11-21-2012, 01:30 AM
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.
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