2 q-s: one about readers, one about you.

[Senna Jawa]

• What do you wish the readers would get from your poems?
• What do you yourself wish to get from your poem?

 

[Senna Jawa]

a tiny answer to q1

Let me give this thread a head start. There are total answers, and tiny, fractional. I'll leave a total answer for later. Here let me focus on the first two lines of my poem a song of no bandwidth:

lady loneliness
never leave me alone​

Obviously, for better or worse, they are moody. And the whole poem is like this (well, almost ). Nevertheless, there is a quiet joke in a form of a logical contradiction (paradox, oxymoron) inserted into these two lines.

But that's not (all) what I would like a reader to receive from this beginning of my poem. I feel that the pure mood alone is somewhat too simple, too obvious, even cliched. It's like a simple fruit juice, or a boiled egg. My quiet joke should act like a bit of alcohol added to this fruit juice (secretly), or like a bit of pepper added to a boiled egg. Just a little. Enough to make things not so plain. I want a pale clown smile mixed into sadness.

 

[butters]

short answers:

i'd love a reader to look at a thing in a new way, go someplace different in their heads, find what i wrote has made them think and feel something. basically, it has interacted with them to a degree.


what i want from my own is simply to be satisfied with what i have written.

 

[Senna Jawa]

short answers:

i'd love a reader to look at a thing in a new way, go someplace different in their heads, find what i wrote has made them think and feel something. basically, it has interacted with them to a degree.

That's a natural answer, nice.

what i want from my own is simply to be satisfied with what i have written.

This answer feels too short to me

Thank you,

 

[butters]

That's a natural answer, nice.

This answer feels too short to me

Thank you,

well, ok, it's the truth but i will elaborate briefly:

i want to read something i've written and not feel it's missing something, or that it needs adjusting in any way, shape or form. i want it to be its own truth, true to its own voice, its own moment. when i can read something and it does that, then i am satisfied i have written what wanted to be written.

 

[vrosej10]

• What do you wish the readers would get from your poems?
• What do you yourself wish to get from your poem?

These are damn good questions Senna!

I would like my readers to either associate with my work or get some truth out of it. My life at times has been brutal and some of my poetry reveals the feel if notthe content of that. My erotic stuff is usually an exercise in romantic love (which is NOT like me at all. I'm like a dude when it comes to these matters).

I want to get a sense of satisfaction from my work. Editing a poem down is like solving a word puzzle. When you get it and it clicks, that's enormously satisfying for me.

 

[bronzeage]

I want slavish adoration.

 

[Liar]

• What do you wish the readers would get from your poems?
• What do you yourself wish to get from your poem?

Huh. Good questions. Probably questions that one doesn't ask oneself enough. I know I certainly don't.

Ideally, a reader should come away from a poem with a new idea on how to view an issue or phenomena. Or a re-kindled one. It would be presumptious to expect that every idea I have is unique to the world. And if not, I wish they at least get a moment of entertainment and distraction. One should not knock that as a value, in my opinion.

As for myself. I write poems for two reasons. To practice the craft of using the language in which I wrote it, and to practice the craft of using any language to express things that would be difficult by mere description. I do it with music, I do it with storytelling, I'd do it with visual arts if I wasn't completely crap at it. And with poems. It's not that I feel I have a burning need to get things off my chest. It's just that it's a fun, stimulating thing to occupy my mind with.

 

[vrosej10]

I want slavish adoration.

You have it. When you stick to being your macho self, you're a god. just no snaggy stuff.

 

[bronzeage]

You have it. When you stick to being your macho self, you're a god. just no snaggy stuff.

Is "snaggy" an Australian word for "emo"?

Whining about snaggy stuff will get you a bare handed spanking.

 

[butters]

Is "snaggy" an Australian word for "emo"?

Whining about snaggy stuff will get you a bare handed spanking.

just

 

[vrosej10]

Is "snaggy" an Australian word for "emo"?

Whining about snaggy stuff will get you a bare handed spanking.

Kinda. In Aussie SNAG is an acronym for Sensitive New Age Guy. Basically whiney emo bitch put nicely. Air Supply were accused of suffering from this condition.

 

[butters]

Kinda. In Aussie SNAG is an acronym for Sensitive New Age Guy. Basically whiney emo bitch put nicely. Air Supply were accused of suffering from this condition.

hehehe - you just want a spunk

 

[bronzeage]

Kinda. In Aussie SNAG is an acronym for Sensitive New Age Guy. Basically whiney emo bitch put nicely. Air Supply were accused of suffering from this condition.

I am a sensitive Bronze age guy. If that is too soft for you, I can forget your birthday and leave the toilet seat up.

 

[twelveoone]

• What do you wish the readers would get from your poems?
• What do you yourself wish to get from your poem?

you people are incorrigible.

1. as you know my dear, dear friend (iced heavily with sarcasm, what was it drivel writer you called me), half of what I write is either experimental, the other half, me fucking off. So if the readers at least get amused, I'm happy. Sometimes they might even learn a trick or two, who knows?
2. at best verification, but other than that anyone of the other 10,000 things will do. I sharpen my craft.

failure analysis

 

[bronzeage]

hehehe - you just want a spunk

We will need a ruling from Dr. Freud for this post.

