Some Good Advice

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

A poem is not a form of words arranged in a particular way; nor does it employ types of words which are heightened or inflated or not in common use. Nor should we seek to restrict poetry to language which contains imagery or which has a rhythm.

If we say some writing is poetry because of technical reasons we are displaying an ignorance of cause and effect in poetry.

Like all good writing poetry communicates. It provides an experience, which needs to be evaluated when we read.

To me a poem provides an insight at some particular moment, which resonates far beyond the moment>

Well, this poem did none of this.

I don't go along with the "anything can be poetry" mindset. Just because you take a simple sentence and throw in some line breaks, that doesn't make it a poem.

[cogs]

two enlightening ideas from both debaters on both threads:
morpheussandman: "You can intend whatever you want, but just because you have intended it does not mean that's actually what you've communicated."
vagantes: "Like all good writing poetry communicates. It provides an experience, which needs to be evaluated when we read. To me a poem provides an insight at some particular moment, which resonates far beyond the moment"

concerning "some good advice", i personally saw an ironic image that drew my interest to the last line. the title added a sardonic twist, which was satisfying.

i understand, after training oneself technically to create an image through poetry, how the definition of that creation gets conservatively narrow. i also believe in a wider, liberal acceptance of created images that relay a thought just as effectively, as that ensconced in precise form. the semantic division may be one of mechanism, rather than content. wouldn't you say that sometimes poetry walks a thin line above prose?

[Delta40]

I believe the poet has to accept that once a poem is published it is in the hands of the reader to interpret it at their own unique level. The poet has no control over this. They cannot factor another's personal views, experience, expectations and understanding of the world in which they live. For a poet to expect its audience to grasp the exact meaning, the exact spirit in which they themself wrote it is completely unreasonable and smacks of a need to control. The aim of a poet can only be to communicate, convey, stimulate the senses, create imagery which the reader then interprets to their own satisfaction - not the poets. To suggest that a poem has been misread is a denial of diversity. My poems are often misread yet at the same time another level is uncovered that I myself had not even noticed and it always gives me pleasure when a reader reveals a fresh angle on my work.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I believe the poet has to accept that once a poem is published it is in the hands of the reader to interpret it at their own unique level. The poet has no control over this. They cannot factor another's personal views, experience, expectations and understanding of the world in which they live. For a poet to expect its audience to grasp the exact meaning, the exact spirit in which they themself wrote it is completely unreasonable and smacks of a need to control. The aim of a poet can only be to communicate, convey, stimulate the senses, create imagery which the reader then interprets to their own satisfaction - not the poets. To suggest that a poem has been misread is a denial of diversity. My poems are often misread yet at the same time another level is uncovered that I myself had not even noticed and it always gives me pleasure when a reader reveals a fresh angle on my work.

Bravo! And that "fresh angle" might be the result that the subconscious plays in the composition of any poem. Indeed the images one chooses might be because of their association with some hidden preoccupation.

[vagantes]

We keep coming back to this like a dog returning to vomit.

The French scholar Michel De Certeau had a view of writing that was fixed and permanent, whereas reading is a more vagrant occupation:

Whether it is question of newspapers or Proust, the text has meaning only through its readers; it changes along with them; it is ordered in codes of perception that it does not control.

Reading adds complexity and variability by discovering nuances of meaning. Texts are open providing unlimited means of exchange between reader and writer.

However, if the two activities of reading and writing are to be of value there has to be a point where "the differing codes of perception" come together out of the way reader and writer approach the text. This expands meaning rather than seeking its delimitation. Far too often, on here, readers seek to reduce. A well-equipped reader tries to determine the writer's purpose from this meeting point.

All reader have a responsibility to respect the writer's intent whenever the reader confronts the text even if it is found there are in the text different layers of meaning from those placed by the writer.

[Delta40]

Give an example where readers on Lit-Net seek to reduce.

Give an example were a poet seeks to expand.

Define a well equipped reader.

Define a well equipped poet.

Outline what a readers responsibility entails

Outline what a poets responsibility entails.

I simply want to understand to expand on my learning. As a footnote, I'm a writer and all readers of this post have a responsbility to respect my intent whenever the reader confronts the text even if its found there are in the text different layers of meaning from those placed by the writer.

[Buh4Bee]

I believe the poet has to accept that once a poem is published it is in the hands of the reader to interpret it at their own unique level. The poet has no control over this. They cannot factor another's personal views, experience, expectations and understanding of the world in which they live. For a poet to expect its audience to grasp the exact meaning, the exact spirit in which they themself wrote it is completely unreasonable and smacks of a need to control. The aim of a poet can only be to communicate, convey, stimulate the senses, create imagery which the reader then interprets to their own satisfaction - not the poets. To suggest that a poem has been misread is a denial of diversity. My poems are often misread yet at the same time another level is uncovered that I myself had not even noticed and it always gives me pleasure when a reader reveals a fresh angle on my work.

I second this, Delta. It just makes so much sense what you say.

