| Author | Message | ||
| David Dumais
Member Username: scribbledhopes Post Number: 97 Registered: 03-2008 |
This is most likely a silly question, but I honestly don't know. When reviewing or even posting, Is it considered bad form to ask what a certain stanza means or what the poem is roughly about to seek some clarity so you can offer better feedback? In that same vein, is it frowned upon to explain how a poem came about when posting it? Feelings you’re trying to get across to the reader, or maybe elicit help from fellow writer to achieve that emotional goal? Sometimes I get the impression asking what a certain stanza refers to is rude. As if, If you don't get it, I am not going to tell you. Since I am the reader, and if I don't get it, isn't that critical? I always walk carefully reviewing others work, because it's personal. I try to be polite, professional and encouraging. In doing so I don’t want to step over some unwritten rule. I am not perfect but the worlds not perfect, so we are a matching set. | ||
| LJ Cohen
Moderator Username: ljc Post Number: 9497 Registered: 07-2002 |
David--I can't speak for everyone, but if someone doesn't understand what a part of something I've written means, I want to know. At the very least, it tells me the language wasn't clear for that reader. So yes, if you are the reader and if you don't get it, that *is* critical. If I'm unsure in reading someone's poem, I'll often mention what I see/interpret. That's valuable for the poet as well. However, having said all that, a poem doesn't necessarily have to mean the same thing to reader and writer in order to work. I don't generally preface a poem with any explanation as I want the reader to have as pure an experience as possible, without my blathering influencing the interrpetation. Good questions. Best, ljc Once in a Blue Muse Blog LJCohen | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 30121 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dear David -- I'm in agreement with what Lisa said. Each poet most likely has his/her own feelings about questions, but I don't mind them either. Though if someone were to ask me what something "meant," I'd most likely couch my answer with the proviso that my answer is only what that specific section meant to me when I wrote it. This doesn't necessarily imply that this is what that section "means," nor should it preclude other interpretations. Just because someone doesn't interpret my poem the way I would, that doesn't make them wrong. I often like readers' interpretations better than my own. *smile* I would assume most poets who don't want to answer questions about meaning are hesitant to do so because it locks a poem down into one specific meaning. People who write marvelously complex work often don't want to influence how a reader might interpret it by intruding with their own personal "meaning." They would like every reader to see whatever they see. Which changes from person to person depending on the many different factors each reader brings to the poem, i.e., life experience, reading experience, emotional baggage, etc. So, there's no rule that applies to everyone. It's best to just ask and see what happens. Those who want to answer, probably will. And those who don't, probably won't and might even give you their reasons why. Love, M | ||
| Andrew Dufresne
Advanced Member Username: beachdreamer Post Number: 1618 Registered: 01-2006 |
My two cents: Never hurts to ask. I don't always know, though. ad | ||
| Tina Hoffman
Advanced Member Username: tina_hoffman Post Number: 2199 Registered: 05-2007 |
Dear Mr. Dumais, I like questions. And answers. And even questions without answers and answers without questions. But if you are sincere about your query as the reader, as the writer, I will at least address it, gauge your sincerity level (either wrongly or rightly) and give you the opportunity for a dialogue -as I would hope, for the most part, writers and readers would like an exchange, for if not that - then both are engaged in, (unfortunately, to quote something here that I'd like to might not go along with the pc rules of a PG forum, but MM - if you know what I mean? If not, email is always an option.) Best regards & respectfully submitted as both a reader and a writer, Tina Hoffman "All living beings on earth are our neighbors." -Albert Schweitzer | ||
| Gary Blankenship
Moderator Username: garydawg Post Number: 24047 Registered: 07-2001 |
David, there is no such thing as a dub question asked politely. Personally, I don't think there is enough feedback to crits and enough discussion about what the poet is striving to do... And Tina, is correct, you can always go back-channel. Smiles. Gary Celebrate Walt with Gary: http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/tw10/tw4conte.htm | ||
| David Dumais
Member Username: scribbledhopes Post Number: 98 Registered: 03-2008 |
Thanks Friends, This actually helped me see a very important point. If it is explained to me, and another person reads the reply, it may spoil the image for him or her. What they were getting out of it is now lost. That is very important, Something I hadn't considered. So maybe what you should do is.. Explain your confusion, do not ask for an explanation. And then wait for a small reply for clarity or private email. Is that close? I am not perfect but the worlds not perfect, so we are a matching set. | ||
| Judy Thompson
Advanced Member Username: judyt54 Post Number: 1190 Registered: 11-2007 |
