12-26-2011, 05:10 AM
GJ,
(As you begin reading through this over long reply it may strike you as an unsupportable excessive use of verbosity, no doubt it is. To me there are two major aspects at the core of poetic critique, the role of clarity, and it's importance is one of them. As I am not proofing what I write in this response, it no doubt goes down many rabbits holes from which it never satisfactorily returns. I plead two extenuating facts; The last three days or so have been especially difficult, even compared to the usual holiday fun, and very little sleep, so I am a bit...out there. I'm too tired to read back over this to see if it makes sense or not. A bit ironic considering the topic.
Feel free to file 13 if it seems too much nonsense to deal with, or even if it doesn't. It is primarily a function of this being a bit of a pet peeve with me, and the total incomprehension that anyone wanting to write poetry does not see this topic and paramount importance. Oh well, I am weird in more than just this respect!
Hopefully it may make some sense to you, but I am too tired to care at the moment. I don't care how beautiful she is, no woman can interest me unless her name is mattressa!
"Dark knight hair rinse. A doo, a dew, my kingdom is way past due!"
I know I am tard (tired), channeling the bard is too damn hard!
----------------------------------------------------------------
" do you, the writer have to dot all the i's and cross all the t's - to ensure that your words are crystal clear to everyone?"
I think as much as is reasonably possible. Poetry is a form of communication. Why would I want to convey inaccurate information. Of course I am not responsible to make everyone know what I am saying. I accept that I will lose a certain percentage of my readers, either because they lack the intelligence or desire to understand what I am saying, or they are simply to lazy to go look up "gam" on dictionary.com which takes all of ten seconds So no, I am not responsible to the willfully ignorant, or the person who is simply limited in intelligence and who will never be able to grasp things beyond a certain conceptual level. I would not expect a third grader to understand what I write. However for those who have both the intelligence and desire to understand what I write, I have the responsibility to be as clear as I can in transmitting what I am writing. This is of course ignoring that what I write comes from the muse, and often I am unaware of what exactly I am write because it is beyond my own comprehension. There are many poems that I look at ten, twenty, even thirty years down the road and find things that I know I was unaware of when writing the poem, and would not even begin to be aware of, let alone understand it until many years later. Still, it is my responsibility to transmit what I get as accurately as I am capable, or at least until there is a diminishing return for the effort I am giving. I also understand that people will get things that are completely beyond what I was aware in writing, simply for no other reason than assigning connotations to words I am using, because I am unaware of that connotation, or that it is a completely localized usage of it, or in fact completely wrong. Generally one assumes that the definition will be taken from the context, but sometimes people just put things together in odd ways and come up with completely different interpretations to what I had in mind (here is a sticky point in our overly PC society, "Are they wrong in their interpretation?" To put it gently, let us say their response falls in a much lower percentile of responses than the vast majority of readers. But to be perfectly honest with you, I believe in paying a certain of homage to general consensus. And face it, some people are just plain nutters, but unlike poets, they are not so in a positive way. The other aspect of this writing, is that it is such that gets below ones normal defenses, and despite ourselves we discover something new, and sometimes even of lasting value. The best knowledge is like that. It is acquired in such a way that it is not consciously put together, but comes as a result of the aggregate information causing to arise an amalgam off something that is completely new to us. That is to say, a leap beyond where we could get to in our normal mode of thinking. An epiphany, if you will. However, despite all these benefits to clear writing, I cannot conceive why anyone would wish to want to be anything less than their clearest. Such an attitude is completely beyond me. Why would anyone want to purposefully be misunderstood. Well... there are at least no good reasons. Grammar is there for a reason, and to violate that, I think one must have an extremely good argument to do so (and a genius IQ to back it up). What we call grammar is an evolved system that basically says here is the most agreed upon and most tried system. It has evolved over hundreds of years, through trial and error experimentation for the purpose of clarity in written communication.
