Question of Obscurity

[waxwing]

I challenge the notion that we as readers can grasp an author's original meaning. Yes, I enjoy analysis, literary theory, and literary criticism, yet there is something that seems inherently wrong about writing to have one's exact meaning ascertained, or, reading to ascertain one particular message.

Now, many people would disagree with me and probably start to think that I'm just preaching post-modernism. Really, I'm not, and I don't really think post-modernism is the key issue here. Nonetheless, as a person who enjoys writing and hopes to convey meaning through writing, I am forced to ask myself several quetions. Here they are, in brainstorm fashion.

1. So, there is the issue of writing for an audience. I wouldn't write an obscure poem for a class full of kindergartners. Doesn't make sense. But if I write a similar poem and hand it out to a class full of college writing students, then, what? What does the reader/critic expect? What does the writer expect? I already know what I expect, but I'm interested to hear what others think.

2. Next, there is the issue of writing for self-expression. I've never entirely bought into this idea because even writing for oneself seems to involve a certain need to express oneself in the world (or on paper). True, it's not necessary to write journal entries for an audience that will never read them. But, all writing is an act of creation, and therefore, I believe that the expanation, "Well, it's just for me," becomes a cop-out on occasion. If a person is truly writing only for himself (if that is even possible), then I ask, what standards exist for himself? Where does that notion of audience come into play? Certainly, a person must not only be his own audience, right?

3. So, somewhere this idea of writing for self and writing (i.e. expressing) for an audience must coincide. This is where definitions get cloudy because we have to start talking about author's original intent, expressed intent, and how that may possibly be interpreted by an audience. I've never been one to dismiss comments on the basis of, "Well, that is isn't what I meant to say/write" because to me, at that point, what I meant is not entirely relevant to either me and the reader. I can't possibly recreate that original meaning if I tried, so how can I expect anyone else to do that? Yes, the original intent exists in some fashion, but it doesn't exist on it's own anymore. It becomes only part of a much greater process of expression and communication of meaning.

Now, that's not to suggest that I think writers should have "anything goes" attitudes towards critics, but perhaps, it is to suggest that any piece of writing, by virtue of the writing process itself, has to be released from the hands of the writer. There is no taking it back, explaining it away, or holding it so closely that any or all interpretations are dismissed. That, to me, is arrogant and conterproductive. This is at least half of the writing process -- the stage where others read what a writer has written.

Now, there is the controversial question regarding the purpose of obscurity in modern and contemporary creative writing. To me, that cliched subject entirely misses the point. If a writer is intentionally obscure, devaluing the rigor of the writing process, not even writing with a sense of audience, then, I ask, what is the point of making it public? (Here, the answer seems clear to me: There is no point).

Yet, if a piece of writing possesses some essence of meaning in itself (here the work of art acting as a separate vehicle from either the poet or the audience), then what can be said of obscurity? Should we place such value on the work of art itself, if, in fact, it it was created to take on a life of its own? I am inclined to say, yes. I recognize that there will always be an element of obscurity because of that gap that exists between the writer and reader, and even the distance that exists between a writer and his own work. Take into consideration all the varied experience of man, and the frameworks that are built throughout the process of living, and I am glad that a piece of writing has the potential to gain such momentum along the journey. Sure, there will always be the writer's intent. Some people will continue to hold that original meaning as precious and unalterable, yet, if we herald writer's intent at the expense of being transported and transformed as it is expressed, and we express ourselves in the world, then why do we write at all?

Brainstorm, deviating from my specific questions as you wish. I realize these are only scattered, half-baked thoughts. Hopefully, this was not just another example of obsurity, though.

[mgb]

I firmly believe that you right for yourself, and then once you release it to the world it becomes everyone else's as much as it is yours.

People are going to judge a work by how it relates to them. They might use a love poem from a famous poet to woo someone for example. They aren't going to use that love poem to have the person examine what was going through that writer's head, it's going to be something more, something between the woo-er and woo-ee.

I don't think that poet wrote the poem so it would become something more for other people, but it was something more for the writer.

