Wherefore Art...

[zorcas]

Ah, yes, pedantry jousts with pleasantry, for are not the arts a form of entertainment whilst the pecksniffians seek tenure finding fault? So it was with the calipers of the calculating at Cambridge finding the off-leg buttock on a Rodin figure too small though those at Oxford found it too big. The prols at Birmingham opined that there was a smallness of character at one school, an excess of ego at the other. One cannot know what the current critic's credentials are--though his incapacity for unalloyed pleasure derived from consuming the whole of an artistic endeavor and not its parts is obvious, as is the likelihood that whatever school he attended was as parochial as one could be.

Eh, I found the opportunity, and I took it. That is, with the meter -- if I offended, I didn't mean to. Rereading this piece now, it still doesn't work, and not just for the stylistic issues I did dutifully point out (again, the repetitive "ious" rhymes sound like a bad pop song; "mediocrity victorious" has got way, way, way too many syllables to work; and the loss of capitalization and punctuation, even if this is a deliberate, I now realize, volta, makes it look more like you just stopped caring -- no, that being an analogy of how artists don't care anymore takes too many leaps of logic to not sound like bullshit). To wit:

Again, the way you say those first eight lines, and even lines 9 to 12, capture the tone of a call to arms too well to sound like the speaker's actually a critic -- and yet, they lack the power, the actual casting out of triptychs and ravaging of the establishment, to be engaging.

And then the volta doesn't really work because it's too jarring -- either it pulled the camera so suddenly away from the foolish Dadaist to the (in my opinion, even more foolish, as it's that same "artlessness" that once characterized Baroque to the Mannerists, Mannerism to the Medievals, the Middle Ages to the Romans....ie, art's moving forward is never a bad thing, even if it seems like it's moving to shit) critic, or the speaker decided to confuse himself. The voice has to be uniform -- if it's gonna be a call to arms in the first twelve lines, then either make that call to arms look bitter and satirical on the onset (not necessarily obviously, although there's not enough space in the words you've already chosen to show such subtle hate -- "artistry" is equally measured with "elitism", and "mediocrity" could also mean "kitsch": ie, use there the concrete, instead of the abstract, since abstractions have corruptible meanings, while shit shall always be shit), or structure the last lines so that the change of voice is clear, like say introducing a new, more objective speaker ("blablabla...said the artist who was in the future not even remembered", or something) to the mix; or don't make it a call to arms in the start at all, especially since the rhythm you've noted doesn't have much space, and such a tone necessitates repetitiveness. 

And, again, that volta: the speaker and the writer are ultimately among "now's artists", so this reeks of "vanity"; bold is a compliment, artless isn't, voiding vanity is a good thing, voiding brains is a bad thing -- those two lines aren't even the good kind of ambiguous, the previous lines were too straightforward; and "the sandbox of his soul" is a laughable attempt at a profound image, especially considering the speaker is talking about art. Ultimately, the first part is "artless", it lacks the space to develop, while the conclusion sinks into mud, such that you can't really blame the reader if he "misunderstood", so that everything reeks of vanity, of pretentiousness, and not even the sort that awes. 

And please, if you're gonna complain about a critic doing his job, then why bother, especially with this *critical* forum? Better to work on your own, with that attitude, then post in misc or the arse ---- and get trashed without consideration, or worse still, ignored. And critics do criticize critics who depend on the systems and credentials of their school, such elitism is out of fashion in today's democratic educational system ---- just as critics do enjoy works as a whole, those criticized just don't realize it, their works if so trashed were never enjoyable in the first place.

Odds bodkins! Your reply brought to mind that before entering this group I devoured poetry with absolutely no regard for punctuation,  metrical fluidity or whatever, suggesting that either the poets were perfection divine and failed not to do everything ship shapely or the overall effect of their work took precedence over precise details. Somewhere between the two lies a compromise. The impression I get is that reviewers/critics here fasten upon the first putative problem like an errant comma and thenceforth snuffle through the remainder looking for more. Have noted that there be scant few bits of praise for the whole of anyone's efforts, only for bits and pieces of it. Wherefore Art was read by divers friends, English faculty among them, and all laughed. None of you did.

That your friends have enjoyed a poem, or told you they did, has no bearing on its purpose in a workshop.  Please, if you do not intend a piece to be workshopped, select a different forum.  If you do, then it's time to learn that nobody is obliged to cushion their replies.  This is the one place where we expect that it's perfectly ok to be dispassionate and address only the poem/ Admin