Simplicity in Poetry

[milo]

I'm grateful that you have enjoyed a poem, but my point is more or less that if you didn't, I wouldn't stop.  That's not because I don't consider the audience important, it's that I'm comfortable enough with poetry to know that my audience is quite limited and nobody is going to respond in the same way to everything I write.  Rather, I write for the pure joy of constructing something I'm reasonably not shite at.

yeah yeah, i enjoy all your poems, you div.

ok, maybe i was being a bit too philosophical about it. granted. i only read the last few comments, so. my hypothetical [which was only a hypothetical] was just to indicate that there is a certain binary system [minimally] to writing poems. and that the other part of the binary isn't an abstract thing made objective. but rather an inter-subjectivity. what i actually find more interesting is the question of why there is such a fight against the idea that we write for others? in fact, what other profession, outside of the arts does that? a fellow builds a house: oh well, of course i built it for myself. luckily the people i built it for liked it :/ but that isn't true. the way the manual builder does it is based on money. so the builder would say, "well, i didn't get paid a lot, but it's not about the money. . ." and you think yeah, don't get paid then build me a house! fuck that! hey miss teach our children, we won't pay you, but teach them for the love of it. write a shit poem that no one reads. . . ever. and everyone thinks is shit. i just, personally, don't think i would be able to go on writing poems. and to be honest, although i read these terrible fucking poems sometimes on here by random people, all justifying their shitiness, i have to have hats off to them for keep on going on with the practise.

oh well.

The beauty of poetry is its almost complete worthlessness as it resists monetization of all forms. This renders all but 3 living poets hobbyists. Ahhh - the joys of being a hobbyist mean you get to do a thing for the joy of it.

Once again, just like carpentry, gardening and guitar playing I (and statistically everyone else) get to write poetry for the joy of it.

Difference of the home builder is he does it for a paycheck.