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| 29 May 2014 |
While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed,As to long panoramas of visions.
--Walt Whitman, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d"
Some contemporary poetry is obscure, some of it has an intellectual affectation, it might say to the reader—the reader might intuit—that this poetry is meaningless and that perhaps it was written more for insiders than average people. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being difficult, I applaud being difficult; what is difficult today may be obvious to future readers. But, still, this poetry is more an extension of life's confusion, not an understanding of it, not clarity, not even clarity grounded in an aesthetic presentation, only more confusion. I like direct plain concise language which is an achievement in expression, it is also a very difficult achievement. Poetry deals with the human condition, it isn’t about language, it isn't word play, it isn’t being clever, it isn't jibber jabber, gibberish, abracadabra, or intellectual flim flam... The clue to understanding poetry is that it must be authentic to psyche—that’s all it has to do—otherwise it is meaningless to the reader, it is obscure, obfuscating, pretend intellectual, not real poetry, it doesn’t communicate or offer communion with the reader, it just adds to the overall confusion of life.
There is writing poetry and there is reading poetry, these are two different experiences. If you write poetry then the process is that writing poetry precedes having ideas about poetry and it may take you places—the unknown—in your writing that you never knew you would visit, but if you have preconceptions about what you want to write then you will never visit these new places and new themes in your poetry. It used to be popular to be a Marxist and write about Marxism in one's poems, that is now outdated and old fashioned; today, the popular thing is gender and gender dysphoria, but writing about gender dysphoria doesn't produce real poetry although real poetry may be about gender and gender dysphoria. Poetry isn't prose and some poets should turn to prose if they want to communicate a specific message on some topic of importance to them.
Writing poetry is different than reading poetry; even though it might be one’s calling in life, writing poetry may only be temporary. Coleridge wrote poems for only two years, it was his calling but it was only for two or so years. Some poetry you read stays with you for a lifetime; poetry or some other art form, for instance visual art or music, changes and deepens as you get older, as you return to it at different times in your life and as you mature as a person, then it gives you a new perspective on what you used to believe. Poetry can also work at an intuitive level, or be an intellectual apprehension, or work at a deeper or different perspective of one's life, and whether one is reading poetry or writing poetry one must always be authentic to psyche. Poetry is visionary and an expression of the soul, it isn't a treatise, a dissertation, it isn't propaganda, it isn’t fiction or prose; for this reason poetry doesn't have a greater place in our contemporary world even though reams of poetry are written and published every year.
Revised: 07, 08, 11 May 2025
