I'm a late-comer to this thread, but I find Robert Mezey's last suggestion intriguing. What could be a more difficult combination than precise and tactful?
At the risk of being neither, I would like to venture a comment for Bob Clawson. You have posted a number of pieces on the site, Bob, and I have seen some elsewhere, so perhaps I have some sense of your style. You say I'm always surprised when readers find my work "difficult."
Given your penchant for plain speech, it is understandable that such reactions would puzzle you; yet I do not find them entirely surprising. Perhaps these readers are stymied by the abrupt way in which you sometimes juxtapose details. I suppose you expect inferences to be drawn from your juxtapositions, but sometimes you may be expecting too much. Selection of detail is a very tricky business, and what gets left out of a poem is often as important as what goes in. Extraneous or superfluous details can be wearisome and distracting. Vital but absent details can be puzzling and frustrating.
I offer this observation with sympathy and hesitancy. It is always difficult to guess the effects of verse (or critiques) on readers.
Alan Sullivan
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