if I were to encounter a poem that stumped me, and I felt it important enough that I would like to understand it more clearly, I'd say so. "X, I love this poem, and I get stanza 1 and 2 perfectly, but something happens in S.3 and leaves me confused as to how it's connected to the other two stanzas." If you can explain your confusion, sometimes the poet will see that he or she needs connectors, that there should be some kind of link (or none was intended), but most writers appreciate feedback like this, because most of us want to know we're reaching our readers, not driving them away in frustration. and email is often a very good way to go with this. However, some poets feel that if they have to explain it, it hurts the poem--on the other side of the same coin, they feel if explanations are necessary, it's somehow your fault for not getting it. I dont feel quite that strongly, and I like to know when I've lost someone who is obviously a careful reader... | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4014 Registered: 05-2006 |
I often encounter poems -- or stanzas/lines in poems -- that I don't grasp in any kind of coherent way. * * * * * It is generally far better for a reader to ask questions of a poet than for a poet to volunteer explanations to a reader. * * * * * Self-referential, beginner poets are often the hardest to understand. Often they think that everything has to be expressed as something else. You know . . . a tree is a brush painting the sky. A wind is the breath of the Muse. Only rather than borrowing symbols from the broader culture, they like to invent their own associations. A tree is a package of Viceroys and the wind is a penguin eating a snow-cone. Lacking a cheat sheet or translation key, we wander helplessly through their poems. Often, when we ask for clarification, they come back as us with some arrogant line like, "Everybody knows that a torque wrench represents a bag of Chinese Checkers marbles. God, you're stupid." * * * * * Fred Unofficial Forum Pariah -- recent victim of alien abduction -- I'm running out of places to store the bodies. | ||
| Tina Hoffman
Advanced Member Username: tina_hoffman Post Number: 2207 Registered: 05-2007 |
Hi again, I don't necessarily believe that if a reader OR writer presents the "image" or "impression" they get from a particular piece (either what the writer was attempting to convey or how the reader interprets the writing) it will "spoil" the poem or lead other readers to only one particular destination. In fact, I find it irritating when some academics and "professional" writers or readers say there is only ONE meaning to a particular poem. And they do say that! Reading, writing and most artistic ventures are completely subjective and are interpreted or conveyed on the basis of an individual's fertile mind. I can't tell you how many times I have received a comment on a poem where a reader took layers of meaning away from a piece I'd written that I had not intended or even thought of with the words and images I'd selected in the first place. I think that's pretty damn cool. It also helps me in the revision process as a writer, if I truly don't want that particular impression to come across - it means I need to revisit my poem, perhaps simplify a line or make different word, metaphor, etc. choices. Or flesh out the new layer of meaning. Or leave it alone. It's up to me as the writer at that point, as the poet. Even a line break or stanza break can give a poem multiple dimensions, whether intended or not. I loved the writer ~M~ selected in a recent challenge (I can't think of his name at the moment) but what he basically said was - I let the poem come, capture my thoughts, feelings and impressions, add more lines, revise, nit, continue to let it grow without forcing it, then let it go. It was such an honest expression of how he writes, and truly parallels the way I write most often. Then, perhaps offer up for critique, maybe don't even post it or look at it or work the poem based on any reader comments until months or years later, or re-post a year after it was written for critique and find validation, as he does, that some of the lines, words, etc. selected in this very open manner of capturing a moment, a thought, a feeling does resonate over time, and in myriad ways. Daily experience changes an individual, (even the writer!) and continues to mold and shape them. Even when I look back at some pieces, I am amazed at things I understand better down the road after a re-read then when I wrote the thing in the first place. "Ah-hah! I see now what I really meant!" Ask Freud about that one (slipped that line in, couldn't look it in the eye at the time, but now that time has gone by, I know exactly what I was saying/feeling and can admit it!) Good thread, David. Bad form? Nah. Just form waiting to get better or become a new form that hasn't been invented yet in this post-post modernist world of poetry that traverses print, electronic media and *gasp* the Internet! We're all learning and growing and why people who are sincere about their writing post here on Wild. That and for the sheer love and proliferation of poetry and the creative process itself. :-) It's an amazing journey, and those who might purport that "Poetry is Dead" are sadly mistaken, are missing out on some incredible works that reflect our ever-changing times. Best regards, Tina "All living beings on earth are our neighbors." -Albert Schweitzer | ||
| Teresa White
Advanced Member Username: teresa_white Post Number: 1071 Registered: 01-2005 |
