Phidias

[Achebe]

Sometimes, it's hard to tell what's good.
After I've finished writing something, it looks fine.
A few hours later, it stinks. Hugely.
A few days later, it's ok again.

If this is a common problem, why does it happen? Discuss.

[billy]

do you take meds

seriously:

i usually write, do a quick edit and post. after that when i read it i see little things i need to change and if no one's replied i edit on the fly. if i see it as being bad, it tends to evolve into being very bad, it never gets better till i edit. my problem is i often think it looks good and everyone else disagrees

[Quixilated]

I don't know. I sort of get it. It's not the poem that gets better or worse of course, but your perspective or perhaps confidence in it. For me it goes only steadily down hill. Every time.

I write a poem. It's usually pretty terrible. But I put all that work into it. Then it starts whispering "look at me. look at me. look at me." So I post it, and think "how bad could it really be?" The next day I read it and think, "what have I done?!?!?! abort!!! abort!!!! abort!!!" But it's too late. I never like the poem again.

I call this "the curse of the muses." I'm pretty sure they like to put writers under some kind of "Narcissus spell" to force them to put unfinished or sub-par work out into the world to be SEEN. They wait just long enough for it to be entirely too late to take it back, then they wake you up and show you what you've done. It's really mean. I don't think they do it to everyone, but they do it to me all the time. Or maybe everyone has different muses, and I just have really mean ones. At least, this is the scenario I've come up with to explain why it keeps happening ...

Or you could always explain it with a Winnie-the-Pooh quote, because A.A. Milne was a guru. "When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”
And that's really all there is when you get down to it. It looks different when it has other people looking at it.

Well that's all my philosophizing for one day. The window boxes are waiting to be planted and the kids are still in their pajamas.
--Quix

[ellajam]

I find there's at least a little bit of a poem that I'll keep liking, even if it's just the idea of it that I've been unsuccessful with, there was some reason I wrote. I usually can't tell if it's something to keep working on unless I post it. I am always ready for the response to be "There's nothing here to even work on", in which case I've lost nothing, I've never claimed to be anyone other that someone who enjoys trying to write a poem. But usually at least some member of the Pen will find at least one word or phrase or line or stanza or idea that appeals to them and it gives me a focus.

Nothing wrong with posting crap for people who are in the same situation, for the best of us occasionally, but for many of us often. I never delete anything, I just abandon it I can't make it work, maybe next year it will come to life.

[Todd]

I hate just about everything I initially write. The poems I think people might like they don't. The poems they end up liking surprise me. I often am close to throwing away (sticking them in a computer folder somewhere and never returning) the poems that turn out being the most original. I don't know if anyone has a good sense of their own work.

[just mercedes]

I definitely need to put new poems aside for weeks before I revise. Sort of let them 'set'. But don't always do that. I'm often surprised by which poems editors like, and which they reject. Even rejection isn't really a sign of their worth, as a different editor will love the rejects. I just keep writing them, and trying to remember to send them out.

[UselessBlueprint]

I was often surprised at what people liked when I shared my terrible writing in some other places. I don't hate anything I write for a while after I've written. I usually like to sit on a piece for several days at least before I post it anywhere. I go through some waves similar to what you described.

Nevertheless, your first line describes my trouble with so much.
"Sometimes, it's hard to tell what's good."
Artistically, I have trouble with this because I cannot objectively define good art. And I'm not sure that I should be able to. But this is where I begin to have trouble with all art, and where my name comes from. The fact that art is subjective, and may seem good to some and not good to others, makes it futile. To me, art is a blueprint to a useless machine. Fun and entertaining sometimes, but having no utility.
When it becomes easy to tell what is good, please let me know.


Useless Machine

[ellajam]

I was often surprised at what people liked when I shared my terrible writing in some other places. I don't hate anything I write for a while after I've written. I usually like to sit on a piece for several days at least before I post it anywhere. I go through some waves similar to what you described.

Nevertheless, your first line describes my trouble with so much.
"Sometimes, it's hard to tell what's good."
Artistically, I have trouble with this because I cannot objectively define good art. And I'm not sure that I should be able to. But this is where I begin to have trouble with all art, and where my name comes from. The fact that art is subjective, and may seem good to some and not good to others, makes it futile. To me, art is a blueprint to a useless machine. Fun and entertaining sometimes, but having no utility.
When it becomes easy to tell what is good, please let me know.


Useless Machine

Ha, what bothers you about art is what I love about it. Humans are so variable, and their art and their likes are so varied, that's what makes life so interesting.

I passed by both Mondrian and Pollack too many times to count, but with each at some point I had an experience that opened their art to me. Plenty saw it before me and some never will, and so what? Your favorite writer or musician might not be mine

Human opinion is built on so many things. Make art if you enjoy making art, experience the art you enjoy, and in my view, don't worry about it.

[RiverNotch]

My tastes often change --- when I write something, half of them I like, half of them I don't, and usually that's more because of what I've lately read, and what values are most stuck to me at the moment. Eventually -- usually a matter of, say, four, five months -- most of what I like, I've forgotten (and thus, to me, ain't really worth it), while a few manage to stick, and those are the ones I think are actually, actually good. Responses usually act as catalysts -- they respond, my ego immediately reacts, then a period of silence on my part -- then I return, much earlier perhaps than I would have without posting, and if I still think it's good I either continue working on it, or I continue defending it, but if I think it's nothing, then I'm gone.

As for others' poems, essentially the same thing, although the time for sticking is usually shorter, and what does stick isn't necessarily what I remember. But still, a quick reread, and usually if the moment of brilliance I got on first reading returns to me, then I think it's a good one.

And as for what makes a good poem, I can't really say -- I mean, with enough study, I probably can, but that'd be a dissertation per poem, I'm guessing, and I don't have the time -- especially since what's good for one piece may be bad for another. But the gut usually ends up right, and it gets righter and righter the more I read and write ---