[Nick McRae]

Here are the beginnings of a conversation that started in the non-metrical forum. Hilary suggested bringing it to general discussions and I thought that'd make for an interesting topic so here it is.

Is the purpose of poetry and more broadly, art, to affect those consuming it? I'll leave it at that, and leave the floor open.

Edit: I'd originally titled the thread 'the purpose of creating art' but I think the conversation is more along the lines of the purpose of art itself. Which is a subtle distinction.

Originally Posted by Nick McRae

It's not so much that I think you're ignoring the advice you've been given, but based on a few of your comments you seem to be happy with the writing style you've grown into. What I'm saying is that, if so, there's nothing wrong with that. What you do with your writing is your call.

There are a lot of great poets here, and they've given you good advice, but in another light there isn't really a right way to write poetry. It can be tempting to follow all of the different leads and threads of advice and through that all lose sight of who you are as a writer, and what you personally want to say with poetry / how you want to say it.

But if your hope is to transform your style into something that's going to thrill readers, family, or whoever, then a lot of the feedback you've been given is very good and worth studying.

Originally Posted by Hilary Biehl

Personally, my goal in writing poetry has never been to "thrill readers, family, or whoever" ... I am well-aware that many poetry readers and editors don't like what I write, and the vast majority of the general literate public doesn't care one way or the other. So I don't like the idea that the feedback we give is only valuable if one wants to "thrill readers". Actually if you want to thrill readers I am probably the last person to ask and a serious poetry forum is probably just not a good place to ask in general ....

Originally Posted by Nick McRae

I guess that may not be the best way of putting it, but poetry is art, and the goal of art is typically to evoke some kind of reaction in someone consuming that art. 'Thrill' might not be the right word for that, maybe 'affect' is better.

Unless a poet isn't concerned with how their writing reads at all, where it's more for expression.

Originally Posted by Hilary Biehl

Is it? I will have to think about whether I agree with that.

Don't get me wrong, I think serious art is meant to be shared with others. I'm just not sure that those others' reactions are the goal.

Edited to add - we could take this discussion to General Talk if you're interested in continuing. I don't want to distract anymore from Trevor's poem.

[Roger Slater]

Keats wrote in a letter: "I feel assured I should write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the Beautiful even if my night's labours should be burnt every morning, and no eye ever shine upon them."

Yet, of course, Keats also wanted to be among the great poets of all time. But he wanted greatness for what he would have been doing anyway. He wasn't doing it for the greatness. I would say that this is true for most poets.

Of course poets would like their poems to evoke a reaction of some kind, but poets can be satisfied, at least to some extent, if they merely evoke a reaction in themselves when they read what they've written. And there are many possible reactions a given poem may trigger, but they are all subcategories of "I'm glad I read this poem."

[Glenn Wright]

Your question makes me think of Horace’s Ars Poetica and his maxim that poetry must be dulce et utile—sweet and useful. Poetry must be beautiful, complex, unified, displaying virtuosity (dulce). At the same time it must treat subject matter that is thought provoking, fresh, engaging, providing moral guidance or making some comment on the meaning of existence (utile).

Another way to say almost the same thing is to note that poetry must appeal both to the heart and the head. Some poets are more emotive, appealing primarily to the heart. (Shelley and Whitman come to mind.) Other poets are more cerebral. (Pope and MacLeish are examples.).

Poetry is like pornography: difficult to define, but we know it when we see it.

[Yves S L]

Every communication affects the person receiving the communication, and then there is the question of the extent to which the communication is consciously/unconsciously sent, and consciously/unconsciously received.

No communication can be 100% accurate because of the many variables that exist within individuals, including each individual having personally unique definitions of words relative to their own personal history, and this uniqueness relative to personal history can be extrapolated to and applied to all communications as they occur in the arts and in life.

One basic fact of communication is that the majority of folk are spectacularly bad at defining words. The academic solution to this which is also near universal among the populace is to shrugs one's shoulder and say something like "it's all relative/arbitrary/personal opinion anyways".

Nick, you do this move/gesture with "there isn't really a right way to write poetry", as if poetry does not consist of a very large collections of well established small and large scale patterns and techniques, some of which are based on enhancing memorability, some of which are based on making poetry more emotionally evocative, some of of which are based on making poetry more information dense than prose, some of which are based on making poetry more parallel than prose, some of which bring words closer to dance, closer to music, closer to painting...

Poetry is a cottage industry with spectacularly bad pedagogy, so you have folk "learning" poetry for years and years without mastering basic things, as if a violinist who never learned how to hold a bow.

I always say start with rhyme and meter and form, not out of some kind of chauvinism (I can write "freeverse" just as well as rhyme and meter, but I don't post it much), but because the biggest hurdle for anyone writing poetry is "grandiose self-delusion". You will get the most green beginners talking grandly back to experienced and skilled poets, because "it's all relative/arbitrary/personal opinion anyways"; and rhyme and meter and form give unambiguous feedback loops, because more often than not it can be objectively judged by experienced and skilled poets whether you are meeting a set critera, which limits egoistic back talk.

The barrier to writing rhyme and meter and form is also a useful hurdle that cleanly differentiates those that view poetry as a craft consisting of sub-skills to be mastered, and those that are on some vague "personal expression" jam, that no one can ever comment on.

