Robert Peake considers his own biases in What I look for in a poem
There are certain ways that a poem can signal to me that, out of respect for so many others awaiting my attention, it is now time to move on.
What a nice way to put that. And poets “pressing antique language and elevated diction back into service.” (I personally blame online dictionaries in part that list words marked obsolete in the 1913 Websters. ;))
Good to consider what puts up one’s guard, makes one distrust the poem, the experience. What will put you off? What are you a sucker for? What is a useful stretch? What is a stretch of habit for what you like which is no longer a stretch but a rut?
He remarks on liking a poet who can “come alive to one’s senses in the telling of the tale, setting of the scene, or painting of the impression” instead of doing “conceptual shorthand”.
If a poem draws you in or if you feel shut out with not enough to go on, the reader is still the one responsible for exiting the poem or extending self into it, despite warning bells or because of siren calls.
It makes sense to read what nourishes, a mix of what is fast and slow to digest, slipping in things that you haven’t developed a taste for along with things you know you love.
Knowing what you are responding to and why is good practice as reader, editor or writer.
On another note, my favorite of the the first 3 weeks of Rosemary Nissen-Wade’s Poem a Day challenge of her revisiting her memories of Bali, Crossing Points, Pro, Looking for Us, Homeward, Differences.
if the hyper-articulation is putting on airs, i trust
it more than if it’s stuffed in for show….i get a kick
out of the airs of they are consistent..
but..yeah, if the diction passes out of the range
of most educated people, it’s all a waste..
exceptions made for special words that do the job
like no other.
one thing that is hard to take is an inauthentic
‘sticking thoughts into other people’s heads’, like
you would see in a polemic rant….arghh..
or stuffing words.. there is a difference between
mythology and lies…in what rings true.
everyone’s bliss-hunting but bliss has a lot of species.
a superficial measure of what’s likely to be a home territory of what you like is a starting point. it doesn’t matter the style for content except when the audience is unwilling to listen. it can be prosaically grammared but transcendent or unsurprising. It can be torquing the conceptual but transcendent or all unsurprising. likewise jargon can work or not. excellent in species is in the crosshairs.
what scratches ones itch, to articulate that, be aware of that is useful to find or make your sweet spot of pleasure, refine to gratify what amuses most.
to label good or bad or effective or ineffective to open-ended ends isn’t terribly useful, except as a shorthand to say, I like, I hear, I feel, I find interesting. assessing the value of another’s communication with little placards ranking like figure skating seems a tad absurd, and unavoidable which only adds to absurdity.
to debate what is Good Poetry is wind chasing wind.
Maybe I’m being counterproductive. “There is no real, only the perceived” is a paradoxical box that impedes like “write what you know, and, oh by the way, nothing is knowable” http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3731
thus condemning one to silence that pents up all that one doesn’t know because of the rules of engagement. by its structure it would by necessity keep everyone apprenticed and allow no masters nor real discussion.
one can’t help but like what one does. to extend that to generalizations that what one doesn’t like is inherently unlikeable is a bit nonsensical.
critical thought, even in stated in temporary absolutes, is useful as a process even if not as an end point.
what is a useful question?
what does our critical discourse look like?
http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/15-1/mcgregorcda.html
what underpins it? is it about what it says it is? is it inflammatory, defamatory or seeking story? where are the locked doors and the openings? why are they there?
I can’t answer a thicket of questions 🙂 Just
peck at it, I guess.
I think of it like art in general…what it does counts,
and hopefully it has a lot of flavors and does a lot
of different things.
“only the perceived” can’t be 100% true because
without calibrated common perceptions we
can’t even communicate. People don’t like
partway points though. Well, life is complicated.
Too late.
“Write what you know” probably works for
a lot of writers. Seems to blot out explorers, though.
A foot in the known and a foot in the dark is nice…
…
So much critique seems to work fine but only
around a singular locus. I believe we can ring
in many quanta, different but self-consistent
states. Even the fictional ones.
Some have to pick a camp to simplify,
but others don’t have to live there.
Not sure what else to say. It’s all thought travel
to me.