[MacGuffin]

Ok, for any writer, at some point you have to try to reach some audience. The best writers can not only reach an audience and get them to understand his/her viewpoint (maybe not 100% but pretty close) but also get that audience to think or feel about something they have never thought or felt about in that particular way before.

I do write things just for self-expression (my really boring private journal for example). I write that for an audience of one - me.

But if I wanted to write something for other people to read, then I must alter my writing style. Shorthand methods no longer work if you are the only one that understands them. It is not selling out per se, but simply trying to communicate your thoughts to other people so they can understand them.

If you are really good (like what I was talking about in the first paragraph) you can get your audience to accept your expression. If you are bad, they impose their own ideas on your writing, and then you get the "I didn't mean that" and one frustrated writer.

[Hypnos]

Perhaps, art is like a scientific device, such as a microscope. A good author/engineer understands the principles of a situation and designs the device to provide rich insight into the characters of analogous situations (hence, the fictive aspect). In the end, however, the user will apply the device as he sees fit, and how appropriate that use is a matter for the critics

[Ka.avik]

If you are really good (like what I was talking about in the first paragraph) you can get your audience to accept your expression. If you are bad, they impose their own ideas on your writing, and then you get the "I didn't mean that" and one frustrated writer.
Or the frustrated author can just lower his standards until they're already met. I agree with WW that the actual intent cannot truly be understood, but that that is a constant, and thus what the paper or book or whathaveyou has to stand on its own, and that can be understood to some extent.

As to the frustration level of the author...switch to decaf?

13.5K words on his NaNoWriMo entry ;)

[abathur]

1. I wouldn't say the writer should write for an audience if he doesn't have a reason--that said, I don't think there is anything wrong with selecting your audience with your writing. It's a conscious choice between what you're communicating and who is invited to play. As both a reader/critic or a writer, I expect one thing: for the counterpart to "try" or otherwise expend some effort.

2. It is a cop out. Someone takes their problems, slops it on paper like the shit it is, gives it to other people thinking it's brilliant, gets criticized and calls it "just for me" or "very personal" etc. That's not to say you can't write things that aren't to be seen, but if you're giving it to other people, you have to be ready for an amount of criticism, and to accept that a poem is a poem--not a person. The big problems with personal poetry come from the inability to detach. I've got some personal stuff in my notebook which was rather theraputic to write--but before you go around handing it out you have to be able to detach enough to objectively evaluate it (which INTPs probably have some advantage on) not to mention being detached enough to take criticism on the poem.

3. "original" meaning is somewhat obscure in and of itself. Can you expect me to know exactly what that means? Can you expect me to follow the gist of what it might mean? You shouldn't go around throwing a fit if you aren't understood, but is that to say you should just give up on conveying meaning because you can't expect people to get it? Convey what you want, expect people to keep up. Perhaps you know they won't, but I don't see a problem in expecting them to. Where you come back in, however, is deciding how hard you want this to be. No matter what you're writing to convey--be that music, meaning, emotion, etc, if that isn't reaching the reader, it's up to the writer to decide whether this is desirable or not, who is at fault, and whether there should be changes.

This is where I have to wonder if this is somehow directed at or caused by myself. Regardless, of course the author has to release it from his hands at some point--but it is the writer's, and it is his/her choice when to do so. I, for example, am not finished with my poems, and have never sought a publisher. I share them to get opinions about them, and to ensure that I am comfortable with what is happening. Interpret it as you want--I love seeing new and unique interpretations of a piece, and have absolutely no problem with it. But there is a huge difference between wanting the meaning to be ascertainable, and just throwing a piece of work out there for consumption, knowing full well it has little _chance_ to convey what you wrote to communicate. If I'm talking about apples but I mean kinky sex with edward scissorhands--this is my domain--this is my fictional world that you step into as a reader, and it is my job to decide whether I want you to have a chance to figure out that I'm talking about kinky sex with edward scissorhands, or whether you'll always think it's apples, or maybe blood. IMO it's just as arrogant and counter-productive to assume that the writer can't have aspirations and meaning he wishes to convey, and should allow you to think what you want. Creative writing is the world of the writer--and if you have the freedom to think what you want, it should be _because_ the writer wants you to have that freedom--not because the writer has failed to do something s/he has intended and thereby left you to make your own conclusion.

