Please lend me your critical judgement!

[asphara]

Right, this literary professor has said, what seems to me, completely incomprehensible things about what constitutes good contemporary literature - and I am genuinely curious to find out if it is me who is crazy or him. Any views would be warmly received. They said;

"You should not rely on the reader having a broad vocabulary, or the patience to look up words. If meaning is too abstract it lacks any universality through which a reader can apprehend the meaning as intended. The author should think in terms of accessibility, clear images, and markers to help interpretation, and a narrative order to expose the points it wants to illuminate. Literature that has no objective meaning is only meaningful to one person."

This guy is a literary professor and I wanna know if he's a crackpot. This sounds advice for CV to me.

Please reply - thank you!

[Captain Cosine]

I somewhat agree with him. I've always wondered why we try to use "big words" (for lack of a better one lol), don't we want people to understand what we mean? I mean, obviously we don't have to talk like idiots to each other, and we do need a nice vocabulary to communicate efficiently, but I find no need to really get thesaurus syndrome and fill my writing with the most sophisticated words I can find. Many people lack a very broad vocabulary, but that doesn't men they aren't smart. When we write using our very broad vocabulary, we basically created our own target market; people who have a similar vocabulary.

[asphara]

Yes, but why I we concerned about "markets" in literature? Surely that's a reified concern for commercial writers!!! What would have happend during modernism if this was the dominant view?

[overload]

One of my lecturers told us "always speak in the language of the recipient" but that was for construction management and (no disrespect to my fellow workers) we do have to use a language they understand. Literature is different because it will be read by a wide audience, some of whom will have a very broad vocabulary. To make it understandably to all is to dumb down to the lowest common denominator (like Saturday night TV!). The professor is correct in that you need to make the work readable for those you intend it for but my advice would be, unless it for a particular market, eg children, go with what you feel. I don't get all the imagery in the poems I read but the world would be a duller place if everything was simple and obvious

[BenJohnson]

Your professor is more or less bang on for mainstream literature, people like bite sized poetry, though some poets are still able to pull off producing and selling novel length poems. Specialised words if they are the correct word in the correct place are fine, but not if they are only there to show how cever the poet is, people don't like smart arses. A poem can be abstracted so that every reader will get their own personal meaning from it, but once it becomes so full of personal references and language that nobody will benefit then it perhaps loses much of its power, even then it can retain beauty of language, Dylan Thomas for example.

However away from the mainstream anything goes and all experimentation is worth while for it may just lead to a new destination in literature. At the end of the day what is most important is that the writer remains true to themselves and their vision. For example Walt Whitman broke most of the rules and at one point thought his style of writing was going to be ignored in favour of tradional forms of writing, after his death he ended up becoming the bedrock of modern American poetry.

[Hare]

If you are writing for yourself alone then you can do it any old which way you want and to hell with the rules. If you intend that your work be read by others then you are obliged to consider them as an essential link in the creative process. If a standup comic fails to make the audience laugh then it doesn't matter how wonderful he considered his jokes to be because he has not established a rapport with the listener and they will not listen to him again. If a poet fails to create an affective response in the reader then, even if they do not sit directly in front of him, he has similarly failed. Something must occur within the reader, a state of emotional arousal, in order for the creative act to reach completion and the poet to be acknowledged as successful.It's not that the writer needs to select words of such simplicity that they can be individually understood by all but, rather, that he must weave them together in a highly unique way. Everyone who ever picks up a pen to write feels themselves to have something of import to communicate, coupled with desire to believe that they are blessed with natural talent. Even if that natural talent does actually exist it must be honed by hard work and an ability to survive, and learn from critique. It's easy to reject critique on the grounds that many famous poets/artists/writers were reviled in their day but refused to compromise. It's harder to honestly explore the likelihood of our turning out to be one of them.
There are many who write for a living and feel frustration that they are tethered to the demands of a target audience and consequently unable to change their style, or explore new creative challenges, without losing their audience and their livelihood. Only an amateur, submitting his work within a non judgemental environment, can write badly and still receive praise.
From the brief quote given, I imagine the Professor to be a man well worth listening to.

