the personal vs. universal (or is it vs.?)

[Dichroic]

In the Poetry Crit forum, I've seen an implicit viewpoint showing up several times, in criticism to my own and others' poems and I think it's time to haul it into daylight for discussion here. The concept seems to be that poems ought to be universally applicable, and that as such it's better not to include too much detail or to use too many personal pronouns.

I disagree with both parts of this - both with the idea that all poems should strive to be universal, and that lack of specific detail is the way to do this.

First, I should say, there are poems that are deliberately aimed at urging a principle on the whole world, and in those poems the general approach is absolutely right - one example is Alexander Pope's Riddle of the World (http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/poetry/alexander-pope.html). (It's the one that begins "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan.")

Then there are poems that are specifically aimed at a smaller audience, and won't make much sense to others who haven't shared a particular experience or frame of reference. This is not necessarily a weakness, if it's intentional. An example of this is the speculative poetry we've been discussing elsewhere on this forum. Another example is my own Bell-Shaped Space (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99139) which I put in the Chapbook specifically because I couldn't have born criticism on something so personal by someone who didn't understand the final image. But there's no particular reason any general reader would be familiar with it (it's from a specific book, and an old English regional saying); I just wanted to share the poem for the enjoyment of those who would get it.

Finally, and maybe most important, there are the poems that share a very specific and personal experience for the reader to enter into. But I would argue that the latter are not less universal in application; they supply enough specific for the reader to identify with the emotions and enter into the experience recounted, even if it's one she may not have had herself. Here's an example of a good one from Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=175758). It's both absolutely personal and absolutely universal, IMO.

So what do you all think? Must a poem strive to be open to all? Or can we show the reader a picture and let him find his own way into it? I've made my opinion obvious: what's yours?

[temerity]

I agree with Billy Collins when he said, "I don't think people read poetry because they're interested in the poet. I think they read poetry because they're interested in themselves. That's why I read poetry. I read poetry to discover things about myself, not so much to discover things about Emily Dickinson."

A poem doesn't have to be universal, exactly, but it should be relatable. A cathartic poem is just a journal entry unless the reader can follow along. And isn't the point of poetry to make people see things in a new light? It's okay to use personal pronouns--just not inside jokes. When I read a poem, I want to go somewhere new.

Just two cents!,

.

[Steppe]

Well I hope for a good discussion on this topic. I for one will read every post and point of view. Let's face it, as much as we would like to think that our poem will or should appeal to everyone who reads it, it just doesn't happen that way. Some of the poems of my favorite poets do not appeal to me. And the use of personal pronouns do not make a difference.Some poems speak of personal things and do nothing for me. Other poems do.
It's all our choise in the end regardless.

[Dichroic]

When I read a poem, I want to go somewhere new.

.

Agreed, but to me, adding more specific detail rather than less is one way to do that. When I read the very personal Robert Hayden poem I linked to, it gets me to thinking about my parents and how I relate to them. Or for an example closer to home, Shweta's recently-posted Song of Shakti is not at all universal; it's about the images of one specific culture/mythology. But it both teaches me about it and gets me thinking about images in my own culture.
(And so I posted something I'd written previously about the effects my own culture has had on me, and the responses to that were some of the stimuli for his thread.)

[IceWaterX]

Hmm, isn't this a little contradictory? If the universal is universal, then wouldn't it be personal? That being said, clearly there is an overlap, and they aren't really opposites. I think the poet should not write things that are only personal, but write personal things that are universal, and therefore personal to more people than himself/herself.

And just off the record, from what I know about mythology and culture, it generates from an aspect of the universal, what Jung called the Collective Unconscious. Mythology is probably as universal as you get, in terms of capturing the subconscious of the world.

[Shweta]

I think the poet should not write things that are only personal, but write personal things that are universal, and therefore personal to more people than himself/herself.

It's an interesting point. Some takes on universality, though, go for less personal to anybody.
I think the only way something can truly be univeral is for it to capture someone's situation in an honest and rich manner.

A lot of the "cathartic poetry that's just a journal entry" stuff is actually not that personal. It's not seeing deeply enough, and people often resort to cliche that resonates for them because they know what they're feeling, but does not completely communicate it to others.

So I'd say that to be successfully universal a poem needs to be successfully personal, and that the part of that the poet can control is their own unflinching honesty.

And just off the record, from what I know about mythology and culture, it generates from an aspect of the universal, what Jung called the Collective Unconscious. Mythology is probably as universal as you get, in terms of capturing the subconscious of the world.

But mythology is also extremely specific. It uses that to let people richly imagine something that relates universally.

