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Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 153
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 07:00 pm: | 
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JB made an interesting point in one of the threads so I invited him to expand his thoughts down here if he felt so inclined. If not, I most certainly can ramble on about this that and the other.
First poetry, by defn. has words, no? Considering the "burden" of sense to a poem...where does the cohesiveness of the poem begin and end? On the page? In the mind of the author? In the mind of the reader? What responsibility does the reader have to the poem, what responsibility does the writer have to the reader in making the poem "clear" and understood?
Or some such stuff like that.
Anyone? |
Stephen Bunch
New member
Username: Stephen_bunch
Post Number: 120
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 07:16 pm: |
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Hmm, for starters, I'd put "sense" in quote marks, instead of "burden." Assuming we agree that "sense" is important, how do we define that abstraction?
"Entrapment is this society's sole activity...& only laughter can blow it to rags." (Edward Dorn, Gunslinger, Book III)
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Staff Richard Jordan
Moderator
Username: Staff_richard_jordan
Post Number: 273
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 07:39 pm: |
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Mel,
I figure the reader has no responsibility to the poem--I mean, no more so than we have to a song on the radio. We like the song or we don't. We like a poem or we don't (or we kind of like it, etc.). But the reader isn't charged with the responsibility of "trying hard" to like or even understand a poem. It's not the reader's job to work at a poem. It's the poet's job to put together a poem in such a way that reader's will want to work at it. Then it's not really "work" for the reader, it's pleasure, it's exploration (of self & the world).
Well, that's one way or looking at it. Give me a while and I could probably argue the opposite case. 
But seriously, when I read a poem, I feel no responsibility to like it, or even appreciate it. If it doesn't speak to me, so be it. It's got to grab me right away. Funny thing is, a poem that didn't grab me when I read it at first may grab me when I read it weeks, months, years later. But it's not like I tried to grab/grasp it in the meantime.
Now if I'm reading a poem in a workshop setting, that's a different story. I will try hard to appreciate a poem even if it doesn't grab me right away. That's because I'm hoping I'll be able to offer feedback that may help the poet. Also, I'm hoping other critters will post crits that make me want to go back and read the poem. That's a workshop, eh?
Rich
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Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 154
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 08:49 pm: |
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Steven
"Sense"
defn. Websters:
Main Entry: 1sense
Pronunciation: \ˈsen(t)s\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French or Latin; Anglo-French sen, sens sensation, feeling, mechanism of perception, meaning, from Latin sensus, from sentire to perceive, feel; perhaps akin to Old High German sinnan to go, strive, Old English sith journey — more at send
Date: 14th century
1 : a meaning conveyed or intended : import, signification; especially : one of a set of meanings a word or phrase may bear especially as segregated in a dictionary entry
2 a : the faculty of perceiving by means of sense organs b : a specialized function or mechanism (as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch) by which an animal receives and responds to external or internal stimuli c : the sensory mechanisms constituting a unit distinct from other functions (as movement or thought)
3 : conscious awareness or rationality —usually used in plural <finally>
4 a : a particular sensation or kind or quality of sensation <a > b : a definite but often vague awareness or impression <felt> <a > c : a motivating awareness <a > d : a discerning awareness and appreciation <her>
5 : consensus <the>
6 a : capacity for effective application of the powers of the mind as a basis for action or response : intelligence b : sound mental capacity and understanding typically marked by shrewdness and practicality; also : agreement with or satisfaction of such power <this>
7 : one of two opposite directions especially of motion (as of a point, line, or surface)
So perhaps...pick one as focal point for this discussion which seems most appropriate to you...OR, pick another word besides sense...perhaps, meaning? \
No, I'm not being a smart-ass I'm trying to find a way to deal with the topic using words we can agree on. |
Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 155
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 08:56 pm: |
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Rich,
I think I agree with you for the most part. appreciation of poetry is most often subjective to what the reader expects/wants from a poem. I guess that's what adds to the general confusion of attempting to write poetry...and to that end, is it the poets responsibility to the reader to give them what they want in regards to aesthetically pleasing poems or is it the poets duty to push the boundaries of thinking beyond a comfortable level or is it to entertain, or is it to share or is it a way of connecting with others...or what is the role of "poet" in regards to creating the poem. Should the poet be mindful of words first, reader second...
meaning first, words second, reader third...
I don't know...could be a different process for each poet and each poem. I guess I'm interested in the process of writing...how other poets approach a poem and what weight of responsibility they feel, or what they consider when writing the poem...
(Message edited by Melanie_l_Huber on March 02, 2010) |
Mike Harrell
New member
Username: Marrell
Post Number: 166
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 09:20 pm: |
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The only poet I know who sees poetry as a duty is K.R. Copeland. Or maybe it's the other way around. |
Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 156
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 09:31 pm: |
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 Oh no, the punning has begun! I'm afraid of where this will go next. Surely this will now descend into a very dark place.
