What good is a poet without vulnerability? None, in my opinion. Therefore we all have to learn to turn our vulnerability on and off in order to receive critiques more objectively. Some of us don't do that as well as others, and I would think that all poets should know that out of some professional practice of empathy.
Yes, many of us do want our audiences to "collapse in awe," Richard, at least at times. Well said. And here, where we have an audience of alleged poets, we also hope for attempts at understanding the poems we post. Hence the existence of some degree of vulnerability.
Yet we're adults and have had to survive in a culture in which poets are not highly valued. We've all done this in an enormous variety of ways. We know the audience is not about to "collapse in awe" unless we're really on a roll and that is rare indeed. As poets, however, we could hope to empathize with the need for other poets to retain a degree of vulnerability in order to write anything that's not claptrap.
Richard, I would appreciate some elaboration on "how to read your readers." I've had to guess at the meaning.
Terese
|