[asphara]

I disagree Hare - you are assuming the cognitive, conscious side of intersubjectivity. Poetry often appeals on the emotional and existential plane, as often literature does. There should be no self-consciousness in the poetic moment. How can you have consciousness for others?

[Hare]

Asphara, I'm not personally having some egocentric, out of body experience when I attempt to write a poem. Half the time I'm getting the other half to roll his shirt sleeve up because I wrote an idea on his arm, half way around the supermarket, when I couldn't find a piece of paper. Then I'm sweating away trying to turn the idea into something which might vaguely be called poetry and which fits within the rules which are applicable to poetry. The thing that I'm trying to avoid at all costs is some random discharge of emotion which might well be open to interpretation by a psychotherapist but can't fairly call itself a poem. I want to control the angst rather than have it control me so I do indeed have a very strong consciousness for others, especially if I'm intending to ask them to read what I've written. So how do you define the 'poetic moment'?...because I don't have one. I have a multitude of ideas that I try, and usually fail, to turn into something coherent. In truth, I probably write better when I'm drunk, or at least it looks pretty damn good until I get sober.:)


Hare.

[asphara]

Hare, when you have an organism or a nice cake at that moment there is no Hare but pure orgasm/taste. Many who indulge creatively report loosing themselves in what they do; and I for one do - when the poetic moment is imanent your hardly wondering whether this'll appeal to group a or b. I recommend you let your impulses take you - then they might develope, and not come out two left footed and madly due to self-repression.

[Hare]

Thankyou asphara, your advice has made me giggle and there is too little laughter in this world. I shall confine my orgasms to the singular and contemplate cake..without giving any consideration to the needs or existence of my baker lover with whom I share the 'poetic moment'!!!
I don't personally consider poetry to be an 'impulse driven' act but, rather, a creative act boundaried by a specific set of rules. Nor do I think that a logical refusal to be entirely impulse driven equates to 'two left footed...self repression'.
I fear we shall have to agree to disagree. Now that is indeed a cliche which a person should never use in a poem so I shall resist the impulse to do so.

[Captain Cosine]

I just don't see a reason to use a whole lot of sophisticated words. We can sound intelligent without cramming in every obscure synonym for a word. Sometimes the lesser known words are needed, and of course you can use them, but you if you plan on presenting your writing to the public, I feel you should have the consideration for them and use words they can understand. If I use my vocabulary to the fullest extent, almost none of my friends will have a clue what I'm talking about. I'm not saying to completely dumb down all your work, but if the word isn't needed, what harm comes from using a "smaller" word?

Edit: However, in poetry, I think it's fine to use any word you please. Poetry SHOULD have that mysterious feel to it. I'm mostly talking about like a book or something like that, something in which you are trying to prove a point. Poetry has no rules.

[BenJohnson]

That can't be true, poetry must have rules, however they can be broken, it is the skill of the poet that determines whether breaking them results in a better poem or a worse poem. Without rules this would count as a poem

I am a boy.

Of course that can be argued until the cows come home, but I don't accept that is poetry, so there must exist one or more rules which can define why it isn't poetry.

I would also argue that the poet who ignores his/her audience while indulging in the sort of intense experience that comes from cake eating doesn't deserve a reading audience. They have already had their cake and eaten it while indulging in the pleasure of writing while their audience has gained nothing from it. Faced with a well crafted poem which opens its doors to me and invites me to wander through it halls and another poem which has a portcullis of obscurity dropped in front of locked and barred doors, why should I struggle through the effort of breaking into it only to find someone has already scoffed all the cake?

[Captain Cosine]

Okay well yes there are rules that would define whether it is poetry or not, but I meant it in the sense that you don't need to follow a certain structure or anything. It's easy to write a poem, but hard to write a good one. And just because one struggles to find the meaning in a poem doesn't mean it's bad, nor does it mean they neglected their audience. For me poetry is an emotional exploration, if I cater to all readers out there then I lose part of the healing that comes from my writing. I want them to challenge me with words I've never seen before, with word play, and anything else obscure they can throw at me, it makes the experience so much better.