David, Just want to say that it's taken me years on poetry forums to get up the nerve to tell another poet that I don't understand their poem or part of it. Because inevitably the person posting after me will say something like: "Well, I didn't have any trouble understanding this"...and then I feel like a complete idiot. The older I get, the more I feel comfortable speaking my mind...and hopefully be honest without treading on any toes or worrying what I "look like" in the eyes of others. Thanks for raising this issue! Teresa | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 3376 Registered: 10-2005 |
I'd like to preface my response by saying that we are talking about an environment similar to this, a workshop with an expectation that the poet wants to get the most out of the experience and take advantage of the feedback. I wish it was safer for readers to ask about things they don't understand in a poem. I agree with Teresa that the responses that often follow a question like that are usually supportive of the poet. I know they mean well but it is very disturbing to put forward a question, doubt or suggestion and have a bunch of people mention it in their comments. I know it's hard to resist chiming in when you hear something you have a different opinion about, but I do wish people would stick to their own critique and leave the other commenter out of it. I know sometimes I have done this same thing myself, I may see something that I just really hope the author doesn't take to heart, but I take into account the experience of the person commenting as will as the poet and most of the time I think I use the proper restraint. I guess I got a little wide of the topic. My point is that if someone asks a question it is intended for the author, and it should be responded to by the author. If someone wants to know what a poem means or what part of a poem was supposed to evoke, I think they should ask, and the author should take the time to give an answer. But it's funny, I often find with my own posts that a critiquer is telling me that they don't understand something by what they point out. So the question, while it can be helpful, isn't necessary for a good critique. -Laz | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4022 Registered: 05-2006 |
I believe that there is more freedom to ask questions here and at, say, Critical Poet, than nearly any other poetry forum. Ask a fair question of the poet at the PFFA, and in many cases some jerk will show off his or her intellect by trying to make you look stupid for asking your question. This resident mean-spiritedness has also, to a lesser degree, found a home at Eratosphere and The Gazebo. One particularly galling form of nastiness is labeling someone as "defensive" when they attempt to parry an obvious attack. Say the second stanza of a poem seems out of sync with the rest of the piece, but you suspect that perhaps there is an alternate interpretation that you are not getting that would be more in harmony with the rest of the work. So you pose a simple request for clarification. Then immediately some goon appears in the thread and takes you to task, claiming that you are wasting everyone's time asking such foolish questions. When you protest about being chastised, you are immediately slammed as being "defensive." I've seen this type of scenario hundreds of times, and it disturbs me deeply. Even worse, when a significant number of people on a site beat up on other people who post on the site, I find myself mysteriously pulled into their negative energy field. I find the "jerk" inside myself being drawn to the fore. And sooner or later, I disgust myself, and want to get a million light years away from that poetry venue. * * * * * That's why I hang out here. Fred Unofficial Forum Pariah -- recent victim of alien abduction -- I'm running out of places to store the bodies. | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 3380 Registered: 10-2005 |
Fred- Your stories about other poetry sites are horrifying. I'm glad that hasn't happened to me at a poetry site, although I have felt some of it at another opinion and friendship forum. There is definitely something going on in human development in the cyberverse that I think is worth following and understanding. I speak of the mob mentality we tend to get in when we are in groups. But on line, we can trace it's origins and champions, and we can run from the places that encourage it. I agree that here at Wild we have an environment that is well moderated, with leadership that doesn't use this forum as a platform for their beliefs. We are very blessed to have this place and to see that an exchange of ideas can happen without creating hostilities. But I do think it could be better regarding responses to comments. I'd say in the past year the only time I've felt bad (you know, that hurt feeling you get in your gut when you've been attacked) has been from other people commenting on a comment I made to an author in a post. (I think you and I even had an exchange once about that in which I was the first one to take the conversation off track by saying something about what you said. In that case, we were not discussing a poem, but still it was a break down in good communication that could have been avoided had we chosen our comments more carefully.) So now this post is going against what I was trying to say, which is that people need to focus their attention on the subject of a post; the poem, in a poetry forum, and not on whether they agree with the people who commented.  Phew...-Laz | ||
| David C.