Very funny Mike. Poetry is a duty. And it should not be left to float endlessly in a blue-chemical whirlpool.
Yup...KR has done her duty.
But, I try.
*flush* gurgle gurgle gurgle. |
John Boddie
New member
Username: John_boddie
Post Number: 49
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 09:36 pm: |
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When we write poetry for an audience, we write in ways that we expect will stimulate our readers to regard the scenes, situations or narrative we present in ways that might be unavailable to them until they read what we wrote.
The reader will always build his or her own poem from what we provide, but it's the author's responsibility to provide a useful set of building materials and to lay them out in ways that invite their use.
JB |
Risa Denenberg
New member
Username: Risa_denenberg
Post Number: 79
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 09:42 pm: |
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Mel, thanks for starting the thread. I've been thinking about this too.
Firstly Rich, I'll argue the opposite cause (which you more or less did anyway) to say that the best writing demands a great deal of me (as reader). Take David Foster Wallace, for example, or Toni Morrison. I am willing to work hard to understand (sense?) writers that I trust (more on this below) or at least it feels that way to me--probably because with more 'ordinary' writing, I'm able to read fast and get my fill, and then for some writers I slow down to a crawl to imbibe and digest the words/phrases/sentences-- a meal worthy for its complexity, subtlety, richness, playfulness, sobriety.
Certainly for me, reading poetry (which I've done all my life) remains a difficult endeavor, yet one which I savor because when I am rewarded with the pleasure that is hidden within the words, it is a great pleasure indeed. But it is hard work for me.
Here in the workshop, I sometimes have no idea whether or not a poem is well written and am often swayed by others opinions, reluctant to be "first" to comment. As I 'get to know' poets here over time, I find that I will trust that the poem presented was crafted and worked on and deserving of my attempt to find meaning and pleasure in it. This is the trust factor, if that makes sense. Even among notable poets that I trust to have learned the craft, I like some and do not enjoy others. But I know that if I study their work, I will learn something about poetry. I suppose it is that grey area, when I don't know if the lack is mine or the writer's, where I feel unsettled, even betrayed at times.
Rambling on here. . .
risa
Risa Denenberg
http://open.salon.com/blog/risa_denenberg
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Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 157
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 09:54 pm: |
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Oh Risa---you should never trust the poet! I think some of the best poets do "trick" you into thinking or seeing things a different way (Gertrude Stein, for i.e. or even William Carlos William)
and isn't it great when a poem does leave you unsettled?!!
But I think you make a very valid point. We expect poetry to be truth. Or Truth with a capital "T" so when poets present an un-truth or they make shit up to support a premise it may seem like a betrayal but isn't art built on challenging the preconceived ideas and notions of society?
I think when you approach a poem you should trust your instincts and know that your own individual response is just a valid as the authors intent. The poem becomes a synthesis of reader/writer understanding and (imo) occurs when the reader gleans something from the poem (meaning, a feeling,)
Ramble away...that's what I am doing. |
Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 158
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 10:01 pm: |
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JB
I like the way you compared writing poetry to building. I think that's a wonderful way to put it.
This seems like a very difficult task to live up to though:
We write in ways that we expect will stimulate our readers to regard the scenes, situations or narrative we present in ways that might be unavailable to them until they read what we wrote.
unavailable? But scenes, situations and narratives are everywhere around us and everyone is experiencing this in the weird space we call "reality". Life is a narrative in the sense that most people have conversations with other people and with themselves inside their own mind.
SO how does writing a scene, a narrative, a situation make the scene, the narrative, the situation more available to a person? By capturing the moment? By relating reality through words? |
Stephen Bunch
New member
Username: Stephen_bunch
Post Number: 121
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 02, 2010 - 10:27 pm: |
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I differ from JB, who wrote, "We write in ways that we expect will stimulate our readers to regard the scenes, situations or narrative we present in ways that might be unavailable to them until they read what we wrote." I can speak only for myself, but when I write there is seldom an intent, an expectation of doing anything for a reader. That doesn't mean, I think, a disregard for a reader, but only that the immediate task at hand is to work through a "problem," to test a hypothesis or try to connect some dots that have been rattling around in my brain pan. After that, in the assessment of what has been wrought, and in the revision, comes an awareness of other readers. So for me, the "sense" starts in the process, and then, if I'm lucky, it works its way out.
"Entrapment is this society's sole activity...& only laughter can blow it to rags." (Edward Dorn, Gunslinger, Book III)
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Staff Richard Jordan
Moderator
Username: Staff_richard_jordan
Post Number: 275
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 05:18 am: |
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Hi Risa!
what I meant was that I feel no obligation at the get-go to work hard on reading a poem, if it doesn't grab me. If it grabs me, that's a different story! I'll spend lots of time reading & thinking about poems that grab me in some way, even if their meaning is not clear at first (or ever). I think we're saying the same thing, eh?. By the way, David Foster Wallace's writing is amazing (and his death a terrible loss!)
