Clarity—from the Proverbs of Tharmas Erthona

[ellajam]

milo said: "There should be some challenge associated with poetry."

Certainly, but not because the writer is incompetent, or that he is intentionally obfuscating. The purpose of all writing is to communicate. So what is the purpose of a poem if it communicates nothing, or communicates it inaccurately? There is all this bullshit today that it is about co-creation between the writer and the reader, even if true the writer cannot approach it from that perspective.
A poem may be "deep" or "rich" in meaning due to levels of awareness, but this has to do with what is not  immediately obvious and what is, this has nothing to do with clarity. There is nothing about clarity that takes away the depth of a poem. If the depth of the poem relies on being obscure, then such depth is a false and conjured; it is imitative of something the writer only understands superficially. If writing clearly takes away anything, then I would suggests that thing was not real to begin with, but merely a slight of hand: it only gave the appearance of something exotic, deep. or mysterious. Clarity does not make something mundane, it makes it intelligible.  

Shem wrote: "you should seriously be a politician, Dale. You say a lot, but never really answer the question. Hats off to that."

Well, as the reader that is obviously your problem for not being able to fathom the depths of what I say and interpreting it instead as meaningless. Obviously I cannot be held accountable for your shallowness and lack of necessary intellectual insight to understand what I am saying. I say many things, not the least of which is, is that I say many things. It is to bad my replies are so erudite that they simply fly above your head.

(This is called the unassailable position and is what happens once one allows the door open to blaming the reader for any failure in the writing. Sorry, it is either/or not both.)

Dale