Personally I spend a fair amount of time trying to seed my poems with ambiguities to allow for some open-ness on points. That said, I don't always want people to have this freedom. Sometimes I only want them to choose between two.

There's an extent to which a traditional painter would be disgusted if you insisted that the beautiful boat he painted was really a cat--just like there's an extent to which a writer will do the same. Once it's been published, if the people the artist wanted to "get" this are not getting it, this is the artist's "fault" so to speak. Likewise, with a an abstract painter, he probably has ideas of "what this piece means to me," and his statement of that meaning doesn't mean he's declaring other interpretations as "incorrect" or otherwise. But when all of these pieces are still being worked on and critiqued, it is up to these people to decide what they want the piece to do in their opinion and do it. The viewer doesn't have to like this, because the viewer can go to someone elses art if they don't. Perhaps it is silly for a poet to expect one interpretation if he's written an obscure poem, but if he's carefully crafted a poem for a single meaning that is intended to be followed by what he determines to be his audience (and is indeed able to be followed by them) I don't think it's silly for this person to expect his dog to be seen as a dog, and his boat to be seen as a boat. If the viewer doesn't like boats and cats, they can go look at some abstract art that was intended to be open to interpretation and play all they want.

Perhaps someone else might be an impressionist who, instead of making something completely open to interpretation, is painting a somewhat obscure cat. It may be silly for him to freak if someone doesn't see a cat, but is it silly for him to expect someone to see the cat?

[Hexchild]

I can't really speak for anyone but myself, so I'll stick to my own attitude towards writing.

When I write, I usually select my level of obscurity carefully according to how complex and/or provokative I want my work to act toward the audience. The more obscure something is, the more complex and mind-provoking it gets. This is because obscurity lets imagination free, while detail captures and directs it.

Where obscurity is prominent in a piece of writing, the imagination of the reader has to "fill in the blanks", because the mind wants to make sense of what is being read. The only source of information available at that stage is the reader's own mind. So in essence, the writer is using the mindframe of the reader instead of his/her own. By detailing, the writer shares parts of his/her own mindframe. I think it's nearly if not entirely impossible not to include a mix of both obscurity and detail in any piece of writing. This implies that it may be a good idea to find the right balance between the two, and I believe this depends on both the intended audience and the nature of the work.

Another way to put this is that obscurity means, practically, that the writer has no precision control of how exactly the reader will interpret the obscure parts of a piece, but on the other hand those very things are likely, if understood at all, to make sense to the reader. The problem with obscurity is that the interpretation becomes fuzzy and hard to grasp. This also depends on the reader's capacity of interpretation.

On the other hand, there are two major problems with details. Too many details can easily get boring, because they often state the obvious. They can also cause unfamiliarity, in that the details of a certain concept is unknown to the reader. It is often better to leave out the most particular of particulars in order to not confuse the reader too much. So my solution is to minimize the details to just the key points, those notions that I feel it is important that the reader has a particular view of. Anything else is left to the reader's discretion.

In the end I don't think there's anything wrong with the reader having a say in what a text means. To the extent that's not desired, it's up to the writer to provide enough detail to keep this from happening.


But, naturally the reader's mindframe will also have some similarities with that of the writer. Even if the writer's control isn't absolute, it is still possible to imply or suggest additional information that both parties are aware of, but that was never mentioned. I think the trick to really good writing is to select the words such that whatever implications are made, are likely to be more consistent the more you analyze a text, so that the intent eventually becomes clear despite of obscurity. The best poems are constructed this way, imho.


I hope this made some sense and wasn't too far out of scope. The lack of details may have made this text a wee bit obscure. :unsure:

[Rhu]

I think breaking writing into larger classifications like this might be part of the problem that we are seeing, here. There are many reasons that a person is going to pick up a pen or peck at a keyboard—this is indicated in the wide variety of established styles that seasoned writers end up exhibiting.

