? In that case, the writer was uncertain enough to allow that to happen, for better or worse. And the writer must not feel very strongly about his original intention. Or in the case of the poem I mentioned earlier, I wanted that specific poem to carry a more specific message, and had been sensitive about the last lines myself. More liked it than didn't like it, but I felt they may have liked it for reasons that I wasn't pleased with; and I made the choice to change it. I was able to formulate the lines I removed, into another poem that shared more room for the effect they seemed to be having. While other poems I want the critics to tear apart, even though I'm happy with it as it is. "Solid" is a word I read a lot here, and I think that has a nice feeing; but I like some poems to have a more fluid flow, where the writer's point of view is there, but it's limited because the poet isn't reflecting but talking out of the moment. That's not to say that it's stream of consciousness, automatic writing, because it's not.
Usually you can find enough about a person's mindset from the types of expressions and opinions he addresses. And you can narrow down his experience, at least enough in relation to the poem in question, to find the thought patterns he's working with, and the appropriate emotional responses, and system of logical connections the work is founded on. The fact that you can't always do that should be an inspiring thing; that your work as a critic has not become obsolete. And frustration and confusion can be very inspiring. As challenge and conflict are.