Rich
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Staff Richard Jordan
Moderator
Username: Staff_richard_jordan
Post Number: 277
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 07:46 am: |
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Mel, you ask:
is it the poets responsibility to the reader to give them what they want in regards to aesthetically pleasing poems or is it the poets duty to push the boundaries of thinking beyond a comfortable level or is it to entertain, or is it to share or is it a way of connecting with others...or what is the role of "poet" in regards to creating the poem. Should the poet be mindful of words first, reader second...
meaning first, words second, reader third...
wish I had definite answers. I guess for me, personally, writing/workshopping/publishing poems is a way to connect with others. I have something I want to say, and I hope it will resonate with at least some other people. Thus, I try to put a poem together in such a way that it will appeal to *experienced* readers of poetry and other poets. That's my primary audience. I believe that experienced readers don't want everything spelled out. They like to experience that A HA! moment after reading & then thinking about the poem a bit; they want something to be stirring below the surface (well, that's what I want when I read a poem, anyway). The hard thing is to put a poem together in such a way that the reader wants to dive below the surface and look around. Having said all that, when I write a poem--when I put the first draft down or the first few drafts down--I don't spend a lot of time thinking about an audience (consciously). That comes later, when I revise, perhaps after some initial feedback.
I don't buy that anyone who workshops his/her poems or submits them for publication doesn't at some point consider a target audience; and I definitely don't believe that such a poet isn't looking to connect with some group of readers. Why else would he/she make his/her poems publicly available otherwise?
I don't think it's a poet's duty to push boundaries, but it is one thing a poet can aim to do.
Let me say also that I don't think a poet has a responsibility, per se, toward the reader. But if the poet does hope to connect with readers, the ball is in his/her court.
Rich
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John Boddie
New member
Username: John_boddie
Post Number: 50
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 08:27 am: |
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I think the poet does have a responsibility to the reader. By placing work before an audience, the poet is asking for the reader's time and attention. I think that this obligates the poet to present the work in good order, and consider the reader's experience - if only to evaluate whether he or she (the poet) is putting forth something that wastes the reader's time.
JB
(Message edited by John_Boddie on March 03, 2010) |
Staff John Riley
Moderator
Username: Staff_john_riley
Post Number: 78
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 12:23 pm: |
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Isn't the challenge any poet faces is to do what he or she wants/needs to do but to also speak to a reader? And central to that is how much the reader should/can be challenged?
I remember in college having a Holy Shit! moment when I realized Frost meant that it didn't matter which road he took. That they both ended up in the same place. Was he obligated to give me more evidence of that truth or was it enough for him to drop a question into my head and to wait for the penny to drop--and to know that the penny won't drop for everyone?
Maybe I was/am wrong in my interpretation--there is a slim chance of that being so--but for argument sake say I'm not. Frost was able to slip that in between the cracks of what appears to be a very conventional poem. So does that mean it is less valid--less "good"--for a poet to more obviously challenge the reader--as say Paul Celan or John Berryman or Gertrude Stein or Marianne Moore does--and to ask you to meet him on the playing field and work for it. Is that a shirking of his/her responsibility to "consider the reader's experience?" Or is it asking the reader to expand his/her experience, and if so, isn't that a challenge that can pay off for the reader in ways he or she has no idea of until they do it.
To use a couple of fiction examples, would "The Sound and the Fury" or "Ulysses" or "Moby Dick" be better novels if they were more easily graspable? If they didn't demand a commitment from the reader?
On the surface all we're doing is moving words around in little spaces. Objectively, it shouldn't be so difficult. So why is it?
John |
Staff Colin Ward
Moderator
Username: Staff_colin_ward
Post Number: 36
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 12:26 pm: |
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quote:John Boddie wrote:
I think the poet does have a responsibility to the reader. By placing work before an audience, the poet is asking for the reader's time and attention. I think that this obligates the poet to present the work in good order, and consider the reader's experience - if only to evaluate whether he or she (the poet) is putting forth something that wastes the reader's time.
Hear! Hear!
[ON SOAPBOX]
IMHO, a writer with no sense of audience has no sense at all. Diary entries? These should be directed at those interested in the tropeless minutia of your life: your family, friends and therapist. Artless "zen" lectures with linebreaks should be surgically targeted at philosophy students and groupies without collateral damage to innocent civilians. Incoherence?
quote:Joan Houlihan wrote:
"I would argue that incoherence in a poem is neither mysterious nor difficult, but just another form of boredom for the reader."
By predating language itself, gibberish may be the original failed aesthetic. Indeed, don't you think that language, of which poetry is the highest expression, was developed to avoid nonsense?