One person might write to make something useful for public record, for historical purposes. Even in something so simple as this, even in considering a singular audience type of “average readers,” they have a wide number of choices in how they are going to do this. Will the record be a simple collection of facts? Should it evoke an image? An emotion? Should it lead to a judgment? Whose viewpoint will it be told from? Should it challenge the reader to thought or action?

Sometimes codification of a piece, regardless of intended audience, should be preferred. Personally, I’ve always been a fan of writings with multiple meanings and multiple layers and exposing them to others to see what sort of interpretations shake out from it. Sometimes people can come up with something wholly different than what was originally intended, something delightfully surprising from something that you thought you understood fully. I guess it is like someone finding a different harmony in a piece of music and being able to point it out so that you can hear it. This probably comes from the fact that my exposure to art comes when I am from turning away from code and proofs, which have the elegant but sometimes boring property of having a singular interpretation.

Not that I don’t enjoy things that have the more discrete “one piece, one idea” sort of technique guiding them, there is a purity in that, and, to use musical simile again, it can be like a beautiful melody.

[waxwing]

1. I wouldn't say the writer should write for an audience if he doesn't have a reason--that said, I don't think there is anything wrong with selecting your audience with your writing. It's a conscious choice between what you're communicating and who is invited to play. As both a reader/critic or a writer, I expect one thing: for the counterpart to "try" or otherwise expend some effort.

2. It is a cop out. Someone takes their problems, slops it on paper like the shit it is, gives it to other people thinking it's brilliant, gets criticized and calls it "just for me" or "very personal" etc. That's not to say you can't write things that aren't to be seen, but if you're giving it to other people, you have to be ready for an amount of criticism, and to accept that a poem is a poem--not a person. The big problems with personal poetry come from the inability to detach. I've got some personal stuff in my notebook which was rather theraputic to write--but before you go around handing it out you have to be able to detach enough to objectively evaluate it (which INTPs probably have some advantage on) not to mention being detached enough to take criticism on the poem. Agreed. This is something that was difficult for me until I was forced to hand out copies of my writing in workshops. I had to get over my fear really quickly.



3. "original" meaning is somewhat obscure in and of itself. Yeah.



Can you expect me to know exactly what that means? Can you expect me to follow the gist of what it might mean? You shouldn't go around throwing a fit if you aren't understood, but is that to say you should just give up on conveying meaning because you can't expect people to get it? Convey what you want, expect people to keep up. Perhaps you know they won't, but I don't see a problem in expecting them to. Well, here's where I feel really strongly about not being heavyhanded in writing. So, yes, I agree that a writer should expect the reader to keep up, but that necessitates careful selection of the audience.



Where you come back in, however, is deciding how hard you want this to be. No matter what you're writing to convey--be that music, meaning, emotion, etc, if that isn't reaching the reader, it's up to the writer to decide whether this is desirable or not, who is at fault, and whether there should be changes. Yes, I wonder about this all the time. Revision can seem to never end even without other people getting involved, but it gets really tricky when trying to decide which bit of criticism is worth really listening to and which is better off being dismissed. This is why I'm saying the part about this third party -- the work of art. If distance from the work is necessary in order share it with others, and distance from the audience is nearly unavoidable, then there must be something through which to filter the criticism.



This is where I have to wonder if this is somehow directed at or caused by myself. Regardless, of course the author has to release it from his hands at some point--but it is the writer's, and it is his/her choice when to do so. Of course it is his choice when to do so. Who would argue that? And, no, this thread is neither directed at nor caused by you. I seem to be getting a reputation for starting threads directed at others, when, in fact, they are not. ;) This has been a relevant subject to me for some time. It was my college major, so you sharing your poem only put me back into literature/workshop mode.



I, for example, am not finished with my poems, and have never sought a publisher. I share them to get opinions about them, and to ensure that I am comfortable with what is happening. Interpret it as you want--I love seeing new and unique interpretations of a piece, and have absolutely no problem with it. But there is a huge difference between wanting the meaning to be ascertainable, and just throwing a piece of work out there for consumption, knowing full well it has little _chance_ to convey what you wrote to communicate. No objections here. I do the same thing, very often. It takes discernment, and as already mentioned, detachment.



