12-31-2011, 10:49 PM
(12-29-2011, 04:12 AM)Leanne Wrote: It's funny where our brains lead us. I remember the conversation that sparked this -- it was with a young, very promising poet who was lamenting that people always demanded she explain everything to them and she felt that defeated the purpose of writing it in a poem. She asked me (as if I would know) why people need to have things laid out for them in perfect order and why they feel they should then offer life advice based on what they think they're seeing in a poem. She (and I) felt that these attempts to "fix" us were doing immense damage to our poetry, while the fixers walked away oblivious because they'd never really felt the poetry.I am very interested in why a poet would not wish to clarify something in a poem. If the purpose of the poem is to convey something to a reader and they,through the magic of the internet, are able to ask about what isn't clear, wouldn't that be valuable to the writer?....to enable them to know that their message has not got through.
As to giving life advice - who does that? I can only remember one person ever feeling compelled to do this about something I had written. (I got a telling off about my behaviour!) Is it an age thing?