[Clive Watkins]

Well, Maryann, as I think everyone has acknowledged, each of us works in his or her own way. Even so, I disagree when you say that “I think we have to assume that there is a sensation the poet wants to recreate in the reader by means of the words”, though it may be your phrasing I disagree with. Or perhaps your phasing. But why do we have to assume this? In the case of most (of all?) of my own poems, I have at the start no specific sensation I want to recreate in the reader. Writing a poem strikes me as an opaque and largely exploratory process. Somewhere along the line, the poem seems to discover for itself where it might go. Where it might go includes both form and meaning, to use those terms rather broadly.

In my own practice there is a doubleness involved: I am at once the writer of the poem and its first reader and critic. I am aware that my attention constantly switches back and forth between those two modes – writer/reader-critic. The writer in me is trying to discover the poem by moving the verbal material about into different patterns and drawing in new matter; the reader in me is constantly reviewing this process and urging the writer to look again at what has emerged so far or perhaps to go off in a quite different direction. For me it would only be a long way into this process – hence my word “phasing” above – that your remark might begin to be relevant. At a late stage – at what I have learnt to recognize as a late stage – the writer begins to fall silent and the reader-critic comes to the fore. This can be a dangerous moment, one where yet another part of my mind has to say, “Stop. Let go. Walk away”.

At which point I shall, I think, follow my own advice....

All the best!

Clive

[Julie Steiner]

Clive, Degas' poetry actually isn't all that terrible. In a book of his ballet pastels I ran across some lovely sonnets of his, one of which compared quick steps en pointe to the uniform stitch of a sewing machine...a poem which, now that I've mentioned it, I guarantee I won't be able to find, so I've probably made your point by reducing it to an idea without form. Anyhoo...

Roger and Jan and Maryann et al., I can't tell you how many times I've set out to write a poem to carry a particular argument, only to end up with a poem that argues the exact opposite. My usual solution is to make it abundantly clear (I hope!) that I am not the narrator.

[Roger Slater]

Originally Posted by Maryann Corbett

Certainly, it's a personal thing, but it's an entirely legitimate aim. I absolutely have specific things to say in poems. Workshopping at its best recognizes that the poet may be doing things that detract from the main aim, or that there may be more than one emotion coming through and that the combination may not be effective. Good critique can help the poem make the decisions it needs.

I'm not doubting that it's a "legitimate" aim, Maryann, or that one should not seek in one's poetry to say something specific. What I'm saying is that it's an aim that really hasn't much to do with the needs or desires or expectations of your readers, since they don't know you and therefore don't care what you were setting out to say or whether the poem ended up realizing your desire to say it. Your readers would much prefer a better poem that says something you didn't plan on saying to a lesser poem that faithfully conveys your original intention. You, the writer, may feel a sense of disappointment if conveying your original intention was a high priority for you, and that's fine, but for me it's like cooking. Even if the recipe doesn't come out the way it was supposed to, I'm happy if the dish I ended up creating is delicious all the same.

[Maryann Corbett]

Roger, I take your point: the poem needs to please the reader. You're emphasizing reader response, but what I'm focusing on is workshopping process. You remarked earlier that you don't see why poets object that "that would be a different poem." I'm explaining why they sometimes do, and that the objection can be very strong.

I see that you're saying that to you, only the delicious result matters. I'd very much like readers of these boards to be aware that not all poets feel that way. As long as you and I agree that "that would be a different poem" is an OK way for the poet to react, we're cool.

And now back to our regularly scheduled form questions....

[Tim Murphy]

Julie, Roger, Maryann:

Many times the EfH would say to me, "Why don't you say the opposite? It would make a much better poem." So I did. Screw what I think, I'm judged by how I sing.

[Maryann Corbett]

Originally Posted by Tim Murphy

Julie, Roger, Maryann:

Many times the EfH would say to me, "Why don't you say the opposite? It would make a much better poem." So I did. Screw what I think, I'm judged by how I sing.

Sorry, Tim. I have to mean it, or there's no point. (Editing back: At least in those poems where I am my narrator and the stuff is real stuff. Sometimes I do make stuff up.)

[R. Nemo Hill]

The assumption here, Roger, is that one writes for others. But I don't write for others. I write for myself. If others get something out of it, that's great. Even if I write the opposite of what I mean, I'm still doing that for myself.

Nemo

[Roger Slater]

Right, Nemo. So do I. And when I write for myself, I try to treat myself to the best possible poem I can write, which is sometimes not the poem I intended to write or wanted to write.

And Maryann, there's a difference between writing a poem that doesn't say what you originally intended it to say, on the one hand, and writing a poem that you don't "mean" or think is valid and honest in its own terms.

[Tim Murphy]

All: I don't mean to depict myself as some two-faced bastard, but sometimes a poem leads me more deeply into what I really think than what comes out in a facile first draft. Try it!

[Maryann Corbett]

Originally Posted by Tim Murphy

All: I don't mean to depict myself as some two-faced bastard, but sometimes a poem leads me more deeply into what I really think than what comes out in a facile first draft. Try it!

Tim, and Roger too, I think we all accept that this can happen. I merely posit that, for some of us, there is principled resistance. Hearing the suggestion to do the opposite of what we want is more likely to make us retire from the fray and put the poem aside than continue with it just then. We may come back to it later, having been thus prodded. And we may not.

I don't mean to go on and on with this digression from the thread's main question. It's just a particularly sore point with me, and it's likely to remain so. I've said what I said to ask Roger to respect that not all poetic brains work the same way his does. But I've said it, so let's drop it.