You also have centuries of works by the folk considered the greatest writers in language to compare your work to. The simplest analogy is that even a small child can judge whether an adult has drawn a face properly, and no amount of talking is going to change a poorly drawn face into an accurately drawn one. Yeah, a person can fudge and talk about "person experssion", but it is super hard to trick a human about the drawing of a face.


Without the feedback loops, the laissez-faire attitude of anything goes makes the whole process much more vauge, ambigous, time consuming, and self-deluding and subjective than it really is, and leaves a person slave to public opinion, whether that be the opinion of members of a poetry board, or the current trends underlying submission to poetry magazines and academic presses.

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by Yves S L

Nick, you do this move/gesture with "there isn't really a right way to write poetry", as if poetry does not consist of a very large collections of well established small and large scale patterns and techniques, some of which are based on enhancing memorability, some of which are based on making poetry more emotionally evocative, some of of which are based on making poetry more information dense than prose, some of which are based on making poetry more parallel than prose, some of which bring words closer to dance, closer to music, closer to painting...

I tried to allude at this without saying it outright. I'm in full agreement with you that there are established patterns and techniques. That's what I was trying to hint at when I mentioned that 'you've been given great feedback'.

Maybe going as far as saying 'there is no right way to write poetry' is too strong, but what I was getting at is that if you take a macro view of poetry there is no concrete definition of what it is, and how it should read. Wallace Stevens mentioned this view in his book The Necessary Angel. Poetry, broadly speaking, is whatever we think it is, and however we want it to be.

If a ten year old paints a picture that doesn't show any type of technique do we tell them they're painting the wrong way, or are they just painting, producing art? If a poet passionately produces hundreds of poems with middling technique is it really accurate to say 'they're doing it wrong'. To me it'd be more accurate to say something like: 'they're doing it wrong if they have any interest in an audience'. On another level there's nothing wrong with not chasing technique, and indulging in art for its own sake without expectation.

In my view people should be encouraged to express themselves regardless of quality, and IMO it's the obsession with being good or doing it right that stops many people from trying. But if they want to do it well, then yes there are guidelines.

[Hilary Biehl]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

Of course poets would like their poems to evoke a reaction of some kind, but poets can be satisfied, at least to some extent, if they merely evoke a reaction in themselves when they read what they've written.

Yes. It's not that I don't care whether my poems have an effect on others, or how they read to others - but it's a side issue. It's not why I write them.

Maybe one way of saying it is that I am trying to create objects that measure up to an ideal I have in my mind (Keats' "the Beautiful" - though I might or might not use the same word). This might be a very old-fashioned way of looking at it that would make some contemporary poets gag, but it is true for me.

[Nick McRae]

I'm pretty much in line with the view that affecting people isn't why I write, but I do think that the aim of how I stylize my poetry (the purpose of the poetry itself) is usually affect (even if nobody reads it). Good art should evoke something in those consuming it, and art with the greatest affect is usually the most popular (Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd is a good example).

This goes back to some of the original comments that, IMO, learning poetic technique usually moves us in the direction evocative poetry. If we're not aiming at that what are we aiming for? And even if we aren't consciously aiming for it, if we're using decent technique our poetry will likely be evocative anyway. I don't think art, by necessity, has to be evocative. But if it isn't then someone consuming it doesn't have much reason to engage with it.

[Hilary Biehl]

If popularity were the goal we would be writing more like Billy Collins. There is a difference, in my opinion, between wanting one's poetry to have an effect on someone - the ideal reader, if you will - and wanting to be popular.

There are instances of art that have become canon infuriating large portions of their first audiences - Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is a famous example - or meeting with incomprehension. Van Gogh was not appreciated in his lifetime. Neither was Emily Dickinson.

Some contemporary artists put forth pieces that are intended merely to shock or infuriate the audience - which I think is cheap. On the other hand, I think we have to be willing to be true to our own vision even if it frustrates or alienates our audience at times. There is the ideal reader and there are the readers one actually has.

[Roger Slater]

It all comes down to the refrain of the Ricky Nelson song that Bob Dylan recently started covering in his concerts: Garden Party

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by Hilary Biehl

If popularity were the goal we would be writing more like Billy Collins. There is a difference, in my opinion, between wanting one's poetry to have an effect on someone - the ideal reader, if you will - and wanting to be popular.

There are instances of art that have become canon infuriating large portions of their first audiences - Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is a famous example - or meeting with incomprehension. Van Gogh was not appreciated in his lifetime. Neither was Emily Dickinson.

Some contemporary artists put forth pieces that are intended merely to shock or infuriate the audience - which I think is cheap. On the other hand.

I don't disagree, I don't think many poets aim to be popular. But if you think of all the lines and pieces that have resonated and survived the one thing they have in common is that they're strongly evocative. So I guess I'm only drawing a connection between (at least what I see) that people consuming art actually like and enjoy engaging with (art that moves them, even if the art doing the moving is niche and esoteric). But that's not a prescription of how a poet should write.

I think we have to be willing to be true to our own vision even if it frustrates or alienates our audience at times. There is the ideal reader and there are the readers one actually has.

I agree with this. Truthfully I've never really written for an audience, and after my experience trying to publish something I gave it up entirely. These days it's more along the lines of - how can I publish something and not embarrass myself if someone does happen to read it.