Andrey's questions about poems (split from the intro thread)

[RiverNotch]

What I had in mind was the perceived need to obscure the meaning of the poem. This does sound like an irrational stance, true (I should have thought it through the first time I posted on this forum). However, my main concern remains to be: why metaphors?

It's not so much a reading comprehension problem as it is my problem with what is at the foundation of poetry. My argument is this: why does a poet feel the need to use metaphors when we already have prose? Why contrive a confusing piece of literature and make the reader work hard on its meaning when it is only supposed to convey an idea? What practical  advantage do metaphors have over simple terms?

Gut punch, ...

Sorry, I don't know what that means in this context. What am I fighting back here with a metaphor? A metaphor's practical advantage is that it gets the emotional point across. Again, compare, "oh, the twin towers getting hit by an airplane, that made me feel very bad" to "oh, the twin towers getting hit by an airplane, felt like someone shot me".

... plus technical terms on how red something is are simply not literary, ... 

... not literary but technical. I'm sorry, but how does this concern metaphors? 
See below.

... plus the idea of qualias and abstract thoughts being concretized for understanding.

Can't the qualias and abstract thoughts be expressed and understood without concretization?
Actually, they can't. That's the point of a qualia -- it's a thing you can't transfer without abstracting a thought first, period. Ie, how the color of the hair of the girl you like is red, sure, but as for how red, you can't really say, not without either comparing it to something else (thus, metaphor), or going through the convoluted process of determining the hair's wavelength etc. 
And the thing about abstract thoughts is that to express them without concretization is to make your thought inaccessible to about 99% of the audience -- with that other 1% getting an avenue to rape your argument in the arse by challenging your definitions. Thus, Kierkegaard constantly alluding to Abraham, Socrates talking about the Republic, Jesus Christ forming parables -- prose, sure, but functioning as extended metaphors. 

... And it's not contrived if it was considered literature before basically any other literary work.

Why would contrivance (or the lack thereof) be used as a criterion for determining whether something is literature or not? I didn't say contrived pieces of work were not literature -- I'm countering a point you implied in the following statement: Why contrive a confusing piece of literature and make the reader work hard on its meaning when it is only supposed to convey an idea? Really, as literature, and viewing things in a historical context, it's prose that's contrived, seeking to capture everything that can be captured in a semi-immortal form (as if our minds were printers), and attempting to conform the language of conversation to aesthetic purposes. In your context, perhaps poetry seems the more contrived --- but, even if everyone didn't agree with that view of history, to say so in a poetry-oriented website is just imprudent.

God, if you have to learn about the advantages of metaphor in the internet, then what the hell is up with the state of education today?

LOL. Now you know how it is, not only with the Nevada public school education, but also the Russian public school education. (I was born and partly raised in St.-Petesburg, Russia, so ... I know.) They don't really seem to care about teaching the substance that is at the core of culture; they are just people on a payroll.
I'm surprised it's partly Russia that fucked you over. I hear the Russians love their poetry............or maybe that's just in Doctor Zhivago.

Again, metaphors do not obscure the meaning of a poem. Either you don't actually know what a metaphor is -- that is, you are a baby to the whole idea of metaphors, *wink wink* -- or you are in some measure not-neurotypical. Most people do understand what metaphors are, know how much easier life is to employ them, and actually employ them in daily life (figures of speech, cliche, all those Val girl likes). Some poems do get all tense with the metaphors, and of course the really old (or really specific: honestly, I never liked The Wasteland) classics refer to things most non-scholars won't get, but relative to the stuff you should be reading, that shouldn't be common. The fact that you have to do a lot of research for what, based on your line of questioning, seems to be the most basic poetic (really, linguistic) devices, is making me raise an eyebrow.

But generally speaking, if all you seek in literature is the ideas transferred themselves (for I do believe that all works of art function to transfer ideas), and not just the beauty of the ideas and the ways by which they were presented, then, frankly, poetry, literature, really art in general, is not for you. That's sort of the point, the practice, of art -- not just to give out ideas, but to give them out beautifully, so as to enrich the mind in ways deeper and more profound than normal. Practical art is beautiful, thought-provoking art -- if it is not beautiful, if it does not use the devices of metaphor, sound, etc (and by etcetera, I include also all other devices that have yet to be used, for surely language is boundless), then it is not, as itself, practical, or perhaps it is simply not art. And a note: as for what beauty, and "enriching the mind in ways deeper and more profound than normal", I honestly can't answer what those are specifically, I'm not a professional aesthetic philosopher, and even asking a philosopher, those things are ultimately, I think, qualia, they are so subjective.