Depth? First, don't throw deep until you're sure there is a receiver in the area. Second, try to be understood too quickly. No one's going to dive into your pool if the surface looks strange. Third, stop trying to "resonate" with those taking the same psychotropic drugs in the same dosage as you; that pool's too small, its occupants too absorbed in their own neuroses.
In short: if you're not writing for an audience why show it to one? Why clutter the page or stage?
[OFF SOAPBOX]
-o- |
Staff John Riley
Moderator
Username: Staff_john_riley
Post Number: 81
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 01:17 pm: |
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What exactly is an artless zen lecture with linebreaks? This?
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16272
I honestly don't know? Does it mean a poem should be instantly accessible? Or is there an allowable time period between reading and understanding?
How do you know if there is a receiver in the area?
John |
Staff Sherry OKeefe
Moderator
Username: Staff_sherry_okeefe
Post Number: 369
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 01:38 pm: |
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"Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood." Eliot
**
My world today is smaller than my world tomorrow. If I only read what I am able or willing to contemplate, my world stays the same. Wait. It shrivels a bit, I think.
As much as I enjoy poetry that already speaks for me and of my world, I am drawn into poetry that is crafted in such a way it beckons me to step closer. In order to do this, I must let go of my own notions and ideas and be willing to step into what the poem hopes to offer me. If the poem is poorly crafted, well that experience might not happen. If the poem is well crafted, but I am unwilling as a reader to consider standing where the N is standing in the poem, well then I may have failed the poem as a reader. A poem that is patient thrills me. Often I need a poem that comes with a long shelf life. Or to use the terms in this thread: one that is throwing deep whether or not I've arrived to catch the pass.
Sherry O'Keefe
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John Boddie
New member
Username: John_boddie
Post Number: 51
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 01:42 pm: |
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John -
I don't know how a poet would go about "challenging the reader" without first considering said reader and the reader's experience.
As to having receivers in the area, we pick the stadiums we try to play in. When you are going to put a piece in a workshop, don't you care which workshop you use?
JB |
Staff John Riley
Moderator
Username: Staff_john_riley
Post Number: 83
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 01:59 pm: |
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John,
Sure I care which workshop. But I don't know how to determine which reader wants to be challenged with what in a workshop such as the Gaz, which has a wide variety of skill level. All you can do is attempt to write the poem to communicate the best you can and hope for the best. (I agree that language poetry, etc. wouldn't fit here, thank God.)
I'd never argue a poem doesn't have to communicate, but that there is a special reward in working to understand some poetry. And for a poet to earn the trust from the reader that it takes for him to be willing to do that work is a measure of the poet's talent and skill.
I'll confess that few of Shakespeare's sonnets are/were immediately accessible to me--ditto for John Donne--but they were certainly worth the work. I'd hope they wouldn't have needed to know if someone had gone deep before they posted them here.
John |
Staff Sherry OKeefe
Moderator
Username: Staff_sherry_okeefe
Post Number: 371
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 02:08 pm: |
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jb-
when i was shopping around for a stadium to play in, i knew i needed a stadium that would help me improve my range. while that asked quite a bit of the Gaz Stadium that i picked, i was hopeful that i could improve because this was such a great stadium. i'm still throwing out some pretty weak poems, but i feel as though i am learning and i feel that my poetry is getting stronger. i can't throw deep yet, but i can hit some grounders that take me to second base (sorry, but i just had to have some fun with mixing up my sports for a moment.)
i've watched some other poets arrive here who have become stronger poets (or quarterbacks) (or batters, as seems to be my case). and i've watched some new members leave as fast as they've arrived once they've realized this was not their stadium.
it seems to me that another part of our ongoing discussion regards when a poet's poem is ready for the world outside this workshop. it's a fascinating topic, i agree.
Sherry O'Keefe
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Lisa Nickerson
New member
Username: Cvillelisa
Post Number: 60
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 02:34 pm: |
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Sherry
Hi. Trying not to get into this discussion because I have vastly different opinions and feel to exhausted to type them -- (I'll simply let the poems I respond to in this stadium speak for me -- as well as I suppose the poems I contribute).
but I'm curious about your statement "when a poet's poem is ready for the world outside this workshop" and what that means. Can you explain?
Lisa |
Staff Colin Ward
Moderator
Username: Staff_colin_ward
Post Number: 37
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 02:34 pm: |
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John:
quote:John Riley asked:
Does it mean a poem should be instantly accessible?
Not just accessible (at some level) but enjoyable and inviting. That invitation includes but is not limited to "depth". Why do you suppose that, knowing the punchline, people won't re-read a joke but will re-read a humourous poem?
quote:John Riley asked:
Or is there an allowable time period between reading and understanding?
To what level of understanding do you refer?
quote:John Riley asked:
How do you know if there is a receiver in the area?
By looking downfield.