 

[oggbashan]

• What do you wish the readers would get from your poems?
• What do you yourself wish to get from your poem?

Q1. Amusement, perhaps even a laugh.

Q2. Completion. When I've finished and posted the poem, I can forget the impulse that started it and move on.

Og

 

[bogusagain]

• What do you wish the readers would get from your poems?
• What do you yourself wish to get from your poem?

1. I'm not sure I care, primarily I write for me and I like to see what I can do and now I'm back writing, I think I can feel some wild experiments coming on but it is also nice to have ones ego stroked and have women think I have a sensitive side. (Women seem to like sensitive men who can also treat them mean. Never quite understood this contradictory need, it's just experience that tells me its quite a common phenomena amongst women.)

2. Preening my peacock feathers I suppose. Though I like testing myself with experimentation, its the thing I most admire in other poets, poets who are not scared to make a complete and utter monkey of themselves because they don't want to write what's been written before.

 

[Angeline]

1. I'm not sure I care, primarily I write for me and I like to see what I can do and now I'm back writing, I think I can feel some wild experiments coming on but it is also nice to have ones ego stroked and have women think I have a sensitive side. (Women seem to like sensitive men who can also treat them mean. Never quite understood this contradictory need, it's just experience that tells me its quite a common phenomena amongst women.)

2. Preening my peacock feathers I suppose. Though I like testing myself with experimentation, its the thing I most admire in other poets, poets who are not scared to make a complete and utter monkey of themselves because they don't want to write what's been written before.

I always think you have a sensitive side. Don't screw with my illusions.

 

[Angeline]

Senna I'm having a crisis of confidence (or an epiphany, depending on how you want to see it) about why I write and what I want readers to get from it. I've always thought that if I write a poem that engages a reader to a point where they have a sense reaction (see an image, hear a sound or music, etc.), I'm doing something right.

But lately I feel I am too much in my poems, stepping all over the poetry and telling readers how to feel instead of just letting them read and come to their own conclusions. Yes I know you've been telling me this (in various ways) for years, but what can I say? I'm a very slow learner sometimes.

I've been looking at places (journals and such) to submit my poems lately and what I see that is being published is so different from the way I write. I am not saying I like it all but I see the good poems as almost in another language, where the sounds and images are doing all the work. I think I'll always be a more narrative kind of writer: I can't change who I am. But I am feeling a strong need to revisit my poems and take away, then take away more and keep taking away until the essence is all of it. I'm not sure yet how to go about it, but I'm feeling this is a new way for me to approach how I write.

 

[vrosej10]

I am a sensitive Bronze age guy. If that is too soft for you, I can forget your birthday and leave the toilet seat up.

I just really love your poetry when its straight up without the verbal curliques. A clean, masculine style seems to suit you best but this is just my opinion. You are the only poet I have run into who this style really works for; it's your signature style. That blackberry poem of yours is one of the best I have ever read. Your a macho guy; roll with it I say.

By the by, my husband is a bit of a caveman, so I am not unfond of that style of male.

 

[bogusagain]

I always think you have a sensitive side. Don't screw with my illusions.

Damn Ange. I'm so sensitive I feel you're admonishing me.

Is it Jewel that said, 'I'm sensitive and I want to stay that way.'?

 

[Angeline]

Damn Ange. I'm so sensitive I feel you're admonishing me.

Is it Jewel that said, 'I'm sensitive and I want to stay that way.'?

Your poetry betrays you buddy. That's how I know.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

What do you wish the readers would get from your poems?

I hope they'll be moved in some way, not necessarily deeply, but left with some kind of emotion - empathy, arousal, even disgust in some cases. Reactions are so personal, a poet can't expect the same results with every reader but I love it if a poem affects on some level or other and doesn't just get passsed over.

What do you yourself wish to get from your poem?

Much the same. I think my subjects are pretty ecclectic so I get different things from assorted poems but, just the fact that I'm inspired to write a poem about it means there's some passion there. There's a wonderful feeling when you step back from a painting or read a poem out loud and know it's the best you can do. Often, in here, you wonderful people will point out a better way and thank the gods for that!

 

[Tzara]

What do you wish the readers would get from your poems?

Some kind of amusement, I guess. I think I'm more often than not trying to be funny, in some way. I am oftentimes trying to be amusing in a silly or stupid way, so this perhaps does not work with most readers.

The others? Some enjoyment, or identification, or pleasure in the language. Perhaps if I'm being emotional, some identification. I guess I'd just hope that a reader liked the poem, for whatever reason.

What do you yourself wish to get from your poem?

Usually to learn something. I started writing poems (or verse) to try and understand certain things about poetry. I'm not sure that has worked out well.

I enjoy writing poems. It is intellectually challenging to me, which perhaps reflects more on me than on poetry, particularly considering the kind of poems I produce, but I find trying to write poetry interesting, and fun.

Which, I suppose, makes the reader's response secondary to how I think about a poem. I'm curious about reader's response, but not usually upset about them, unless I have inadvertently upset someone, which I have upon occasion. Don't like to do that.

Anyway. Interesting questions, SJ. Thanks for the thread.