Or perhaps you're forming a false dichotomy between prose and poetry, but now this is more my reading of Frye's Anatomy of Criticism. That is to say, if the paragraph uses tons of sound effects, metaphor, and artsy fartsy contextualizations, then technically that piece of prose is poetry -- technically, prose only exists in legal briefs, in memos, in scientific papers, etc. It's just a different kind of poetry, with the issue being that you're reading one as incomprehensible, and the other as artistically perfect, when in fact they should both be read the same way. But I really can't say...

PSs: 

It could also be that all the poetry you've been exposed to is shit to you. I love Gluck, but I know how unpoetic she often sounds -- and I loved Prufrock, though I know how fucking incomprehensible that could be (again, I did not like The Wasteland -- maybe I should give it a retry, though). But really, you can't have been exposed to that much poetry, and still not understand why the medium is as old as language itself, and ultimately the progenitors of prose and drama.

And again, not a professional aesthetic philosopher. Not even a professional -- still working on a Bachelor's degree in Biology. I'm just a real avid procrastinator.

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Poetry is communication. Yes, the poet has to get his point across -- if the poet's any good, he or she does -- and yes, how the reader receives it is important -- and if the reader's any good, he or she receives what the poet intended, then personalizes it. It is, of course, not the same sort of communication as direct prose: again, that emphasis on beauty, on making the message more weighty. Thus, the avenue for reinterpretation may be widened, but with skill and beauty, this shouldn't be much of an issue (or this as an issue could itself be the point: see the Bible, and how God trolls us with it).

Usually, each poem has a set of meanings of its own -- or even each poet -- or even each school and culture of poets. Yes, it takes digging, but usually, when you've read enough stories and poems and shit, the meanings should be easy enough to understand. You don't get that as much with music or the visual arts because those media are a bit more psychologically direct (they are the older media, I believe), and really, because the educational system often doesn't think teaching people culture is important (a stupid thing, of course, since without a common culture, a country can be easily divided. Thus, a fan club with no contracts may last much longer than a small-time international firm [whose common ground does not involve much money]).

But does this all mean that clarity is sacrificed? NO! Again, it's one sort of clarity for another. Clarity of, ahem, intellectual thought, over clarity of emotion, even visceral feeling (the way some sounds can turn one on -- say, this one poem I read which mimicked through its prosody the rhythm of a waltz), even spiritual feeling, with those newly received clarities meant to create beauty, to impress depth, etc. Or intellectual thought could even itself not be muddled, as in the case of a lot of Louise Gluck's best work, or perhaps in some of the arguments of Shakespeare.

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Existing for existence's sake in poetry can exist, and usually does exist, in poems where the author refuses to speak about them, and the audience refuses to analyze them (say, the Bible, in certain communities -- the Church speaks, as well as reads!). To say that that doesn't make sense.........is to say that life doesn't make sense. Because really, why do we exist? Any religious answer is fundamentally beyond the realm of logic, ie doesn't make sense -- and any material answer is an oversimplification of life, and thus an error in logic, and thus doesn't make sense. Thus, it isn't really a problem -- there really are things that don't have logical answers to, and science and philosophy copped to that the moments they were born -- and to consider it as such, to admit this pointlessness then to refuse it because of said pointlessness, means that you, or at least your way of thinking, is the problem.

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And if, after receiving all of our answers, then reading all the poems you can read, then reading all the philosophical texts and critical texts and whatever on poetry you can read, you still don't get it, then no, I wouldn't suggest giving up on poetry entirely ----- but I would suggest shutting up about it in a site that's dedicated to the enjoyment of poetry. I mean, if you were really destined not to get it (and if you're not-neurotypical, that's a big possibility), then keeping to it is unhealthy, but fine, you're free to poison yourself -- however, asking more-basic-than-14 (and yeah, our answers will be different, but ultimately it's the expression of our answers, and not the fundamental truths on which our answers are founded, which are different) questions about it in this site might end up poisoning others as well. That is to say, accept this forum's social contract, and adapt.

But overall, I don't think you're a troll -- your questions don't seem so mean-spirited, and I haven't seen you truly bother anyone yet. Maybe you just really aren't neurotypical -- which isn't a bad thing, my favorite fictional characters isn't (and also my psychotherapist says I have traits that aren't, and also some family members are involved in that profession), but it is unfortunate in the context of you appreciating poetry. 

(redundancy for the win! redundancy for the win! Wagner is the best!)