The Nature of Poetry and Criticism.
AngelPie_Mouse
Apr 28 1999 10:27PM EDT
The following is a synthesis of many years of thought and study, a personal opinion, originally posted in several parts.
The Nature of Poetry and Criticism.
Poetry. Poetry is a means of self-expression (expression meaning to communicate). Many poets adopt the Joyce-ian method, allowing their work to be a free flow of words in train of thought progression. There is nothing wrong with this approach. Indeed, it is this sort of pouring forth from the heart and mind from which we often gain insight into what we wish to communicate. However, communication is key to the creative endeavor. If the words we put on paper speak only to ourselves, if there is no collaboration or consideration of an audience, then what we are writing is no longer literature, no longer poetry.
The word "poem" derives from the ancient Celtic word for "making," that is: a thing created and crafted. The genre derives from a pre-literate period and was created in order to recall and communicate succinctly historical and cultural information, as a means of remembering family lineage, theology, and other pertinent data and as an entertainment. This fact appears to be universally true across all cultures regardless of the name given the genre. It was also frequently used for psychological purposes in the form of "the battle taunt" to psyche-up one's allies and out-psyche one's enemy (modern practitioners of rap and slam might be surprised to learn that the roots of their art are very ancient indeed). During the age of the troubadour (the late Middle Ages in Europe), the form grew to include the romantic ballad and love song, out of which grew the more studied forms of the Italian and English Renaissance. Always, however, whether lyrical or free verse, the essence of the thing was to communicate, which inherently includes two entities: the communicator and an audience.
The Audience. The first member of the audience is the poet. Writing, no matter the genre, is always a recursive process, by which is meant that one continues to go back over the writing, reviewing and editing during the creation of the work. This process is not merely a matter of inserting commas and punctuation, correcting spelling, but includes following the logic and sense of the thing, making word choices. For most writers, to use a film metaphor, ninety percent of the material written remains on the cutting room floor. The remaining work--and make no mistake, it is work--is never considered finished because as long as the writer lives, he remains a member of his or her audience, a critic of the work. Believe it or not, this fact is true of all art forms whether physical (e.g.: painting, sculpting, quilting, architecture, film) or written.
The reader brings to an experience of the creative process something which is termed in literature as "baggage." Baggage includes many factors, e.g.: education and literacy, personal experience, cultural identity, experience of other writings, present mood and receptivity, the environment in which he or she is reading the work, the medium in which the work is presented. It is important that the writer anticipate some of these factors, that he or she know the audience or least know to whom he or she wishes to communicate. No one will ever experience a poem exactly as the writer intended when creating it. Not even the writer experiences his or her own work the same through time. However, every word chosen represents an assumption of common understanding. The only excuse for deliberate obscurity is if one is attempting to limit the audience.
Criticism. Many people believe that the academic process of studying and creating poetry leads to a false patent manner of writing, reflective more of the personality of the instructor than of the writer. However, academic environments, as most experience them, tend more on the order of workshops, where independent work is presented for critical review. That is: these classes provide the writer with an audience to feedback, to evaluate whether the work is communicating what he or she was attempting to say. It doesn't mean the audience is infallible, but a consensus of opinion can at least inform one if on the right track, where troubling phrases are, and sometimes provide insight toward better word choices that eluded the writer previously in specific works and help the writer grow and develop a voice of his own by developing an appreciation for the audience to whom he or she wishes to communicate. Our poetry chat, while on the Internet, can potentially be that sort of creative environment, a workshop.
Being a Good Critic. Reading poetry, reading someone else's work helps us learn to evaluate our own work more keenly. It is not a matter of trying to emulate another author. The voice we use to create our own work can only ever be our own voice or we cease to be poets and become mimics. Reading other poets is rather a matter of learning what communicates to us and by extrapolation what works for others. That is: we read other poets to help us develop a sense of an audience. Our audience may differ greatly from the audience the writer we are reading may have been aiming for, or it may be the same. The choice is up to us. But to be a good critic one needs to go beyond the simple acknowledgement that "it's a poem" and look at the individual parts. What in this structure tells me this is poetry? What in this phrasing is leading me to a better wisdom or entertaining me or eliciting an emotional response? We aren't looking for the moments where the work falls apart so that we may ridicule, but if there are such moments, we need to ask why.
End for now...debate hoped for.
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