-o-
quote:"Triteness is a minor flaw, easily remedied (should nothing else occur to you) by adding a mysterious reference to a goat in the last line."
- Gerard Ian Lewis, 2008-04-05
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Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 159
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 02:47 pm: |
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The idea that a poet can waste the time of a reader is problematic. Although I do believe a writer should write as so NOT to waste anyone's time...a reader can choose to read or not read a poem, how much time a reader invests in any specific poem is a matter of personal choice...we aren't chained here or forced to do scans of meter and beaten daily for errors...
it is a matter of kindness perhaps for a writer to try NOT to waste the readers time and a matter of kindness for a reader to decide to take the time to read.
I don't think there is a "wrong" way or a "right" way to approaching the craft of writing/reading a poem.
...did Dickinson consider her audience? Who was she writing to all those years? No one read her poems when she was alive...what was the point? She lived with little to no feedback (and what feedback she did get was frankly, stupid) and lived in isolation near the end of her days...How is this type of writing different than say
Ol' Walt...the polar opposite of Dickinson who went about from door to door selling Leaves of Grass and doing everything he could to promote himself as a poet and his poetry. He remained unsatisfied with his "audience" most his life.
Perhaps there is a balance in considering who you are writing for and why you are writing in the first place. And perhaps that changes, evolves with each poem written.
so to quote Vonnegut (a fiction writer, true...) But I like what he says...
"Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story [poem] will get pneumonia."
Or one of a myriad of other unsettling diseases.
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Staff John Riley
Moderator
Username: Staff_john_riley
Post Number: 84
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 03:07 pm: |
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Colin,
With all due respect, to say look down the field is avoiding the question. Television writers and mystery and romance novelist need to size up their audience, to determine how far down the field a receiver is, I suppose. But, IMHO, a poet who does so is showing contempt for his audience.
But the joke is talking about audience at all. Poets today are free of the need to consider it. This started as a discussion of the workshop, I think. Who frequents this or other workshops? General readers? An audience?
We write for each other.
Goats have to be fed. (How's that for avoiding triteness?)
Best,
John |
Staff Sherry OKeefe
Moderator
Username: Staff_sherry_okeefe
Post Number: 372
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 03:19 pm: |
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hi lisa,
what i meant was this: the reason i workshop a poem is because something i am trying to say is not quite coming through the poem. i get to where i can't figure out where the snag is. if i workshop the poem, i am able to distance myself from the poem and see what i hadn't been able to see before via the responses from others. as an example, some time ago i was working on a poem about a woman trying to sort something out inside herself. she stood at a stone wall, listening to the bells on the sheep bonging and bonging. as the poem concludes, she tightened her shawl and resolved to return to her hearth. but you know what, something in the poem felt tense and out of synch. in workshopping the poem, two members suggested that the woman in the poem might consider approaching life with an open shawl, not a tighter shawl. ah! this was not only what i was missing in the poem, but also in my own life. loosening the shawl made all the difference to me. not because it might receive a better audience someday (a la publishing), but because the journey in the poem came full circle with the realization that the loosened shawl was what the woman in the poem was trying to locate.
maybe this doesn't answer what you were asking, as i also have a hard time participating in these discussions. it's hard to talk generalities with specifics and the literal lucy that i am, well i can easily muck up anything!
Sherry O'Keefe
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Lisa Nickerson
New member
Username: Cvillelisa
Post Number: 61
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 03:28 pm: |
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Thank you John --
I don't really know what the "audience" is for poetry these days is either -- mostly I suspect it is those in the workshops we participate in.
And I often think how much bleaker my life would be if I didn't have the opportunity to read the poems posted in all the different workshops I frequent by people who never publish outside of the workshops or those poems that never make it outside the stadium.
Thanks for your comment.
Lisa |
Staff Richard Jordan
Moderator
Username: Staff_richard_jordan
Post Number: 290
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 03:33 pm: |
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Then there's what Grace Paley said about a poet's responsibility; see:
http://blog.masslive.com/valleypoetry/2007/05/the_poets_responsibility.html
and scroll down to the poem
perhaps it's off topic, perhaps not, but I like and I agree with the "responsibility" she closes with:
...be listened to...
and I see, implicit in that, a responsibility to make the "reader" want to listen to the poem (which is what I think I was trying to get at in my previous posts), which seems to assume the existence of an audience, and so on and so on...
Rich
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Lisa Nickerson
New member
Username: Cvillelisa
Post Number: 62
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 03:37 pm: |
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Hey Sherry
I know what you mean about participating in the discussions. I really meant it when I said I get exhausted sometimes just trying to contemplate a response.
I come from a much more unsure -- spongy place, with regard to definitions and decisions about poetry and art, as soon as someone (even myself) feels there is a hard and fast answer or "right" opinion --they seem to slip away from me like mercury or they prove absolutely wrong or fade away as I try to grab it.