The minotaur in the labyrinth is universal while being specific, while "a trapped monster" is not.

[Dichroic]

just off the record, from what I know about mythology and culture, it generates from an aspect of the universal, what Jung called the Collective Unconscious. Mythology is probably as universal as you get, in terms of capturing the subconscious of the world.

Depends if you believe in Jung's theories. I don't think psychiatrists mostly do, these days. I'd say the part I'm sure is true is that our myths have a lot to do with the ways our brains work (I mean that in both directions). If you look at a few different mythologies, the parallels can be striking, but if you look at a *lot* of different ones they start having less in common. The other thing about Jung's theories thoug is that whether or not they're true, they can be a useful way of thinking about ideas - and some of the most resonant fiction is based on similar ideas.

[Shweta]

Depends if you believe in Jung's theories. I don't think psychiatrists mostly do, these days.
The more deeply rooted in an empirical science you are, the less you credit Jung these days. Which is to say, he's historical trivia if you're a psychologist, but still fairly useful if you're a writer.
He's wrong about the whole collective subconscious thing. But we're all humans, we're all very cognitively similar, we all have extremely similar experiences if you get down to the basics (gravity, pressure, heat, cold, hunger, pain...), we're all deeply socialized and enculturated, and some of what we end up with looks rather a lot like a universal subconscious.

So it's badly dated science but it's useful :)

[IceWaterX]

Jung's in depth analysis of the collective subconscious may be wrong, but that does not mean it doesn't exist beyond the basic level. Reoccurring motifs across the whole world's folklore, not to mention certain anthropological discoveries, such as the ones laid down in The Golden Bough seem to prove there is at least some ground in them.

All humans experience 3 things, no matter how they live. Birth, aging, and death. I can see how a collective subconscious can spawn out of there. After all, many people experience similar things in life, and some things have been experienced by many people over many ages. It seems only probable that there are certain things almost everybody will experience, as you put it Shweta, "gravity, pressure, heat, cold, hunger, pain", but also emotions, like Love (at least in most cases parental love, though not all of course), hatred (I know Inuit societies abhor the notion of hatred, but my reading in their folklore seems to indicate that they at least acknowledge it, if not admit to openly feeling it), lust/desire, and dissatisfaction, among others. It can also be argued that certain things are appealing to all of us, such as soft things (I know I would love to feel the fur on every fur coat I see), well cooked things (spices in general, even if you do not like all, seem to effect certain experiences in people), good music (Mozart has even been proven to posses a "Mozart effect"), and order (order always seems to be desired more than disorder).

If a poem can capture any of these universals than it would seem better than one than doesn't catch any. I think that the perfect work in universal capture is probably King Lear, though that may just be me.

Either way, many of our personal feelings are, and will be experienced by others, in some other shape or form. If we can relate these things to our readers, then I guess we are somewhat universal in scope.

[Dichroic]

Either way, many of our personal feelings are, and will be experienced by others, in some other shape or form. If we can relate these things to our readers, then I guess we are somewhat universal in scope.

Right, and taking that back to my original thesis, I tend to think that more particular detail rather than less is what makes it easier for readers to put themselves into the poem.

[IceWaterX]

Hmm, I'm not to sure; take this Blake poem for instance:

The Sick Rose

O Rose, thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

That seems to me the perfect example of the universal. It has no particular detail that prevails over any other, and can be interpreted in a million different ways. Yet it is still regarded as one of the best in our language.

[Shweta]

O Rose, thou art sick.
Here we have a rose. It's sick. That's a detail. It's both an anthropomorphizing detail and one we can readily imagine. Especially with the next line:

The invisible worm,
Yeah, we get worms in flowers. And we can get how that might map to a person who is spiritually sick, metaphorically, especially with the earlier anthropomorphization.

That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

All highly concrete details. Sure, it's not saying which specific rose, but "rose" is specific enough to give us vivid mental imagery.

Now in addition, in this one, it's not really just about a rose. But the imagery is specific enough that we get a highly specific notion of what has happened to some human being construed as the rose.

[IceWaterX]

No, that is not necessarily true, because from the start he calls it the sick rose. He personifies the rose from the title, which makes the whole thing to the reader always seem a metaphor for something. You are choosing to say it is a human being, but it is also possible that it is society in general (it wouldn't seem improbable given the other poems in Songs of Experience), or it could even resemble a garden, or perhaps it actually is just a rose. The point is, no one can really tell, only suspect. Nothing is certain. It reminds me somewhat of this famous Wallace Stevens poem;

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

This is another one that seems very incomprehensible, yet very powerful. The poem itself assumes the meaning the reader imagines, and thereby becomes infinite. The possibilities of meaning in this poem seem endless as well, with nothing here betraying the true meaning.