I think one of the reasons that people avoid being as grammatical as possible is they think, that if people clearly understand their intent, they will realize that they have little of value to say. In some cases that may be true, in others it is not, but for someone to practice this kind of self deceit is in complete opposition to what a poet is, and it will eventually kill what little inspiration is present. Poetry has always been the most clear way the gods could communicate truth to humans. All art forms are irrational, since inspiration is in opposition to reason. Inspiration has always been considered a form of madness, the use of mad in this sense means against what is rational, or reasonable. Poetry, more so than any of the primary art forms is the most difficult as it requires reason and inspiration to co-exist to a much greater degree than anything else, and having been at the professional level (read, making money) with both music and art at different times in my life (as well as with poetry to a much lesser degree) I feel somewhat qualified to make that assessment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"My poetry is marred by my inability to let something go unsaid, or let something be ambiguous."
Being clear, I think, does not make easy that which is difficult, it just means that you also don't have to wade through poor grammar, unintended ambiguity, and purposeful obfuscation to come at the meat of the thing. I reveled in a non-poetry way a lot of information about this poem as regards the context and literary allusions that were operative.
I do not think I reveled anything of importance of it's essence, it was simply removing things that should have not been obstacles to begin with.
Yesterday evening I went with my girls to drive around in the more affluent neighborhoods and look at the Christmas lights that people put up. There was less than I ever remember seeing. A solid indication that financially we are in a worse condition than we have been in during most of my lifetime. I think one would have noticed similar changes during the time of the great depression, although it is not nearly to that degree...yet. Still I think extended financial stress brings about a number of the same patterns, just as grief over the loss of a loved one follows a similar pattern for everyone who goes through the process (whether it is your mother, lover or cat). But to say these things about the poem only points one in the right direction as far as the background is concerned (something about anyone could find from a quick search of the net), it does not give away the essence of what is there.
[Here is another change because of the internet. I no longer feel the need to note sources of alluded to material as it is so easily searchable. Often, all one needs do is type in the quote, and the search blurbs will tell you most of what you need to know.]
So here is my encapsulated take. Poetry deals with subjects that are difficult enough to deal with, without adding an unnecessary layer of mud one must swim through in order to get to the truth of the poem. Besides a poet must above all other artist remain truthful and genuine. How can he do so if he is already purposefully doing the opposite. What protection will he have against flattery and sycophants? I think the motto of the poet should be "To the muse one must be true!"
Feel free to reply with equally long and windy verbosity!
http://pigpenpoetry.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
Dale
(As you begin reading through this over long reply it may strike you as an unsupportable excessive use of verbosity, no doubt it is. To me there are two major aspects at the core of poetic critique, the role of clarity, and it's importance is one of them. As I am not proofing what I write in this response, it no doubt goes down many rabbits holes from which it never satisfactorily returns. I plead two extenuating facts; The last three days or so have been especially difficult, even compared to the usual holiday fun, and very little sleep, so I am a bit...out there. I'm too tired to read back over this to see if it makes sense or not. A bit ironic considering the topic.
Feel free to file 13 if it seems too much nonsense to deal with, or even if it doesn't. It is primarily a function of this being a bit of a pet peeve with me, and the total incomprehension that anyone wanting to write poetry does not see this topic and paramount importance. Oh well, I am weird in more than just this respect!Hopefully it may make some sense to you, but I am too tired to care at the moment. I don't care how beautiful she is, no woman can interest me unless her name is mattressa!
"Dark knight hair rinse. A doo, a dew, my kingdom is way past due!"
I know I am tard (tired), channeling the bard is too damn hard!
----------------------------------------------------------------
" do you, the writer have to dot all the i's and cross all the t's - to ensure that your words are crystal clear to everyone?"