Intermediate Member Username: david_shay_mish Post Number: 306 Registered: 07-2007 |
My advice to everyone would be to stay well away from PFFA. I stumbled in there by mistake once, and only escaped with the feeling that I'd been mobbed by vicious hamsters. There is, as Fred says, a sort of systemic mean-spiritedness about the place, and I think it's fostered - not entirely unintentionally - by the moderators. (What an inappropriate word that is in this context.) That benighted site should be the subject of a forthcoming shockumentary - "When Geeks Go Feral". | ||
| Cate
Valued Member Username: cate Post Number: 168 Registered: 02-2008 |
I like this thread, that was a very good question David. I'm often reading a poem that I enjoy and feel that I almost get but not quite. I hate to ask for clarification because it would be admitting that I can't understand what other people seem to so clearly see. I find the more I read easy it is to understand the abstract but I think this takes a fair amount of practice. I've also noticed that some people seem to be offended when asked what something means. I think they see the question as "why didn't you do a better job explaining" instead of "I'm having a hard time - help me see it" or maybe it's just annoying having confused people pulling on you sleeve.  I like what you said Fred about needing a cheat sheet to understand the metaphors that some of the beginners use. You've kind of hit the nail on the head - unless a metaphor is familiar to you it makes no sense. Right now I'm reading a book on reading poetry - no kidding. Cate | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 30143 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dearest All -- as a former teacher, it is distressing to me to read statements like this: "I hate to ask for clarification because it would be admitting that I can't understand what other people seem to so clearly see." I feel such sympathy for the person. I would always tell my students to please keep in mind that if they have a question, chances are extremely high that many in the classroom share that same question. More often than not, you are not alone. So, you shouldn't feel that way. There are many sitting silent just like you. And you shouldn't feel stupid for having that question. Have the courage to voice it. You are most likely speaking not only for yourself, but for many others. They will be happy you had the bravery to broach it. And remember -- there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. If you and your questions are not handled with tact and respect, this is more reflective on the teacher than it is on the student. He/she is the stupid one, not you. Love, M | ||
| Ros Badcoe (Rosemary)
Intermediate Member Username: endolith Post Number: 322 Registered: 03-2008 |
Ultimately, unless we're writing only for ourselves (and presumably we're not, since we're here) poetry has to be about communication. So if I don't understand something about a poem, I generally say so. Maybe my inexperience means I'm missing the obvious, but if I don't ask, I won't learn! The only time I feel perhaps I should have kept quiet is if the next few critters then go 'ah, yes, brilliant metaphor for the state of mankind' - sometimes it seems there will be poems I just don't get. Having also had my ankles bitten by said hamsters, I would like to add my appreciation of the atmosphere here and my feeling of freedom to say how I feel. | ||
| David Dumais
Valued Member Username: scribbledhopes Post Number: 106 Registered: 03-2008 |
Thanks all, Some excellent advice and it makes me feel a bit braver, instead of holding onto the question I am itching to ask. A really good point was brought to the surface. At times, the fear of the comments from others about my comment holds me back. Not to mention, as some wise soul stated, it is hard to follow a comment about a section that seems full of praise for technique from others. "This has to be the most intense poem ever posted, the use of form is staggering...Ect...." I usually back away to a safe zone. Quietly wondering if the emporer is really wearing clothes and I just can't see them. It is hard to follow a comment like that with, "I really like this, but why do you bring up cheese in the last stanza when the whole poem has been an underwater metaphor. (as far as I know there could be a cheese stanza craze sweeping the world. The hamsters will feed.) I do appreciate making me feel comfortable about the post, I am glad I did. Dave.. I always heard.. "Better to be quiet and thought a fool, than open your mouth and prove it." As wise as it sounds, it doesn't pan that well in life, at least for me. It's how I learn. (Message edited by scribbledhopes on June 02, 2008) I am not perfect but the worlds not perfect, so we are a matching set. | ||
| Jane Røken
Advanced Member Username: magpie Post Number: 1453 Registered: 03-2007 |
