Simplicity in Poetry

[RiverNotch]

So, here we have a fundamental disagreement.  I do not believe the goal of poetry is to communicate.  It is a poor tool to that effect and almost any other form would suit the purpose of communication better.  Indeed, if your goal is to communicate, why not use simple prose?

Good poetry has no meaning.  It presents a portion of life or the human condition. If the presentation is true, readers find meaning because there is meaning in life and the human condition but a poem that attempts to convey a message is always  doomed to fail.

I do believe it's goal is to communicate, as with all forms of art. If one wants to express himself, one should get a therapist -- if one wants to "present a portion of life or the human condition", then one is communicating something by the very choice of said portion. A man who shows a picture of a boy playing with his mother is communicating something very different from a man who shows a picture of said boy crying afterwards, is he not? Or is it the duty of the poet to play God, and show life as a whole to his audience? And as for your second note, that it is "a poor tool to that effect", I believe that the form is part of the function -- the Proverbs wouldn't be as memorable or effective if they weren't proverbs, now, would they? That is to say, what a poet communicates isn't restricted to thoughts, ie "a war poem" or "a love poem" -- there's also emotions, visceral reactions, even spiritual impulses; that a poet doesn't have to be conscious of what he communicates, although consciousness helps pretty much everyone in the long run; and that everything, from the form, to the "message", to the date and place of publication, to the intended audience, informs what a poem is.

Which is, yes, ultimately a "presentation of a portion of life or the human condition". But again, that presentation is communication -- an exchange of information, of thoughts, of ideas, but being art, all in their broader senses -- unless there's no one at either the giving or the receiving end. But now the issue is clarified -- maybe we use different terms for the same thing?

Although what do you mean by "no meaning"? Do you mean to say that the author did not intend meaning into its writing? If so, isn't that an incredibly flawed premise, inductively because Shakespeare and co. are considered some of the best writers ever, while illiterate street kids and automatic writers I can't refer to by proper nouns, and deductively because poetry, being a medium that's rooted in language, which as far as I know is itself rooted in conscious thought, cannot exist without at least a spec of conscious thought? And how limited are you by your conception of "presents a portion of life or the human condition"? Because if you mean a portion as in a complete (and by complete, I mean one inclusive of all views) microcosm, then again, playing God -- if by portion you meant a limited section, then again that choice of section is necessarily a communicative act -- and if by portion you meant a microcosm whose structures only mimic life, and so is itself not the whole of life, then it becomes the choice of symbols, of what becomes one's representation of, say, the spiritual realm or the material realm that becomes communicative.

Finally, I'm not majoring in philosophy, linguistics, art studies, etc, and the longest continuous work on literary criticism that I've read so far is Northrop Frye's "Anatomy of Criticism" (which I found useful, but ultimately not definitive), so yeah, my use of terms is probably all mangled. Not an excuse, by the way, but if you spot any blatant errors, please do make a note. I think I've already spotted one -- that weird redefinition of what one can communicate with poetry. Oh well.