I am not, in any way, in an aggressive disposition . . . mocking, or perhaps smirking, yes. Not aggressive.
Understand, poetry can be incredibly intellectual, as the imagists have proven. However, when the whole purpose of the poem is intellectual flare, without anything to ground it, poetry becomes mere scientific/mythological/specialist rhetoric, without any connection to the audience. I will say it again - poetry depends upon the existence and attention of the audience. Poetry has always been an interactive artform, ever since its spoken origins. The poet is a member of the culture as a whole, not some peacock mouthpiece for the intellectual elite. No matter how sophisticated the lingo or the rung of society the poet comes from, there must be connection, a discernable direction and idea that everyone can latch on to, even when the audience cant make the conscious latch. How many people really understand what the fuck T.S. Eliot is saying in "The Waste Land?" Very few outside of the upper echileons of literary academia. Yet he remains one of America's most popular poets. Why? He made the connection with the common reader - the emotion and the imagination never become overwhelmed by the terminology. Joyce is another example - Finnegans Wake is the most abstract and incomprehensive piece of literature ever created, yet it endures, it continues to attract people, because it evokes some kind of response, it pulls the audience in some kind of direction (and is one of the rare examples of infinite possibility).
You fail to make that connection. Prattle on about "instructions" to your poem all you want . . . but if your explanation is bigger than your poem, you have failed. I challenge you to sum up what you are saying in the fucking thing - not a word for word analyis, but an overall connection. It isnt there. You are wasting your time defending it, so please DO NOT RESPOND. Nice chatting with you.
Originally Posted by DALC