"My grandpa always said that asking questions is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime." (from Haruki Murakami: Kafka on the Shore) | ||
| Judy Thompson
Advanced Member Username: judyt54 Post Number: 1192 Registered: 11-2007 |
okay, here's a legitmate question: What is PFFA? I know it's the Poetry something, but beyond that I can't go. Poetry Friends For America? Poetry Forums From Arty?  | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4026 Registered: 05-2006 |
Poetry Free For All Unofficial Forum Pariah -- recent victim of alien abduction -- I'm running out of places to store the bodies. | ||
| Judy Thompson
Advanced Member Username: judyt54 Post Number: 1194 Registered: 11-2007 |
thank you fred; now I can rest | ||
| Jane Røken
Advanced Member Username: magpie Post Number: 1455 Registered: 03-2007 |
PFFA -- Pike Fly-Fishing Association | ||
| Ron. Lavalette
Intermediate Member Username: dellfarmer Post Number: 920 Registered: 05-2007 |
Pathetically Flawed Freudian Artist --Ron. Eggs Over Tokyo | ||
| Morgan Lafay
Senior Member Username: morganlafay Post Number: 3414 Registered: 08-2005 |
Poofed Feathers Fly Again (well, it could be)  | ||
| LJ Cohen
Moderator Username: ljc Post Number: 9516 Registered: 07-2002 |
"It is hard to follow a comment like that with, "I really like this, but why do you bring up cheese in the last stanza when the whole poem has been an underwater metaphor. (as far as I know there could be a cheese stanza craze sweeping the world. The hamsters will feed.)" Clearly you are not wise in the ways of poetry, cheese, and the existential metaphoric communication that can only take place with a fine brie or sharp cheddar, preferably served with a good merlot. A poem without cheese is like a day without sunshine. Or cheese left on the dashboard of your car on a hot day will melt in the sun. Or something like that. LOL. ljc Once in a Blue Muse Blog LJCohen | ||
| zenithfractal5
New member Username: zenithfractal5 Post Number: 3 Registered: 06-2008 |
Always ask for clarification about any aspect of a poem that stumps you. If the author won't be of help, then hopefully a sympathetic fellow audience member will. Joyce and Pound were pretty content to let most challenging works stand for themselves; but there is a real need that is satisfied by the various guidebooks others have written for readers just making their first attempts at Finnegans Wake or The Cantos. They are ladders you use to get yourself up to a certain point; then you kick them away, as Wittgenstein advised, once you no longer need those ladders. One thing any reader needs to keep in mind is that different poems demand different approaches of comprehension. Depending on whether a poem is, for example, abstract, didactic, evocative or surreal, that mode in which a poem is written implies a comprehension that takes into account said mode. I've written abstract or language poems where narrative or mere coherence didn't figure into the poem at all. Take for instance these lines: mmol como pcast bepl *T calcinate energy orthotics for bePi which bePi nes des-Arg rue fchange of ninebias If you were to ask me what I meant by writing it, what I was trying to communicate, all I could frankly say is that I was trying to fragment language in a way that generated some kind of energy; that I was playing with verbal textures. What I couldn't seriously tell you is that the poem "means" anything. Meaning was exactly what I was trying to get away from. If you can't enjoy the abstract qualities of the poem for its own sake, the poem of which these lines are a part is not going to be very satisfying. Alternatively, at the other end of the spectrum of coherence, I wrote these lines: With my few items chosen for purchase, I guided my grocery cart into aisle 3. The customer ahead of me carried on with the cashier about weight loss while I unloaded my haul onto the conveyor belt's steady forward flow; the jars and produce and boxes gathered into clutter at the brink of purchase. The lines are flat, bluntly declarative, terribly close to colorless. They mean exactly what they describe: a person finished grocery shopping at a supermarket placing items onto a conveyor belt at a cashier's station. I don't think this poem is very obscure or very complex; it doesn't really rise above itself to speak to anything greater than the occasion it is depicting. But I imagine that, given a few decades, not a few of the words and images in this poem will become largely incomprehensible as technology alters the experience of grocery shopping. Future readers will not have (as most of us do) the basic layout of a present-day supermarket in their heads with which to decipher some, if not all, of the actions in this poem. What seems "simple" now may later become "obscure." Then, intermediate to the above examples are these lines: ...through the primal forest path ever wavering with mutability like the droning leaves shifting in their fixed circuits and fated freedom, Faust finds his Way without compass; and the cold air bites his eyes and he bleeds spiritual tears. Here, the lines are saying things coherently enough (I hope); but the language is at times philosophical, technical; and the images are symbolic, not to be taken literally. I did not intend the "primal forest" to be just a forest; my Faust's "Way" is not just the path he is literally taking through the forest. Rather, the poem tries to goad the reader to imagine that the poem is just a reflection, a hint, of something greater going on at a higher level of interpretation--something in the way that the Sun's reflection on the surface of a puddle only hints at the grandeur and complexity of the Sun itself in its 3D reality. When authors get testy with earnest readers who, for whatever reason, don't get this or that about a poem they've written, it's usually because the poet expects the readers to get what type of poem it is and therefore how it is to be "read"; or they expect the reader to understand the poem's vocabulary or the poem's premise/situation: "This poem takes place at the height of the Cold War era in America, while alluding to 5th century BCE Greece." Depending on the degree of learning a given reader has, the easier or harder understanding a particular poem will be. (The moral here: "Stay in school and study; always read a lot 'all the days of your life.'" Paraphrasing Stephen King: If you're too busy to read, you're too busy to write.) Asking questions could generate guidance in what resources to turn to to better help you in interpreting a poem. Then there is simple poetic incompetence. The poet handles his or her language ineptly. He or she tangles up the poem's meaning. The poet doesn't know what he or she is talking about. Etc. In this case, a critique or a question could stir the poet to reconsider a verse, a stanza--a whole poem (ugh!). If nothing else, such questions can help other readers through a poem, illuminating "problem" areas. Questions/comments can be a win/win situation for the poet and the reader. As for the writer prefacing his or her material: I don't think there's anything wrong with it if a poet wants to do so; only, the more such prefacing material extends or amplifies (not just reiterates) a poem's qualities--to that extent such a preface is truly useful. Bottom line: there's no rule against asking for help or seeking greater clarity. Have confidence that a learning experience is worth the struggle it often entails. (Message edited by zenithfractal5 on June 03, 2008) (Message edited by zenithfractal5 on June 03, 2008) (Message edited by zenithfractal5 on June 03, 2008) (Message edited by zenithfractal5 on June 03, 2008) (Message edited by zenithfractal5 on June 03, 2008) | ||
| David
New member Username: nonamer Post Number: 22 Registered: 04-2008 |
"Better to be quiet and thought a fool, than open your mouth and prove it." Kind of reminds me of "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue." Given that, you have to ask what are you really after. It is because of those actions that fools learn nothing. If learning is your primary concern, then you must have already recognized yourself to be lacking in knowledge; Not to say that you are unlearned but rather that you have not yet learned certain things, which is fine. Asking is the best way to learn and asking for clarification is the best way to learn correctly. I think people sometimes don't ask enough questions, either they don't want to know or they don't want to ask. What's worse is that some people don't even appreciate a request for clarification. They see it as something incredulous and perceive you as someone dim. They don't recognize the fact that you are making effort to better understand something, either to learn more or to come up with a better response. Writing is just another form of communication, someone conveying something to someone else. For me, I'm more concerned with the original intent than any other possible interpretation, but that's just me. I'm of the thought that something shouldn't be praised beyond what it is not, so I'm wary of exaltations and commentaries of stuff; Not to say that alternate interpretations are wrong but rather to emphasize that original intent be held at higher value, because that is the author's primary purpose and also because subjective perceptions may sometimes see things which aren't really there or put there purposely. I'm doubtful anyone would be proud of being praised for something they didn't say or something they didn't intend. (Message edited by nonamer on June 03, 2008) | ||
| Lazarus
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 3383 Registered: 10-2005 |
