02-15-2012, 05:17 PM
"To my mind, what many people deem "obscure" in poetry simply taps into my preferred way of communicating -- taking pleasure in the journey without requiring knowledge of the destination."
There are actually problem I see, and neither have anything to do with your writing. One is what I call affectation poetry. It is the ad hoc abandonment of punctuation and grammar because evidently the only poet they ever read was eecummings. I don't think most of the time this is purposeful, they are probably just misled about what poetry is, and think it isn't poetry if you use punctuational. The second problem I call, "throw it against the wall and see if it sticks", is purposeful obfuscation, so as to give the appearance that there is something of depth or profundity when there is not. What they both have in common is that they both sacrifice clarity in writing for things that do not improve the poem. Deviating outside of the norm is fins if you can give a justification for it other than, "that's just how I do it". Certainly we all experiment to some degree in order to push the envelope, what kind of poet wouldn't, but I think you have to have a rational for doing so. You know as well as I that on sites like AP, you can scribble out whatever gobbledygook you want, and if you play your cards right there will be people who will tell you it is brilliant, and how it touched them, how profound, simply because they are people pleasers and also know nothing about poetry. And since they can't tell good poetry from bad, they praise everything. That way no one can accuse them of not "getting it".
In terms of obscurity, something is obscure if you are not knowledgeable about it. Sometimes people purposefully use obscurity in order to obfuscate the fact there is really nothing of value in their writing, that is where it crosses the line. We all have our areas of expertise in terms of general knowledge, and so we may mention something to us seem common knowledge, when in fact it is for most people obscure, to me that is acceptable, because there is no intent to manipulate by doing so.
Dale
There are actually problem I see, and neither have anything to do with your writing. One is what I call affectation poetry. It is the ad hoc abandonment of punctuation and grammar because evidently the only poet they ever read was eecummings. I don't think most of the time this is purposeful, they are probably just misled about what poetry is, and think it isn't poetry if you use punctuational. The second problem I call, "throw it against the wall and see if it sticks", is purposeful obfuscation, so as to give the appearance that there is something of depth or profundity when there is not. What they both have in common is that they both sacrifice clarity in writing for things that do not improve the poem. Deviating outside of the norm is fins if you can give a justification for it other than, "that's just how I do it". Certainly we all experiment to some degree in order to push the envelope, what kind of poet wouldn't, but I think you have to have a rational for doing so. You know as well as I that on sites like AP, you can scribble out whatever gobbledygook you want, and if you play your cards right there will be people who will tell you it is brilliant, and how it touched them, how profound, simply because they are people pleasers and also know nothing about poetry. And since they can't tell good poetry from bad, they praise everything. That way no one can accuse them of not "getting it".
In terms of obscurity, something is obscure if you are not knowledgeable about it. Sometimes people purposefully use obscurity in order to obfuscate the fact there is really nothing of value in their writing, that is where it crosses the line. We all have our areas of expertise in terms of general knowledge, and so we may mention something to us seem common knowledge, when in fact it is for most people obscure, to me that is acceptable, because there is no intent to manipulate by doing so.
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.