If I'm talking about apples but I mean kinky sex with edward scissorhands--this is my domain--this is my fictional world that you step into as a reader, and it is my job to decide whether I want you to have a chance to figure out that I'm talking about kinky sex with edward scissorhands, or whether you'll always think it's apples, or maybe blood. IMO it's just as arrogant and counter-productive to assume that the writer can't have aspirations and meaning he wishes to convey, and should allow you to think what you want. Creative writing is the world of the writer--and if you have the freedom to think what you want, it should be _because_ the writer wants you to have that freedom--not because the writer has failed to do something s/he has intended and thereby left you to make your own conclusion. Yes, I see. See, I almost feel like you've taken an opposite stance because you might have thought I was directing these comments at you. In reality, I would never suggest that the writer can't have aspirations and meaning he wishes to convey. My main point (if you could filter through all the shitty writing) was that there is this writer's intent (on one end of a continuum) and then on the other end, there is the reader's interpretation. There is this vast area in between that, to me, represents the expression and development of that meaning. All I'm saying is that there has to be something else (the poem that can stand on its own) "birthed" in the process. Otherwise, this vast expanse will remain incomprehensible.



There's an extent to which a traditional painter would be disgusted if you insisted that the beautiful boat he painted was really a cat--just like there's an extent to which a writer will do the same. Once it's been published, if the people the artist wanted to "get" this are not getting it, this is the artist's "fault" so to speak. Likewise, with a an abstract painter, he probably has ideas of "what this piece means to me," and his statement of that meaning doesn't mean he's declaring other interpretations as "incorrect" or otherwise. But when all of these pieces are still being worked on and critiqued, it is up to these people to decide what they want the piece to do in their opinion and do it. The viewer doesn't have to like this, because the viewer can go to someone elses art if they don't. Perhaps it is silly for a poet to expect one interpretation if he's written an obscure poem, but if he's carefully crafted a poem for a single meaning that is intended to be followed by what he determines to be his audience (and is indeed able to be followed by them) I don't think it's silly for this person to expect his dog to be seen as a dog, and his boat to be seen as a boat. If the viewer doesn't like boats and cats, they can go look at some abstract art that was intended to be open to interpretation and play all they want. Nope, not silly at all. Seems perfectly natural. But here you're talking about dogs and boats. I, personally, don't care to ascertain that the topic is dogs and boats, but am interested in why they are dogs and boats. This, I think, is where interpretation (as opposed to "plot summary") comes in.



Perhaps someone else might be an impressionist who, instead of making something completely open to interpretation, is painting a somewhat obscure cat. It may be silly for him to freak if someone doesn't see a cat, but is it silly for him to expect someone to see the cat? Well, no, of course not. But what if the cat were only indicative of some relationship or some idea he had. Then, would it be really important for someone to recognize the body of the cat?

[cjs55]

This may or may not drift from the subject of creative writing, especially novels, but for poetry, drawing, and especially music I think it definitely applies.

The ability to create good art is two things: 1) Wisdom in understanding life, and 2) Wisdom in communicating this understanding to other people.

#1 is more inclusive than one may think. Some people have specific wisdom in certain areas from the moment they are born.

#2 is essential, but it's not necessarily creating art 'for' an audience. That which you want to create already *has* an audience for it. This isn't variable. You can't force it here, in my opinion. It is up to the artist to communicate in the best possible way to allow the audience to connect. But this audience cannot be chosen...the content chooses the audience, not the presentation. It is very possible that no one may connect...but I think personal art has value as well, for the writer. This is because the work of art is not simply a conscious creation of one person.

All art is done in context to all other art. This is absolutely true and essential in understanding it. And historical concerns may be relevent. But I doubt this is a very important concern in the long run: Art is generally a transcendent medium of connection. You know when you have a connection not just with another person, but to a transcendent ideal that connects you both. I am sure in my own life that it can be an absolutely certain moment.