[Shweta]

Yeah, it's 1am here and I've been doing annoying computer stuff all day. Sorry. It could be mapped to a person, a society, a group, whatever.
But the imagery itself is specific, so no matter how you project it, you get specificity of experience.

[IceWaterX]

Yeah, it's 1am here and I've been doing annoying computer stuff all day. Sorry. It could be mapped to a person, a society, a group, whatever.
But the imagery itself is specific, so no matter how you project it, you get specificity of experience.

Bingo! The imagery itself is perhaps specific, yet it becomes infinite in the sense that it specifically talks about the theme of experience, yet doesn't take one solid shape. The theme of experience is a universal theme, yet the context of the poem for Blake, chances are, was very personal. This is the perfect example of creating a personal universal, in other words, something that is personal for everybody, but is universal in the sense that it deals with the theme of experience, which is understood by all of us. I am sure the way I see this is different than you, and the way you picture the rose, or the object you have assigned to it is very different than the one I imagine, yet I am also sure we both get a similar feeling of the effect, and that is the understanding of experience in a new way.

[Dichroic]

The other point is that poems vary, and that they are supposed to. The rose is a good example of a personal universal. I was going to give Millay's Recuerdo as a counter example, of a personal personal that that reader makes universal, but when I went to link to it I saw that I had misremembered. Millay never identifies *which* ferry she was riding on all night, and so that's a good example of the advice I've been seeing here, to file off the identifying details.

But here's one by Countee Cullen:
cident
by Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled,
but he poked out His tongue,
and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

I think if Cullen had posted that poem here for crit, he'd have been told to take Baltimore out of it. Yet, for me, that's an important detail. That's the one that makes it real, that says, yes, I was here, this did happen, this is something that affected my life. (Which, I think, is all true whether or not it actually happened to the writer.) Further, you can go analyze it and say that Balitmore is a marker of the virulence of racism Cullen faced, because it's the most Northern of Southern cities, right below the Mason-Dixon line, so that adds to the depth of information.

Don't get me wrong: I think writing a poem on purpose to be universal is a fine thing and is something that many great poets have done. I just don't think it's the only way to write a good poem.

[Shweta]

Don't get me wrong: I think writing a poem on purpose to be universal is a fine thing and is something that many great poets have done. I just don't think it's the only way to write a good poem.

Whereas I hypothesize that they do so via personalized, specific images even so, and that the personalization is a mark of vivid poetry.

[Dichroic]

Whereas I hypothesize that they do so via personalized, specific images even so, and that the personalization is a mark of vivid poetry.

Know then thyself: presume not God to scan...

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee might and dreadful, for thou art not so...

To be or not to be: that is the question.

Any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind...

Nuns fret not at their convents' narrow room...

Not, perhaps, vivid poems, but I'd argue they're great ones. It's interesting, though: I couldn't think of any more recent poems I like (say, from Kipling on up) without specific detail. Sometimes it's not personal detail, but it does seem to be specific.

[Shweta]

Know then thyself: presume not God to scan...

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee might and dreadful, for thou art not so...

To be or not to be: that is the question.

Any man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind...

Nuns fret not at their convents' narrow room...
Well, I'd call several of those lines vivid and personalized, if not individuated, then certainly referring to specific enough entities or categories that we can imagine them. And the one that's not, IMO, is Hamlet's soliloquy -- which goes on to play with intense, vivid, personalized images (though personalized to a character and not a real person).

[Dichroic]

Then we're probably using diferent definitions, so we need to agree on those before we can have a discussion we understand the same way. I think what I mean by personalized is similar to what you're meaning by individuated.

[Steppe]

What about poems written for a certain readership, as an example, poems for senior citizens, children, women or just for men? Would they be universal?

[ddgryphon]

Late to the conversation:

The current vogue in poetry seems to be a removal of self from the process of creation--so that the poem should, in some way, live outside of the poet. In short, you don't have to know anything about the poet to understand the poem. I think to a large degree that this grows from several decades of explaining poetry through the poets more than poems being inaccessible without knowledge of the poets. It adds some clarity to what you're reading if you know about certain facets of Ann Sexton's or Sylvia Plath's lives, but the poems are far from inaccessible.

Let me see if I can state that in a more simple and concise way: Poems shouldn't depend on knowing anything about the poet. I believe that that's a fair statement, but poetry has been taught in such a way, for at least the last 40 years, that if a poem doesn't make sense to you, it's because you don't know enough about the poet. So, now you have a new generation of poets that, understandably, want their poems to be talked about rather than them.