I think as much as is reasonably possible. Poetry is a form of communication. Why would I want to convey inaccurate information. Of course I am not responsible to make everyone know what I am saying. I accept that I will lose a certain percentage of my readers, either because they lack the intelligence or desire to understand what I am saying, or they are simply to lazy to go look up "gam" on dictionary.com which takes all of ten seconds
So no, I am not responsible to the willfully ignorant, or the person who is simply limited in intelligence and who will never be able to grasp things beyond a certain conceptual level. I would not expect a third grader to understand what I write. However for those who have both the intelligence and desire to understand what I write, I have the responsibility to be as clear as I can in transmitting what I am writing. This is of course ignoring that what I write comes from the muse, and often I am unaware of what exactly I am write because it is beyond my own comprehension. There are many poems that I look at ten, twenty, even thirty years down the road and find things that I know I was unaware of when writing the poem, and would not even begin to be aware of, let alone understand it until many years later. Still, it is my responsibility to transmit what I get as accurately as I am capable, or at least until there is a diminishing return for the effort I am giving. I also understand that people will get things that are completely beyond what I was aware in writing, simply for no other reason than assigning connotations to words I am using, because I am unaware of that connotation, or that it is a completely localized usage of it, or in fact completely wrong. Generally one assumes that the definition will be taken from the context, but sometimes people just put things together in odd ways and come up with completely different interpretations to what I had in mind (here is a sticky point in our overly PC society, "Are they wrong in their interpretation?" To put it gently, let us say their response falls in a much lower percentile of responses than the vast majority of readers. But to be perfectly honest with you, I believe in paying a certain of homage to general consensus. And face it, some people are just plain nutters, but unlike poets, they are not so in a positive way. The other aspect of this writing, is that it is such that gets below ones normal defenses, and despite ourselves we discover something new, and sometimes even of lasting value. The best knowledge is like that. It is acquired in such a way that it is not consciously put together, but comes as a result of the aggregate information causing to arise an amalgam off something that is completely new to us. That is to say, a leap beyond where we could get to in our normal mode of thinking. An epiphany, if you will. However, despite all these benefits to clear writing, I cannot conceive why anyone would wish to want to be anything less than their clearest. Such an attitude is completely beyond me. Why would anyone want to purposefully be misunderstood. Well... there are at least no good reasons. Grammar is there for a reason, and to violate that, I think one must have an extremely good argument to do so (and a genius IQ to back it up). What we call grammar is an evolved system that basically says here is the most agreed upon and most tried system. It has evolved over hundreds of years, through trial and error experimentation for the purpose of clarity in written communication. I think one of the reasons that people avoid being as grammatical as possible is they think, that if people clearly understand their intent, they will realize that they have little of value to say. In some cases that may be true, in others it is not, but for someone to practice this kind of self deceit is in complete opposition to what a poet is, and it will eventually kill what little inspiration is present. Poetry has always been the most clear way the gods could communicate truth to humans. All art forms are irrational, since inspiration is in opposition to reason. Inspiration has always been considered a form of madness, the use of mad in this sense means against what is rational, or reasonable. Poetry, more so than any of the primary art forms is the most difficult as it requires reason and inspiration to co-exist to a much greater degree than anything else, and having been at the professional level (read, making money) with both music and art at different times in my life (as well as with poetry to a much lesser degree) I feel somewhat qualified to make that assessment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"My poetry is marred by my inability to let something go unsaid, or let something be ambiguous."
Being clear, I think, does not make easy that which is difficult, it just means that you also don't have to wade through poor grammar, unintended ambiguity, and purposeful obfuscation to come at the meat of the thing. I reveled in a non-poetry way a lot of information about this poem as regards the context and literary allusions that were operative.
I do not think I reveled anything of importance of it's essence, it was simply removing things that should have not been obstacles to begin with.
Yesterday evening I went with my girls to drive around in the more affluent neighborhoods and look at the Christmas lights that people put up. There was less than I ever remember seeing. A solid indication that financially we are in a worse condition than we have been in during most of my lifetime. I think one would have noticed similar changes during the time of the great depression, although it is not nearly to that degree...yet. Still I think extended financial stress brings about a number of the same patterns, just as grief over the loss of a loved one follows a similar pattern for everyone who goes through the process (whether it is your mother, lover or cat). But to say these things about the poem only points one in the right direction as far as the background is concerned (something about anyone could find from a quick search of the net), it does not give away the essence of what is there.
[Here is another change because of the internet. I no longer feel the need to note sources of alluded to material as it is so easily searchable. Often, all one needs do is type in the quote, and the search blurbs will tell you most of what you need to know.]
So here is my encapsulated take. Poetry deals with subjects that are difficult enough to deal with, without adding an unnecessary layer of mud one must swim through in order to get to the truth of the poem. Besides a poet must above all other artist remain truthful and genuine. How can he do so if he is already purposefully doing the opposite. What protection will he have against flattery and sycophants? I think the motto of the poet should be "To the muse one must be true!"
Feel free to reply with equally long and windy verbosity!
http://pigpenpoetry.com/images/smilies/cool.gif Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.