Mostly I was just wondering about a poem's value. The old question -- is it worth more inside the stadium than it is being sold on the street outside?
You know -- VanGogh, while alive, never sold a painting for more than 28 dollars stuff.
Thanks for your reply!
Lis. |
Staff Sherry OKeefe
Moderator
Username: Staff_sherry_okeefe
Post Number: 375
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 03:46 pm: |
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lisa,
you brought a smile to me.. that bit you wrote about the sponge speaks for me. that old question of worth, oh yeah boy. do we write for the end product (and what is the end product and who gets to define it) or do we write because of the process? i know my answer on that (process).
to even talk of value makes me wanna scrounge around under my bed for my soapbox...but then i realize that i just am not cut out for soapboxing. i so enjoyed your comment about "is it worth more inside the stadium than it is being sold on the street outside?" somewhere is an essay by barbara kingsolver in a book, on a bookshelf in my bedroom. she talks about the reader/writer union. i'll track that down and figure out a way to share it with you.
good to hear from you,
sherry
(Message edited by Staff_Sherry_OKeefe on March 03, 2010)
Sherry O'Keefe
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Lisa Nickerson
New member
Username: Cvillelisa
Post Number: 63
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 04:12 pm: |
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Sherry
I'll look for you to get that to me.
I have always believed that all this reaching and striving we do is an attempt to be in communion - reader/writer. And we can measure what small amount of "success" that goes along with this gig (poems) if that communion is achieved.
And for me - in these workshops -- being able to tell a poet they've achieved that with me, the reader -- or if I'm lucky -- be told I've reached a reader is invaluable and makes all the struggle worthwhile.
Lisa |
Staff Colin Ward
Moderator
Username: Staff_colin_ward
Post Number: 38
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 06:35 pm: |
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John:
quote:John Riley wrote:
With all due respect, to say look down the field is avoiding the question. Television writers and mystery and romance novelist need to size up their audience, to determine how far down the field a receiver is, I suppose. But, IMHO, a poet who does so is showing contempt for his audience.
Just to be clear: "look downfield" doesn't translate to "look down on your audience"; it means "have an intended audience in mind, know where its tastes/interests are situated, and target it with poetry instead of prose" or, more succinctly, "know your audience". That shows respect for the audience. The way to show contempt would be to intentionally bore them or, I suppose, to recite bawdy limericks at a funeral.
quote:John Riley wrote:
But the joke is talking about audience at all. Poets today are free of the need to consider it.
quote:"Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people."
- Adrian Mitchell
-o- |
Melanie L Huber
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Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 163
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 07:06 pm: |
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As to the concern of there being an actual "audience" out there, or here, or anywhere. There are hundreds and thousands of small press publications gathering local poets and many local poets reading in local venues.
Online workshops, college courses, ect. ect. indicate that there is a desire for poetry (or is it just the thrill of publication?) For some...it might be about publication, but for most I think it's about something else...
On a national level it might seem poetry is not getting any attention or whatever, but there are lots and lots of people "listening" and writing and reading poetry right now.
What is the quality of work being written and performed? I don't know. Perhaps the sharing of is what makes something worthwhile or not...
OR Perhaps it is just other poets reading poetry, but I'm not sure this matters much either. Frost made a comment about poetry (paraphrasing) saying that a poem which "lasts" is a poem which connects to the reader the moment the reader is reading the poem.
Pretty much what Lisa and Sherri were talking about...the poems "value" has to do with what the reader takes from the poem...and can't be defined and if you try to define it, well it's a round and round and round type of thing that gets you no where.
which brings everything back to ones subjective preferences and so on and so on... A writer should write for a reader, of course...to some degree but I think we also write to understand, explore, come to terms with this horrible, crazy, wonderful, damned, glorious, world. |
Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 164
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 07:07 pm: |
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PS
Poetry as communion is an interesting approach Sherri, it would be wonderful if you could expand on that and share the essay somewhere where the rest of us could enjoy it too. |
Staff John Riley
Moderator
Username: Staff_john_riley
Post Number: 87
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 07:42 pm: |
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Lisa & Sherry,
I hoped to make the point there are no rules on what audience to reach and how to reach them. Poetry one person finds accessible/interesting will baffle/bore another--and back at you. I no doubt wasted too many words trying to make that point. Silly, huh, to argue about how you don't have a strong enough opinion to argue about--to say you have no idea of how to predict what a reader will or should want.
Best,
John |
Stephen Bunch
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Username: Stephen_bunch
Post Number: 123
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 03, 2010 - 08:19 pm: |
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Poetry is a commodity that has been monetized by MFA programs. Supply exceeds demand by a huge factor. All that remains is intrinsic value, for which the audience is, I suspect, exceedingly small.