Like any movement, there are people at the extremes of both of these arguments. So, can anyone really say that a particular approach to poetry makes it good or bad? Like medium, approach doesn't dictate quality or value. Just because something is animated, doesn't mean it isn't touching, or dramatic or deep. However, culturally, we've decided that "animated" means "for kids" and that it is silly for adults to "waste their time" with that. In the same way people see the word "I" in a poem and jump to conclusions about it. In my opinion good poetry asks very few things of itself, but it is insistent that these things be present:

1.) Good poetry asks for deep and honest expression: this means that there aren't cliches that express shallow emotions or moments. Cliches exist as a sort of intellectual short-hand designed to easily express something. As such it is an indicator rather than a true reading of something. This is the main reason it is bad to use them when writing, because they have been diluted by general overuse, and as such have lost any possible depth of expression.

2.) Good poetry asks for a rich use of language: metaphor, simile, assonance, dissonance, alliteration, and other complex methods of expression.

3.) Good poetry seeks a connection to each reader: This is reader dependent, but the author can do a lot to help this along. If there is enough sensory information in with the truth or honesty of the subject, then the chance of this connection is greater. Here’s a snag though: some people come to poems with a need for an emotional connection, others come with a need for an intellectual connection. You have to decide for yourself with each piece you write if you can bring either or both of these to fruition in the written word. You have to choose what you are trying to accomplish. Once you’ve decided, it becomes easier to write something that can reach individuals.

Let me offer two poems:

I Am Not Yours
by Sara Teasdale

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

This poem is brutally honest and full of emotions and that often cursed “I” pronoun (I, me isn’t it all about the poet?). What makes this a good poem is not only its honesty, but it uses rich language to express it. Lost as a candle lit at noon, lost as a snowflake in the sea” are images of small things lost to a greater overall whole. “Leave me deaf and blind” offers a very personal look at the poet’s mind, yet it is so brutally honest, that it reaches out and grabs the reader and the line between poet and reader blurs. By the time the MC is swept away in a tempest of love, the reader is also left with that feeling of being a “taper in a rushing wind” and has become a part of the poem. It has become their experience too.

The Abortion
by Anne Sexton

Somebody who should have been born
is gone.

Just as the earth puckered its mouth,
each bud puffing out from its knot,
I changed my shoes, and then drove south.

Up past the Blue Mountains, where
Pennsylvania humps on endlessly,
wearing, like a crayoned cat, its green hair,

its roads sunken in like a gray washboard;
where, in truth, the ground cracks evilly,
a dark socket from which the coal has poured,

Somebody who should have been born
is gone.

the grass as bristly and stout as chives,
and me wondering when the ground would break,
and me wondering how anything fragile survives;

up in Pennsylvania, I met a little man,
not Rumpelstiltskin, at all, at all...
he took the fullness that love began.

Returning north, even the sky grew thin
like a high window looking nowhere.
The road was as flat as a sheet of tin.

Somebody who should have been born
is gone.

Yes, woman, such logic will lead
to loss without death. Or say what you meant,
you coward... this baby that I bleed.

Brutally honest, by the time you follow the MC on her quest and back you feel the separation and the pain that she feels. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or really happened this way–the honesty of the emotions, the fullness of the experience as expressed here reaches you. Again, you have complex language, vivid descriptions, unwavering honesty, and depth.

Also you can read For Jane: With All the Love I had, Which Was Not Enough (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1314963&postcount=1) too. It is different, but no lest honest, no less personal, no less accessible in terms of blurring the line between poet and reader. It doesn’t matter if you know the details of his life, the work speaks well by itself. There is probably some more intimate knowledge in knowing about the poet himself, but it isn’t needed to fully experience this poem either. There is again complex language, brutal honesty, depth of emotion, and the use of I, me and my.

My point is that being caught up in a poems method of expression is secondary to the true art of the poem. That "I" isn't as bad as current vogue would have you believe, and that the deeply honest and “personal” poem is ultimately universal in ways an intentionally universal poem can never hope to achieve.

I’ve not spoken to humorous poetry or modern rhymed poetry (both Teasedale and Sexton use rhyme and meter). Humorous poetry is its own genre and not really the subject here. Teasedale and Sexton are an older generation of poets that weren’t afraid to put themselves into their work and we are all richer for it.My point is that being caught up in a poems method of expression is secondary to the true art of the poem. That "I" isn't as bad as current vogue would have you believe, and that the deeply honest poem is ultimately universal in ways an intentionally universal poem can never hope to achieve.