Beethoven wrote: "Every real creation of art is independent, more powerful than the artist himself and returns to the Divine through its manifestation. It is one with man only in this, that it bears testimony to the mediation of the Divine in him."

The divine here is not a God for me personally, but still a transcendent connection, not just with a human being, but with something greater as well.

One may ask...how can these transcendent ideals be communicated through art that is must be taken in the context of other art? I don't find this to be a destructive paradox though...All great art is both strikingly progressive and shockingly similar. That's just the way it is.

[kuranes]

I was going to say that I only write for an audience, but Mac's comment about writing in shorthand made me change my mind. There are times when I am just writing a "note to myself" so as not to forget something I might want to use in a story/exposition. It's funny, sometimes, when doing that I will occasionally spell things out a bit further, as though I am unsure if my future self might fail to "get it" if I leave it in an extreme shorthand.

Stephen King writes with his wife in mind as an audience. Tolkien wrote for his younger brother I believe. Doesn't mean that those people would be the only ones to understand what's been said. Writing for something as vague as "the general public" is obviously quite possible, but something I tend to do less of. One of the reasons I joined here at INTPcentral was to be able to write to REAL people, even if it IS a group of people ( versus an individual ) with varied interests and levels of comprehension etc. Writing for an audience is much more motivating, IMO. The more specific, the more motivating. But its also limiting. Because it IS real. So if you wrote for a fourth grader, you wouldn't say what you might to the "general public", even though the GP includes other children.

When writing a "shorthand" I am trying to make sure I don't forget the thing. I've come to discover, as I get older, that no matter how memorable something might seem ( with exceptions for traumatic moments, I suppose ) at the time, I am likely to later become quite hazy on the telling details that will make the piece come alive again, if I don't write it down. So I want to preserve it. I make sure to include those details, even in shorthand, to ensure that "the mummy can be resurrected" at the proper time." If I had just written a summary, that wouldn't be enough.

As far as being purposely obscure goes, this can be fun at times. Usually I'm writing from the opposite perspective though, and so I want the reader to clearly understand very specific things. How they INTERPRET the impact of those things is up to them, but I at least want them to "see" the images that I had in my head as I "painted " them. Although getting a completely thorough translation from my mind's eye to theirs is not 100% possible, hopefully they have at least got most of it. In prose, unless someone is being deliberately vague ( or simply involuntarily writing in a fuzzy way ) it is typically only in the CONCLUSION of the piece that it becomes more open to "the Rashoman effect."

It seems more poetry is obscure than prose. Leaving the meaning of a piece "open" can be provocative, as Hex says, which can heighten the interest. But it can also frustrate some readers. It's a delicate balancing act, especially when writing for "the general public" vs. a niche audience. My old writing teacher referred to PROSE pieces like this by calling them "rubber walnut" stories. These were the stories which attempted profundity by leaving things really open, with an odd conclusion line. He remembered reading the end of a story where a little boy ( who was central as a naive observer ) was described as clutching such a thing, hidden in his pocket. As though it were the word "Rosebud" burning on a broken sled in a fireplace, and no one except we readers ( ? ) were able to REALLY grasp the true significance. Ever since then, I've always gotten a kick out of such "rubber walnuts" stories.

Earlier in the fiction work in question - the rubber walnut was probably mentioned in passing, also. Did it "symbolize" something? We've come a long way from what was being done originally with "symbols" in actual allegories.

In one sense, if I wanted to simply create something only for myself, I would just THINK it - and not bother to type it out. In another sense, it is the very typing-out-of-things being so slow ( vs. thinking them ) which might cause ideas to occur to me that wouldn't have otherwise.

[abathur]

Well, here's where I feel really strongly about not being heavyhanded in writing. So, yes, I agree that a writer should expect the reader to keep up, but that necessitates careful selection of the audience. I'm not sure it's the writer's job to select the audience in that manner. I might think of selecting the audience as, "the background/level of education/type of person etc. who will be able to enjoy this poem." That said, if you're really working it well, you could have several audiences to which layers of meaning peel off (that makes me hot in the pants just to think about being able to consistently do.) There's an extent to where you can work this if you're being published in someone elses publication, i.e. making sure you're published with like material. Everyone can be a reader, not everyone may be in the "audience" for one reason or another. (I suppose this would tie back to not writing for an audience, but selecting an audience through your writing.)


