Quote:
|
Sometimes minor flaws can even enhance a poem.
|
Nash, flaws are certainly forgivable, and inevitable, as poets (the ones I know anyway) are merely mortals. But I don't see how flaws, minor or otherwise, might "enhance" a poem, unless you consider near-perfection to be somehow suspect.
One can be put off by poems which
appear too polished. I would imagine though, that in such cases either one is correct, and the poems are too surface-slick for their own good (in other words flawed), or one is too easily intimidated by a well-constructed poem.
Of course, if you're religious you might consider near-perfection to be an insult to your god. Derek Mahon put this case beautifully in his poem 'Lives':
The time that I liked
Best was when
I was a bump of clay
In a Navaho rug,
Put there to mitigate
The too god-like
Perfection of that
Merely human artifact...
[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited July 14, 2005).]