I for one, don't want to be another Linda Gregerson (http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/823), even if it means I never see publication of my work.

[Norman D Gutter]

Two poems, about the same topic, that show the difference between the specific and the general are "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman and "The Death Of Lincoln" by William Cullen Bryant. Both were written shortly after Lincoln's death. Look at how these two masters handled the subject.

O Captain! My Captain!

by Walt Whitman

I.
O captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the stead keel, the vessel grim and daring.
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red!
Where on the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

II.
O captain! my captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up! for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills:
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores a-crowding:
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.
O captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.

III.
My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will.
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done:
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won!
Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!
But I, with silent tread,
Walk the spot my captain lies
Fallen cold and dead.



The Death of Lincoln

by William Cullen Bryant

Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
Gentle and merciful and just!
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear
The sword of power, a nation's trust!

In sorrow by thy bier we stand,
Amid the awe that hushes all,
And speak the anguish of a land
That shook with horror at thy fall.

Thy task is done; the bond of free;
We bear thee to an honored grave,
Whose proudest monument shall be
The broken fetters of the slave.

Pure was thy life; its bloody close
Hath placed thee with the sons of light,
Among the noble host of those
Who perished in the cause of Right.


Whitman's poem is quite general. No reference is made (that I can tell) that let's us know this is about Lincoln. In fact, the poem is so general about the death of any great man, it was read at the funeral of John F. Kennedy. Byant's is more specific. Both the title and some wording in the poem lets you know who this is about. You couldn't have read this at any ones funeral except Lincoln.

Each poem produces a different emotion. Whitman's leads to anguish, while Bryants leads to honoring of the dead. Neither is right or wrong; better or worse. They just treat the subject differently. I think Whitman's is more powerful, but then he is appealling to the stronger emotion. I like Bryant's better because he has given me some specifics. I know who his poem is about, whereas with Whitman, if I wasn't given the context, I'd have to guess.

Interesting discussion. I'm glad you started it.

NDG

[Shweta]

I think calling Whitman's poem "general" is really missing that it literally describes an extremely specific event, which the reader may or may not know to map onto another specific event. For example, when I first read it I had no idea it had anything to do with Lincoln, but its specificity gave me the full range of emotional effect anyway. I might not have known how to project its images onto the real world, but I had vivid, specific, imagery which worked powerfully.

It comes across as general if you don't note the two different levels, sure, but actually general is more like "Damn, a really bad thing happened" :D


I think part of what I'm saying is that "personal/specific/general/universal" aren't actually well-defined terms that are being used in coherent ways here.

[IceWaterX]

Hmm, William Cullen Bryant's poem to me seems better. Whitman himself admitted O Captain my Captain to be a minor, hastily written, inferior work, in comparison to his good work.

[Shweta]

Hmm, William Cullen Bryant's poem to me seems better. Whitman himself admitted O Captain my Captain to be a minor, hastily written, inferior work, in comparison to his good work.
tbh I like Whitman's better. Bryant's is so... very. Well, taken in terms of the period it's lovely but so... very. Exalted. Gets on my nerves.

[Ken]

Lincoln was such a great person that even a poem siting specific details about him, as a description of his shoes, would be universal and sublime, as he embodied the most noblest of human traits in such excess that rumors continue to abound about his having been a deity in disguise. In any event the World has not seen his like since, nor likely will for many centuries to come. He didn't just preserve the Union, he preserved humanity.

[IceWaterX]

tbh I like Whitman's better. Bryant's is so... very. Well, taken in terms of the period it's lovely but so... very. Exalted. Gets on my nerves.
Still, Whitman's poem's reputation seems to be derived from the American sense of pride, and not the universal. This very much is a context poem, and (in my opinion) highly overrated because of the American obsession with national history and identity. It is (again in my opinion) a shame that this poem is so over-anthologized, and over-taught in schools, because a reading of Leaves of Grass yields the view of so many (very many actually) greater works, that actually show the genius of Whitman. This poem simply shows a basic metaphor that lets people shout "Oh wow, I get it, he's talking about Lincoln Right?" Neither of these poems actually show the true capacity of either of these poets. These are both minor works, and actually rather mediocre works (again this is all in my opinion, do not take offense if you think differently).
Look at, for instance, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" by Whitman, which treats the same subject, yet captures it in a far more universal, and powerful way (I think it too long to paste here, but if you have (and I am talking about everyone, not just Shweta here) not yet read it, it is definitely worth at least one read, if not memorization).