These last two posts are worth the price of admission. Thanks David and Zenith for illuminating this discussion. Clearly there is a continuum for clarification. If you are writing on one end you should be concerned whether what you intend comes through. I think the point of this question though isn't whether interpretation is important, it's whether, in a forum like this, questions are accepted. -Laz | ||
| Cate
Valued Member Username: cate Post Number: 170 Registered: 02-2008 |
Dearest All -- as a former teacher, it is distressing to me to read statements like this: "I hate to ask for clarification because it would be admitting that I can't understand what other people seem to so clearly see." I feel such sympathy for the person. HI M – Oh my gosh please, I wasn’t trying for sympathy there – I was just stating an honest and true feeling that I (rightly or wrongly) assume most people experience some times in their lives. Sometimes pride or shyness can get in the way. All of us have things that we find challenging. Most things that I struggle with I’m quite open about, I accept these things as part of who I am and I quite like who I am. Don’t worry I’m often cocky too – but I try to keep that in my own head. I liked David’s question because it opened up discussion of something I’ve wondered about myself. A poem is different then a classroom. In a class I would ask – here I would ask, in a thread following an intense potentially personal poem written by someone I don’t know well… well, here I’m stepping out of my comfort zone a bit. In the future though – I will ask. People here, have always made me feel welcome. This is a very warm community. I have joined some other poetry forums but I haven’t posted yet – not to be weird but it seems like kind of a cold place to put a poem. The only other place that I put poems is on a non poetry forum that has a small section for members poems – there also I would and often do ask. All the best Cate (Message edited by cate on June 03, 2008) | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 30150 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dearest Cate -- Oh, I realize you weren't looking for sympathy, only expressing your honest feelings. I was speaking to you, but only as an illustrative example. As I said, given what I did for a living, I empathize with those feelings. Lots of my students expressed the same -- not in class, of course, as they were too shy, but afterwards. It's a common feeling. I've felt it in classrooms myself. I thank you for bringing it up. I'm sure your expression of those feelings is shared by many. It's important that people feel safe in a classroom environment. And to some degree, that's what Wild is. I'm glad to know that people feel safe and welcome here. Able to ask questions and express themselves. And I thank you most sincerely for allowing your feelings and thoughts to make their impressions here. Love, M | ||
| zenithfractal5
New member Username: zenithfractal5 Post Number: 4 Registered: 06-2008 |
In response to Lazarus' distillation of the main point, I'd say that whether asking questions of the poet is acceptable is a non-issue: Wild Poetry Forum does not place asking such questions out of bounds, so there is nothing to stop a reader from asking for clarification. What can be disheartening is the potential response one gets, either from the poet or from fellow audience members here on the boards--or anywhere that such formats exist. A reader may hope for a civil response, one that is respectful, helpful and patient; but contemptuous, defensive or obtuse ones are potentially just as likely. A reader who receives a number of these may quickly feel alienated from the community. This can be very subjective. Some readers may be hypersensitive (this goes for a poet posting a work, also): they perceive posts that are well within the bounds of civility that try to help said reader to appreciate the poem as being condescending or a gang-up. This goes to the heart of the hard work of creating and fostering a community such as Wild Poetry Forum: allowing for debate, while keeping it from degenerating into a vicious free-for-all, with every posting like so much blood in the water for the sharks circling beneath. And I went into the issues of how different types of poems might call for different types of readings or expectations to show why some poets might offer responses that seem to discourage questions of clarification or insist on an irreducible indeterminacy for a given poem. The reader has to be prepared for the answer that there is no answer. But I say again: ask questions. If the author will not help you understand, the audience almost certainly will. I've seen exactly that happen in the responses to various posts here at Wild Poetry. Look up above this post and see it for yourself: different people illuminating the issue at hand, offering their own perspectives and helping everyone reading here. |