"Entrapment is this society's sole activity...& only laughter can blow it to rags." (Edward Dorn, Gunslinger, Book III)
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Staff Sherry OKeefe
Moderator
Username: Staff_sherry_okeefe
Post Number: 385
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2010 - 01:41 pm: |
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lisa,
i brought that book to work with me today: High Tides in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver. (a book of her earlier essays). In the essay "Careful What You Let Into the Door" she writes about writing novels.
"..I don't consider a novel to be a purely recreational vehicle. I think of it as an outlet for my despair, my delight, my considered opinions, and all the things that strike me as absolute and essential, worked out in words. When I wrote in my secret yellow notebook, it was not for other people..It's my principal way of becoming reassured I'm alive..
Art is entertainment but it's also celebration, condolence, exploration, duty and communion. The artistic consummation of a novel is created by the author and reader together, in an act of joint imagination.."
and this: "I didn't realize that it's emotion, not event, that creates a dynamic response in the mind of a reader. The artist's job is to sink a taproot in the reader's brain that will grow downward and find a path into the reader's soul and experience, so that some new emotional infloresence will grow out of it."
i want to be careful not to take her words out of context, and i want to also state that the entire book of essays touches on art, creation, science, earth, writing. it's been years since i've read the book and now that i've found it i am reading it again.
Sherry O'Keefe
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Lisa Nickerson
New member
Username: Cvillelisa
Post Number: 65
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2010 - 03:09 pm: |
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Sherry --
"artist's job is to sink a taproot in the reader's brain...."
Yes! Thank you for sharing that -- I didn't know Ms. Kingsolver had a book of essays! I just loved The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven. And it was delightful to find my son, so many years after my discovery of her, reading Poisonwood Bible as one of his summer reading requirements in high school.
Thanks again. Good stuff.
Lisa |
Staff Sherry OKeefe
Moderator
Username: Staff_sherry_okeefe
Post Number: 386
Registered: 12-2009
| | Posted on Thursday, March 04, 2010 - 03:28 pm: |
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lisa-
i haven't read her most recent work (seems i can't finish a book lately, but i always have at least five i am reading at once.) her background is actually in science (first), but she was compelled to write. yeah, bean trees— i think i own about 4 copies because i tutored my son through junior english with that book. i believe that she has at least three books of essays out now. high tides in tucson is my favorite.
taproot.
sherry
Sherry O'Keefe
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Patricia Wallace Jones
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Username: Pat_jones
Post Number: 71
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2010 - 02:13 am: |
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I've been following this thread because of its title..."Conceptual Art, Yes, Conceptual Poetry, No" thinking I'd find a discussion about visual art and poetry, all art forms for that matter..why some think conceptual is fine for some arts but not for poetry...and why that would be...but, I haven't found that promised discussion here so far, alas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art
“ In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. ”
—Sol LeWitt
Pat
(Message edited by pat_jones on March 05, 2010)
(Message edited by pat_jones on March 05, 2010) |
Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 181
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2010 - 06:31 am: |
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Thanks Pat!
Glad you brought us back around, it seems before any discussion on specifics like conceptual (or perhaps, the process/execution of creation) vs. product (the creation itself) can be delved we tend to digress into purpose, meaning, reasons behind why we are writing poetry in the first place and is any one approach more accurate than others. There have been some good points raised concerning approach...
But let's talk conceptual art. Duchamp's upside down toilet comes to mind or Warhol's soap boxes, and the dadas. The idea represented behind these works of "art" (And instead of debating if they were or were not art, this is supposing that conceptual art IS art...)
The visual artist took an actual/usually every day object and simply placed it in a new way in a new setting so it was the context which was most important in determining how the artist wanted the object to be viewed.
In poetry we use words to paint pictures, and although we aren't placing an actual object in/on/or around a new place, I think conceptual art can be used in poetry when one considers the context of the words and how they are presented.
Some call this LANGUAGE poetry...but I don't think so. Some might call it LIST poems...but I don't think that's quite it either.
When a poet presents images (hopefully the reader can SEE the images) the way these images are placed inside the poem can indicate how the author wishes those images to be seen. So what becomes most important in the conceptual poem isn't the language so much as the imagery.
Sometimes it might seem like a random bunch of nonsense, strange associations of words/images that the reader must piece together like a puzzle...but I don't think that is quite it either. There is usually a thread (however thin) within the concept of the poem which ties each image (even seemingly random images) in the context of the poem together.
Here form, line, and poetic technique probably take the back seat to symbolism...but that doesn't mean they aren't to be used but just that they are not absolute or the most important aspect of the conceptual poem.
I'm also thinking of Newspaper black out poems, or "found poetry."
How do you "find" a poem?
Just one of the many modes I've seen used is to
make use of an i-pod. Randomly shuffle and write the first line of the first ten songs that play.
Another...turning the television stations randomly and writing the first few words/ or a sentence in the conversations occurring.