I think, for instance this poem shows the capacity of William Cullen Bryant far better;

Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth have passed,
And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold pity show
The tears that scald the cheek,
Wrung from their eyelids by the shame
And guilt of those they shrink to name,
Whom once they loved, with cheerful will,
And love, though fallen and branded, still.


Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,
Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve;
And graceful are the tears ye shed,
And honoured ye who grieve.


The praise of those who sleep in earth,
The pleasant memory of their worth,
The hope to meet when life is past,
Shall heal the tortured mind at last.

But ye, who for the living lost
That agony in secret bear,
Who shall with soothing words accost
The strength of your despair?
Grief for your sake is scorn for them
Whom ye lament and all condemn;
And o'er the world of spirits lies
A gloom from which ye turn your eyes.

It is only natural for someone as powerful, and central to American thought, such as Lincoln to generate multiple poems from many great artists, but like most occasion pieces, I feel that both of these poems fail.

Geez, any clue why my line breaks aren't coming out? For some reason, every time I quote it makes me manually add line breaks for everything.

[Shweta]

It is only natural for someone as powerful, and central to American thought, such as Lincoln to generate multiple poems from many great artists, but like most occasion pieces, I feel that both of these poems fail.

Yeah,I think we've seen the same with a lot of egregious 9/11 poetry and simplistic terrorism-fiction.

Except when Mike Ford (http://nielsenhayden.com/110.html) did it... :tongue

[ddgryphon]

Both of the poems offered by Norman conform to my three needs of good poetry.

Both do the following:

1. Offer a deep and honest expressions
2. Use rich language
3. Seek an emotional connection to the reader

Whitman uses the "I" and the narrator of his work is clearly the poet himself--however, you don't need to know anything about Whitman to understand the truth the poem offers.

Bryant on the other hand stays out of his poem. The specificity of the poem asks that you understand the subject of the poem in order to understand its truth. In fact, if you know nothing about Lincoln to start with it is difficult to make a full emotional connection to the poem. It contains enough specificity of information that you know pretty much what you need to about it, however knowing about Lincoln helps make the connection for the reader easier.

[Dichroic]

Bryant on the other hand stays out of his poem. The specificity of the poem asks that you understand the subject of the poem in order to understand its truth. In fact, if you know nothing about Lincoln to start with it is difficult to make a full emotional connection to the poem. It contains enough specificity of information that you know pretty much what you need to about it, however knowing about Lincoln helps make the connection for the reader easier.

I think the two comments by DDgryphon get at the heart of what I was trying to talk about. I do agree a poem should not require outside knowledge about the author; however, I don't think a poem is any weaker for requiring a bit of knowledge about its own subject to be understood. (It certainly is less unversally appealing, but it may be all the more powerful for those who do get it.)

I can give general and personal examples. I suppose, by the standards of this discussion, Longfellow's I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (http://www.carolingcorner.com/iheard.html)is a success because you can appreciate it if you don't know anything about the author, but it's much more powerful if you know that it was written right after his son died, serving in the Civil War. On the other hand, Shweta referenced Mike Ford's 110 Stories (http://nielsenhayden.com/110.html), which doesn't make much sense if you don't know about 9/11. Yet I wouldn't say that it is not a good poem, just that it's very much of its time and may have less appeal fifty years from now to someone who hasn't studied the event it describe. Or maybe it will: a lot of very specific WWI poetry still works for me.

I found it interesting that when I posted my own poem Yiddishkeit (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101120) for crit (and that's one where you don't have to know about me but do have to know something about the poem's subject) I was advised by a few people to take out the word "Jew" as being too specific or too hard for a (presumably non-Jewish) reader to identify with, but that no one suggested removing specific words that all readers may not recognize, like "Yiddishkeit" (Jewishness or Jewish culture) or "mama-loshen" (mother-tongue).

[Shweta]

I found it interesting that when I posted my own poem Yiddishkeit (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101120) for crit (and that's one where you don't have to know about me but do have to know something about the poem's subject) I was advised by a few people to take out the word "Jew" as being too specific or too hard for a (presumably non-Jewish) reader to identify with, but that no one suggested removing specific words that all readers may not recognize, like "Yiddishkeit" (Jewishness or Jewish culture) or "mama-loshen" (mother-tongue).

I think this might have to do with two types of specificity.

