Simplicity in Poetry

[shemthepenman]

All of the yes.  "I only write for myself" is a copout for when people suggest you change something; this is not milo.  "Write for poetry", now, that is something I see in every poet whose work I love and return to time and again.

I read every new poem by a favourite poet as if it's their last, because there's every chance (as milo says) that it will be.

fair enough, Milo, you didn't say "write for poetry" :/

i still think the principle stands. saying 'don't write for anyone else but to create a poem' or whatnot. is just silly. i expect you both to stop posting poems now, then

There are 2 problems with this logic.

First, I could potentially be posting to improve.
Second, I enjoy the social aspect of poetry- discussions and what not, separate from writing.

I really do post very little poetry here anyway so it wouldn't be much different from what I do now.

how would you improve if there wasn't an intersubjective standard to aim for?

anyway, i was not trying to be a dick about it. i think you are both great writers of course [in fact, i just read a poem by Leanne today that was phenomenal]. . . all i am saying is you are writing for other people, and if not how would anyone [i used you and Leanne as examples because you were handy] fare if they were repeatedly told they were no good. this is a reliance on subjective/inter-subjective opinion. i think we always write with the reader in mind. the reader is us. but 'i' am the reader who likes to read.hence there is already a multiplicity. if i wrote for myself it would be therapy. if i wrote for the standards of poetry it is inter-subjective conformity. is all. and yep, i agree entirely with Leanne about why we write is our own concern, but i was just commenting on the details, and how one may think one is writing for oneself or this or that, but when push comes to shove, deep down we all know that we are writing to be read, just as we like to read in the first place. i like some odd writers. i think i must be the only person that likes them. but, still, they inspired me to write. if there is another me out there