[MorpheusSandman]

The entire topic of the responsibility of audiences to artists is a large and complex one that has attempted to be answered in a variety of ways. Most early poetry was very concerned about communicating very exact meanings and they developed systems of culturally understood codes that seem to translate to the same thing, but as with much art it didn't take long before various artists were subverting this and creating ambiguity. One really finds that exploding in the time of Shakespeare, Milton, and Donne.

As times changed, critics and audiences (and maybe even artists, to an extent) began to abhor the notion of locking down texts to one meaning, as if art was merely a crossword puzzle to be solved. They discovered that great art is that which invited multiple interpretations from multiple viewpoints. The New Criticisms revolution of the early 20th Century with critics like Richards, Empson, Wimstatt/Beardsley, Brooks, Eliot, et al, sought to shift the focus from understanding texts through history and biography to understanding it through technique. In many ways, their concepts of close reading are still the strongest critical paradigm going, because it puts emphasis on what was said and how it was said rather than what was intended to be said or what what intended to be said would be understood in its particular time in culture. But eliminating biography and history/culture completely can be difficult because every culture builds up its own lexicon of meanings and symbols, and every individual (especially artist) develops their system within that milieu, usually in response to it.

I tend to find any absolute attitudes on how poetry should be read and understood limiting to some respect. The postructuralists like Barthes and Eco liked to show how if you completely eliminated the author that a text could shown to frustrate any interpretation by offering evidence by which to interpret it in an opposing manner. To them, texts didn't mean because they could never just mean one thing without also meaning its opposite to a certain extent. And, as ridiculous as it sounds, there is some merit to their claims (perhaps most famously displayed in Barthes' extended reading of Sarrasine by Balzac in a book called S/Z).

My own way of thinking is that the best art simply provokes people to interpret it however they want. If art is to last it can't afford to be locked down to one (or a few) meanings by its author, its historical context, or even the text itself. Our views on Shakespeare has changed as our society has changed, and is it wrong to say Hamlet can't be Freudian because Shakespeare wrote before Freud? The fact is that Shakespeare intuited so much about life and put so much of that into his work that he was tapping into things we didn't even have theories and ideas about yet. But if we were limited to reading his work in the context of 16th/17th Century aesthetic and philosophical theories then we'd be limiting his genius indeed.

I'm often immune to the poles that an audience has NO responsibility to an artist or an audience has ALL the responsibility towards an artist. If art is communication, and communication is a two-way street, then it seems to me there's responsibility on both sides, at least if you want anyone to care. Perhaps an audience misreads because they're only reading based on their personal reactions; well, then if they're that far off-base they probably won't influence others. Perhaps an artist just doesn't communicate something well and provokes all kinds of varying thoughts; well, then, maybe all the better because it will keep people talking about it.

But the absolute worst thing that can happen in that audience/artist dynamic is for the artist to scold and belittle and flame his audience, especially as long as they're not being nasty themselves. Engendering hostility is a sure-fire way to make nobody care enough to hold up their end of any responsibility they may have towards the artist to begin with.

[vagantes]

A reductionist reader is one who looks for a story in a literary work. Think of a journalist - forever providing a summary through paraphrasing . Such readers attempt to encapsulate what they read. Texts are closed down.

All literature seeks to expand.

So there is a conflict between a reductionist reader and the text. One closes down, the other opens.

A well-equipped reader respects the textual intent provided by the writer. He or she evades stock responses and critical preconceptions

[Delta40]

And the other three points?

[vagantes]

The other three points you can deduce from my answer.

Your question are themselves reductionist.

All readers rewrite what they read. But, what you read comes from the writer. Do not burden the text with your baggage or what you believe to be the baggage of the writer.

[MorpheusSandman]

Reductionism in science is about reducing every thing to its smallest element and understanding how those things come together to create the whole of what we observe. I don't like the term applied to critics who only looks for stories in texts, and I don't see anyone around here doing that anyway. If all a reader cares about is authorial intent then they've closed down the meaning as much as the person who only cares about story. Your theory contradicts itself.

[vagantes]

My theory is open, which means it cannot contradict itself.

Lawd help us.

Reductive is an adjective used to describe how a text is interpreted in a way which reduces and limits its meaning, rather than exploring and revealing every possible nuance. It diminishes and narrows the significance of the text.

[MorpheusSandman]

My theory is open, which means it cannot contradict itself.

If your theory is texts should be open, but that they should also be reduced to authorial intent, then that is, indeed, a contradiction.

Reductive is an adjective

Except you said "reductionist," which just as equally applies to people who abide by the philosophic theory of Reductionism. I would call Vendler a reductionist critic because she takes texts and analyzes them from the smallest parts on up. So I'm just saying be careful about tossing out the term "reductionist" out there because while it can mean simply "one who reduces" it can also mean "one who agrees with the philosophy of reductionism," and one is a negative and the other is a positive (in my view).

[vagantes]

For clarity: the adjective reductive is a critical term used for particular types of literary critics. I call that activity reductionist.

I would have thought it perfectly clear what was being discussed. - both from context and content.

Those reading skills need some attention, if you don't mind me saying so.