1) Specificity of imagery, which (I argue) leads to vivid and clear understanding and is necessary in good poetry
2) Specificity of category, which apparently upsets some people. Interestingly, many poems and many stories are specifically about men or specifically about white Christian middle-class people, and those of us who aren't are expected to deal and identify anyway; but make that specificity refer to a group that's not perceived as "typical", and it makes some people feel excluded.
2b) I would hypothesize that the people who are most likely to feel excluded by subgroup categorization are those who normally fit into the "typical" group and don't have to do the cognitive work that "minorities" do to associate with most characters. I personally had no trouble associating with a Jewish woman; I've associated with British men, so why would I? But someone who is (for example) a British man reading about British men a lot, who read about British boys as a kid, might well feel put off.

[Dichroic]

I think this might have to do with two types of specificity

This is very interesting. I think you're right. In a general sense, #1 is probably the more important, which is why it's the type everyone jumped on and that we've spent most of two pages discussing. (And aren't done yet, I hope - I think there's a lot to be said about how to get that specific detail and what works for different kinds of readers.)

But #2 is what I actually started this thread to talk about and I find it fascinating that we've taken two pages to get here. Of course if I could have stated it as clearly as this we could have short-cut a lot of this discussion. I'm kind of glad we didn't, because it's been interesting and useful discussion, and because this is a much better statement than I had of what was niggling at me.

[Shweta]

It was niggling me too, but took me two days to figure out what was niggling :)
I just, ya know, helped derail meantime because till I figure this stuff out, I can at least be the entertainment. Or something.

Also, note, all I was doing was trying to generalize from what you said in your previous post about the specific issues. The niggles didn't sort out till you said it :)

[Dichroic]

Lincoln was such a great person that even a poem siting specific details about him, as a description of his shoes, would be universal and sublime, as he embodied the most noblest of human traits in such excess that rumors continue to abound about his having been a deity in disguise. In any event the World has not seen his like since, nor likely will for many centuries to come. He didn't just preserve the Union, he preserved humanity.

I think that's why I like specifics. Lincoln had warts. (Literally, or at least moles.) He was viewed as ugly by many, including himself. And he wasn't so much an anti-slavery crusader as a man dedicated to saving the Union, at any cost. (Not my interpretation: he said himself, that if he could save the Union by freeing all the slaves he would do that, but if he could save i without freeing any, he'd do that too.) And I bet his shoes were ugly.

Your heroes all have flaws. That doesn't mean they're not worthy of admiration.

I think a poem that gets to the specifics can show their greatness far better than a hagiographical one. Like the rest of us, they had flaws and problems, and bad hair days and days when they just felt tired and not like doing anything much. And yet they accomplished so much the rest of us don't manage. They weren't born special; they became that way on their own initiative, and that recognition as human beings is one thing we can give them in return.

[poetinahat]

I think I've missed the point of the discussion, which is nonetheless a great read.

I'd thought the question was whether a poet must write to reach anyone who might read the poem, or whether it's fine to accept that only a limited audience will comprehend, or 'get', the poem. (Shweta's just thrown a rope around this issue four posts above.)

My thought on that would be that it's fine for the poet to define the prospective audience - just as any writer does. But it's got to be a conscious act. The poet can't in good faith blame the reader for not getting the poem if it's poorly written, nor can the poet expect a reader outside the target audience to provide meaningful feedback.

Take the notion of being a Jewish woman. One may write a poem only for Jewish women to understand; alternatively, one may write a poem that also conveys to the reader the relevant aspects of Jewish woman-dom. It's up to the poet, and the poet should set expectations for audience response accordingly.

Well, now that I've set up my straw man and knocked him down, I'll return to the peanut gallery.

[Shweta]

...And if one writes a poem full of cross-cultural references, one needs to be okay with one's mother saying "I didn't understand it, but the rhythm was nice" :D

not that I'd ever do that...

[Dichroic]

I think I've missed the point of the discussion, which is nonetheless a great read.

I'd thought the question was whether a poet must write to reach anyone who might read the poem, or whether it's fine to accept that only a limited audience will comprehend, or 'get', the poem. (Shweta's just thrown a rope around this issue four posts above.)

My thought on that would be that it's fine for the poet to define the prospective audience - just as any writer does. But it's got to be a conscious act. The poet can't in good faith blame the reader for not getting the poem if it's poorly written, nor can the poet expect a reader outside the target audience to provide meaningful feedback.

Take the notion of being a Jewish woman. One may write a poem only for Jewish women to understand; alternatively, one may write a poem that also conveys to the reader the relevant aspects of Jewish woman-dom. It's up to the poet, and the poet should set expectations for audience response accordingly.

Well, now that I've set up my straw man and knocked him down, I'll return to the peanut gallery.

That was in fact my original point. But the discussion has ranged a bit, and I'm glad, because some other very cool stuff has come up along the way.