Yes, I wonder about this all the time. Revision can seem to never end even without other people getting involved, but it gets really tricky when trying to decide which bit of criticism is worth really listening to and which is better off being dismissed. This is why I'm saying the part about this third party -- the work of art. If distance from the work is necessary in order share it with others, and distance from the audience is nearly unavoidable, then there must be something through which to filter the criticism. I'm currently taking a class under a poet named Curtis Bauer (you'll find some references to him online,) his advice (though somewhat tongue in cheek): hold onto it until you're sick of it, then let it out there for everyone else. Personally, I'm getting better at it. I've got a bit of a perfectionist streak, so I'll often have parts of my poems that I think could be better (one part of the sound even when I've been lavished with praise for the way something sounds by everyone who's read it or somesuch,) but as I've worked with my writing more and more, I've been able to tell much more quickly after writing it what I do and don't like (though this may be a reflection of slightly less personal work, or perhaps I take myself less seriously these days.) It took me a good 3 years or so to figure out the poetry I wrote when I started out in HS was absolute crap (but it was very theraputic and IMO helped me get a lot of anger out in a safe way, not to mention turning into an activity I really enjoy all around these days.) Now I'll often know when I'm done with something, or within a couple days whether I want to rip it out of the notebook and start over or not.

The biggest part of that, for me at least, has probably been tuning my ear and being able to really pick up on what I like and don't in sound (some of which came from reading and some from writing.) I guess to some extent, I say, "I won't call my poetry 'done' until I'm dead," in a rather INTP fashion, because I realize that I'm still improving with time and may change my ideas about what I like and don't. I got some words of encouragement from my instructor, when I voiced concern after throwing out all my old poetry that I would at some point feel that way about what I'm writing now, he said that he was pretty sure most poets go through a point where things start to click and they look back thinking, "ok, all of this... this was all shit" but that he himself never hit another period like that. Ultimately the cutoff point for me will probably be when I'm self aware enough to realize when a poem is as good as, or close, as I can possibly make it at that time (which will hopefully be right around when I get sick of it and am ready to let someone else deal with it for a while.)


Of course it is his choice when to do so. Who would argue that? And, no, this thread is neither directed at nor caused by you. I seem to be getting a reputation for starting threads directed at others, when, in fact, they are not. ;) This has been a relevant subject to me for some time. It was my college major, so you sharing your poem only put me back into literature/workshop mode. Fair enough, I suppose I inferred too much from the generation of this topic and the lack of reply to my PM. I supposed you'd thought I saw your reading as invalid or somesuch (which is far from the case, the analysis was insightful on a level I'm not sure I'm prepared to intentionally do much intentionally at yet.) My point at large would rather be that, just in letting people see the work, the artist isn't necessarily "letting go of it," sometimes this is on small scale ala workshop/opinionshopping or, for instance, George Lucas adding some things he'd wanted to do at the time to his work but wasn't _able_ to. Love it or hate it, I think that I might, should I ever be in the position to be published more than once (laugh,) have that same desire to perfect something I knew wasn't as good as it could be at the time, and I later have the writers toolbox, so to speak, to correct the issue as I would have done at the time, if I could.