Yet another...
a VISUAL poem. All concept, no words. How can this be? Specific objects arranged in a pattern mimicking that of iambics or different pictures placed in a way which tells a story. (some would say this is blending the visual art with language arts too much, but I've seen it done.)
Also there are trends to blend the visual arts with language arts in which the artists places a word within the structure of the painting the painting illuminates the word, the word illuminates the painting.
Now, why is conceptual poetry so much more difficult to accept than visual art?
Words/words/words
We've the weight of the poetic history insisting that some things are and some things are not poetry.
Words...if the right words aren't used, and not just the right words...but the perfect words in the right order, then the structure (construction) of the concept fails. Is it up to the author to make sure the reader has enough clues within the text itself to make the construction work?
Welllll....
I don't think so.
If I can find some actual examples of conceptual poetry I'll try to post. One of the visual poems I saw was a xerox of different rows, lengths of cheerios. Another was b/w photographs of images with words.
Another example, besides found poetry, is formula poetry. Blending math/poetry by using some of the structures in math and applying them to a words.
The end product of these experiments in poetry were amazing...but, unlike the Wikipedia defn. of above in some cases the end product was a total surprise and the words took on a strange meaning which came out of the process. The "meaning" or "sense" did not always, in these cases, come from the vision of the author...the author was a participant in the creation of something new...
(Message edited by Melanie_l_Huber on March 05, 2010) |
Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 182
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2010 - 06:56 am: |
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For fun...
Random shuffle i-pod poem:
First line of ten or so songs on my i-pod:
and I would do anything for love,run right into hell and back
come thou font of every blessing tune my heart to sing thy praise
I wake up every evening with a big smile on my face
what grew? what grew? and what grew? and inside who?
i've been lonely, i've been waiting for you
i've met some folks who say I'm a dreamer
in the morning when i rise, in the morning
when i rise, in the morning when i rise
give me jesus.
the dawn is breaking a light shining through
beautiful savior, king of creation,
take a photograph it'll be the last
what day is it?
***BUT****
IS it poetry? yes, no? Thoughts? |
Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 183
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2010 - 07:10 am: |
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A note...the execution or process in the above poem (not poem) was the point rather than the end product.
Not all conceptual art/ or poetry for that matter has to be based on process, such as above...for the imagery/symbolic type of poetry this "process" approach would not be the same. |
John Boddie
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Username: John_boddie
Post Number: 54
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2010 - 04:05 pm: |
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Re: "A note...the execution or process in the above poem (not poem) was the point rather than the end product. "
And how is the process communicated to the reader? It seems to be that this sort of conceptual approach drives inexorably to either Dada or "found poetry." (or a combination of the two).
JB |
Melanie L Huber
New member
Username: Melanie_l_huber
Post Number: 189
Registered: 01-2010
| | Posted on Friday, March 05, 2010 - 10:16 pm: |
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Hey JB,
Thanks for chiming in...
I think the topic is very interesting.
It depends on the presentation maybe.
Yes, the above example could be fairly classified into the category of found poetry. Depn. on how you want to define "found poetry." Found poetry does have conceptual aspects to it.
Perhaps found poetry (or most found poetry) is very slightly different in the conceptualization in that it usually deals with a written, visual text, from a newspaper or other non-literary type of technical writing. Or in other words, any place you wouldn't expect to find poetic writing and you discover it and take it out of the context it is in and put it in another context.
But, found poetry can also be graffiti, or first sentences in books pieced together or last sentences and and and...
As for the integrity or lasting power of such writing...I don't know, honestly, if it is much more than a passing fad.
The above experiment is slightly different from your usual "found poetry" as it was related to an auditory experience, sounds. (Which can be further conceptualized to the extreme)... like with Jabber-wockey. I'd call that poem a conceptual poem as there were no words which made any logical intellectual sense, but the sounds and the sentence structures related a certain "sense" or emotional evocation.
As to found poetry:
It's the arrangement of the words and the decision in presenting the form, grammar, line breaks...ect which gets the poem into a conceptual process perhaps.
And you could say
Poet would be more of an "editor" than a poet in those cases. I'm not claiming to be an expert on this subject, to be certain! AND you can make a good argument that the above is not a poem at all.
Jabber-wocky (oh I'm prob. spelling that wrong but you probably know what I mean) is also different than above because the sounds/words/meaning originated in the author's mind. The poet knew what he meant to say and said it.
Conceptualized poetry is hard to put a perimeter on, because yes, how is the process communicated to the reader? That's the thing.
It often isn't...
The wikipedia defn. of conceptualized art is a bit limited. There are some conceptualized artforms in which a set of instructions/directions are not all that is needed to produce an end result.
And the problem too comes with how we look at the creative process...the product/process thing.
Oh well, I can ramble on but probably lost everybody after the first paragraph! |
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