Since you addressed my example directly I will say that I do think it's valid to say either, "This poem doesn't work for me, but maybe I'm not the target audience," or "This poem doesn't work for me; if you want it to be accessible to a wider audience you need to use less specialized wording." I *don't* think you can (or rather should) say, "This poem is not accessible to the general reader because it's too specifically about a Jewish woman." That would be like telling Rudyard Kipling to change the animals in his Just-So Stories to badgers and foxes and horses, because the English children who were his intended audience weren't as familiar with elephants and giraffes and hippos.

[poetinahat]

Agreed.

And annotations aren't necessarily bad things; over the years, the notes in my Norton Anthology have helped me understand contexts of poems I'd never have gotten without them. (Of course, a little background reading helps too.)

[Dichroic]

OK, so next question: what qualifies as *not* specific? Are specifics absolutely required for a good poem? I would say (and others might disagree) that "Death, be not proud" is somewhat specific but not very; "No man is an island" isn't, and neither is "Know then thyself". On the other hand, Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room (http://www.potw.org/archive/potw158.html)" is an older poem with lots of specific images, as is Andrew Marvell's "If I had world enough and time".

[IceWaterX]

Still, even with annotations, some poems just don't seem to be worth it. An example, I find, is Hugh Selwyn Mauberley by Ezra Pound. Half the thing is written in language I cannot understand, and some even with an alphabet I cannot read. Is it really worth reading?

[poetinahat]

That depends. You can ask the same question of many eminently comprehensible poems!

I liked LimeyDawg's comment in another thread (http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2004722&postcount=26) about difficulty being a rite of passage, and early hard work having great rewards. I'm very glad I had dedicated English teachers who exposed me, with some coercion and guidance, to some more difficult poetry. I'd have missed out on worlds.

[Dichroic]

And then there's Jabberwocky, which I actually like better if I ignore Humpty-Dumpty's explanation.

[poetinahat]

And that dadgum Red Wheelbarrow.

[ddgryphon]

And that dadgum Red Wheelbarrow.

Don't make me open up a can of chicken-poetry on you Rob. You know I can link (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37674)to it and bring (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1831840&postcount=8)it back (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2090146&postcount=97)at anytime.


As many an evil scientist has said, "Mwu-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

[Dichroic]

Well, *that* brought discussion to a screeching halt. :-) And so I would like to point out that there is an antidote to those damned plums and that dratted wheelbarrow: the rest of WCW's work. My own favorite is "Peace on Earth" but I think that's mostly because of the music Gordon Bok put to it, so I will offer this instead:

The Uses of Poetry
by William Carlos Williams

I've fond anticipation of a day
O'erfilled with pure diversion presently,
For I must read a lady poesy
The while we glide by many a leafy bay,

Hid deep in rushes, where at random play
The glossy black winged May-flies, or whence flee
Hush-throated nestlings in alarm,
Whom we have idly frighted with our boat's long sway.

For, lest o'ersaddened by such woes as spring
To rural peace from our meek onward trend,
What else more fit? We'll draw the latch-string

And close the door of sense; then satiate wend,
On poesy's transforming giant wing,
To worlds afar whose fruits all anguish mend.

This one can't be accused of lack of specificity, though I think the jump between metaphors (boat to home to flying on a giant wing) may be a bit a sudden. Is this a metaphor too far?

[Dichroic]

Ground control to Major Isaac:
You're not unqualified. You have a brain, the willingness to use it, and an appreciation for poetry.

(Sorry, couldn't resist that first line after your poem. I must say, though, I know about a spacer spinning out of control (spent a long time working as an engineer for a NASA contractor, not to mention years reading SF) but I can think of a few things a spaceflower might be.)

I agree with you, mostly. I think your teachers are idiots. We can't know what Emliy went, though after enough study we can build a consensus. (However, to see exactly what that's worth, go look at Jewish commentary on the Torah. Five books, 2000 years, and they're *still* pulling out new meanings.) Further, even if the poet is your best friend and she tells you exactly what she meant, that doesn't mean that's all there is in the poem. Sometimes poets put in more than they realize. Sometimes a new meaning is built as a collaboration between poet and a particular reader. (Sometimes the reader is imagining something that's not there according to the poet or any other read ever. I'm not even sure whether that's invalid.)

But it does make it tricky to explain what is a 'bad' poem, even when we all agree some are. I would say one factor is when rules of grammar or usage or rhyme or meter are broken unintentionally - or maybe it would be better to say, when they're broken and the intent was to follow the rule. Another factor is poems that can't mean anything to most readers because all the powerful images stayed in the poet's head instead of making it onto the page, which gets back to the discussion of specificity.