Yes, I see. See, I almost feel like you've taken an opposite stance because you might have thought I was directing these comments at you. In reality, I would never suggest that the writer can't have aspirations and meaning he wishes to convey. My main point (if you could filter through all the shitty writing) was that there is this writer's intent (on one end of a continuum) and then on the other end, there is the reader's interpretation. There is this vast area in between that, to me, represents the expression and development of that meaning. All I'm saying is that there has to be something else (the poem that can stand on its own) "birthed" in the process. Otherwise, this vast expanse will remain incomprehensible. Perhaps exacerbated by. Though I'm somewhat lost as per where we're drawing this line after which something else is birthed, or rather, what kind of something must be birthed? Perhaps these qualities change from person to person (perhaps for some a poem isn't alive unless it's an iambic pentameter sonnet? or unless it has absolutely no rhyme? or unless it has this literal meaning, and this other one below the surface? or unless it talks about two lovers, meeting in the backseat only to make love, bad poetry and too much body heat?) I agree that there's this writer's intent, but I suppose what I got from what you said, is that it isn't the author's job to lay everything out for you--to let the reader run around a good bit with what was written. That's not to say this can't happen--but I disagree that this is the job definition. As "the writers domain" I meant to clarify that this can happen, but should be the writers choice to let this happen, and that it doesn't have to be the case--even if this is how you like your slice of poetry served. I, for one, hate form for the most part. The only poems I've liked in form are ones written so that you have to _look_ for the form to see it. This is not to say that it isn't viable and works well for some (in reading and writing,) just to say that this is my preference. Just like poetry which has more depth than the initial meaning... a preference.



Nope, not silly at all. Seems perfectly natural. But here you're talking about dogs and boats. I, personally, don't care to ascertain that the topic is dogs and boats, but am interested in why they are dogs and boats. This, I think, is where interpretation (as opposed to "plot summary") comes in. Fair enough. Though I suppose this may muddle in the issue of, "what was the writer intending to be below the surface here?" It's certainly fun to play with, but often hard to "say." Is he really talking about his inward desire to dump his bitch of a mother in-law off at sea, knowing she can only dog-paddle? Perhaps he's just painting a scene, as a painter might. I suppose this is a point of misunderstanding. There's a sense in which I write a poem about voluntary insanity in which the meaning is that, I could get away with far more outrageous behavior had I gone insane, but then, lurking, there's this dig at society for labelling people who talk to themselves crazy, despite the fact that rather large numbers of people do this. Then I have a poem like circumstance blew, where there's this literal meaning--this scene sitting there to be envisioned (despite the obscurity,) when I honestly wrote it with no deeper goal, meaning or intent in mind other than delivering an enjoyable auditory experiance, a bit of a mental workout, and creating this visual scene of what's going on (despite there being a couple layers of meaning behind phrases at a few places.)


Well, no, of course not. But what if the cat were only indicative of some relationship or some idea he had. Then, would it be really important for someone to recognize the body of the cat?I would say this depends on whether the cat is a bridge to the relationship, or whether the relationship can be seen without seeing the cat (which is up to the writer to ensure at least the "can" part to some amount of reason.)

[Pan]

Sadly I'm not well-read in philosophy, and have forgotten much even of that, but... this seems to be a basic phenomenology/ontology problem: does an object exist primarily as a thing-in-itself, or does it exist primarily as a phenomenon in the minds of its observers? Naturally both are true... a tree growing in a field has an objective existence (unless you accept an incredibly complex web of mass delusions or the old "brain in a vat" as a reasonable world-view) - if ten people take turns running into the tree as fast as they can, not one will pass through unscathed. On the other hand, the tree has many different possible significances (source of food, shelter, marker of boundary or trail or meeting place, etc) that are entirely subjective but verifiably real.

If we can reasonably question the objective existence of a tree, what hope can something as abstract as literature have?

Which is a round-about way of saying there is both an objective and a subjective part of the reality of a piece of art... and both must be included in a complete description of what any piece of art is. In this case I would consider the artist's meaning (at the time of creation) to be the objective side, and the interpretations of the audience to be the subjective. We interpret everything we experience through the filters of our current preoccupations... any aspect of things we encounter (trees or poems-as-lovely) which resonates with the background pattern of our other thoughts will be become significant.

The key to succesfully reaching a large audience, then, is making the patterns of meaning and imagery within your art universal enough that they will resonate with many different backgrounds. ie. it's not necessarily avoiding the abstract for the simple and concrete; obviously "boy-gets-girl" and "boy-loses-girl" have resonance in a lot of peoples' lives, but so does "awake-just-before-dawn" and "seeing-child-playing-heightens-awareness-of-mortality"

This post is unabashedly vague and doubtless deviates blindly from the OP's intention. Which makes it doubly an answer. :D