Poetic This!

[heidi52]

I’m starting this thread in the hopes of giving the poets, and anyone interested in poetry, a place to come and discuss anything and everything having to do with poetry.

Want to talk about form, what you like what you don’t? How about rhymes and what you think of them? Feel free to bring up any topic, ask any question, and post your own opinions. All I ask is that we keep it civil.

I’m going to start the discussion with something that comes up frequently. Is it wrong to offer an explanation for our poems? We all know that people interpret what we write through their own internal filter and often a reader’s interpretation can be vastly different from the poet’s original intention.

So, how important is it for you, as a poet, for people to understand your poem? On the same token when you read poetry, how important is it for you to understand the poem?
 
And, if an explanation is either included originally or given later how do you feel about that?

[duck]

Hi heidi
Then let me quickly add a comment. For me it is absolutely unimportant if the reader understands what I understand. I am happy if they do understand that the poem expresses something and I love it to have the various interpretations the readers may have. At the same time if the poem seems to make little or no sense this just wastes time. nor do I see the point in a reader rejecting a sense the poem has because they are unable themselves to grasp it or don't like it. there is a tendency to believe the reader must be right if she/he does not understand.
Duck

[heidi52]

I don't think any of it is a question of right or wrong.

If a reader doesn't understand something, they aren't doing it deliberately. And you certainly can't write to the lowest common denominator. But how else does a reader decide if they like or don't? Or do you feel poetry as art s/b just accepted and not judged at all?

is the main goal of your poems to impart a just a 'sense' and not a concrete image?

[Amie]

Generally, I think an explanation should not be required to enjoy the poem - and if it is, then the author should publish the explanation along with the poem. Since that tends not to happen, I think it follows that if the poem isn't enjoyable without an explanation, and an explanation won't be available when it is finally ready, then something is missing....

[midnight candle]

i'd agree about the explanation. i like it when a reader has a totally different interpretation from the one i intended. so rather than give an explanation, i agree with amie that something is not working in the first place.

[Tom 10]

This is a great idea Heidi, thanks for launching it.  And you’ve started it off with quite a topic, or series of topics.  I’m going to have to put in my two cents a little at a time.

How much explanation should be shared when discussing a poem with folks who read and review is a big topic. 

A small part of the topic is the matter of what explanation should accompany the original posting of a poem.  I say none, nothing, nada – a writer should never include a preamble or introduction with the initial posting of a poem.   That pollutes the neutral frame of mind for the first reading.  A reader needs to have a clean slate.  If you want me approach the poem without any preconceptions, don’t tell me you just got dumped by the three-week love of your life, or that you are so deeply in love your eyes are swimming backwards, or you wrote this twenty years ago.  Don’t tell me you’ve posted the poem three times before or that its been published twice.  And especially don’t tell me you don’t care much about the poem or you just whipped it out of nowhere in 5 minutes.  If you don’t care about it, I won’t, and if you spent 5 minutes writing it, I’ll be damned if I’m spending more reviewing it.

And finally, don’t say this is your first poem, or that you are new or the mind-numbing “I’m not a poet.”   You wrote and posted a poem – that’s an act of courage.  Don’t back-pedal on it.   

Proviso: if there is some particularized situation, local custom, special jargon or something like that of which you are pretty certain the reader will be unaware, then it might be fair to consider a footnote type informatory entry- brief and concise. Still, it will color in some way the first impression of readers so do it only sparingly.

Back soon with more. 

[Vienna]

well I was like broken-hearted when I like wrote this lurv poem to my ex (the b*s*a*d) and I like wrote  it in like about like 5 minutes............

no personally I don't think this kind of "explanation" before a poem is neccessary.................

[Tom 10]

It kills a fair reading, right?

[cmb]

I think, if a poem needs an explanation, it needs to be revised. Or binned - depending on how good/bad it was to begin with.

Sure, I don't mind if my readers don't understand exactly what I mean, or maybe even interpret my poem completely different from how I intended it to be. But it has to make sense to my readers of I haven't done my job.

It's that simple. And that hard.

[midnight candle]

I think, if a poem needs an explanation, it needs to be revised. Or binned - depending on how good/bad it was to begin with.

Sure, I don't mind if my readers don't understand exactly what I mean, or maybe even interpret my poem completely different from how I intended it to be. But it has to make sense to my readers of I haven't done my job.

It's that simple. And that hard.

i remember a poem of yours that had so many things in it that i didn't understand, so i googled for info. for me that was entertaining and made the poem understandable. if you'd have told me, i may have just passed it by. so the fruits of research were rewarding.

[Tom 10]

That's certainly a point, Candle -- what kind of knowledge base should the writer assume of his reader?  What is fair?  How much research by the reader should be expected as a matter of course?

[cmb]

i remember a poem of yours that had so many things in it that i didn't understand, so i googled for info. for me that was entertaining and made the poem understandable. if you'd have told me, i may have just passed it by. so the fruits of research were rewarding.

Thanks, MC. 
I'm glad your research was rewarding.

Having said that, I think that is a bit of a flaw of mine. I tend to write about things that pretty uncommon. Mental illness, medical stuff, other shit that most ordinary people don't encounter on a daily basis, and I tend to forget that most of my readers don't have that kind of knowledge that I think is common - but really isn't.

[Mark T]

Sometimes the right title can help to put a complex piece in context upfront. Poems with blurb - I usually just pass without reading or maybe skim. MWC is readership based so there is a responsibility not to write and post here while doing LSD but no matter how carefully crafted, each reader will take something a little different out of it and some won't understand all of it. It's word-graffitti, ponder or hurry on by.    

[Vienna]

If we all got the same meaning from the same piece of writing, it would be quite boring, don't you think? Wouldn't be anything to discuss.........

[Tom 10]

If we all got the same meaning from the same piece of writing, it would be quite boring, don't you think? Wouldn't be anything to discuss.........

It would be like. . . prose