Simplicity in Poetry

[milo]

That was one lovely response, milo! The last sentence reminded me of Hemingway -- er, mainly the character of Hemingway I watched in "Midnight in Paris", although I hear that film's pretty accurate.

I don't think "simplicity" is all subjective though. Simplicity in thought, maybe, though I don't know enough about the in-stone bits of philosophy to address that -- but in language? I remember watching about a research where they built some software to tally the frequency of words from within certain bodies of work -- I bet that research can be extended to most literature, so we'll have a good guess of all the most commonly used, and thus known, words in English. And then tie that research down to the frequency of introducing relatively obscure words in popular (not necessarily good, just popular -- but not merely published in the internet, either. Has to have been printed, which I'm guessing is more discerning), and I bet you can have a proper, empirical definition of what "simple" is, in poetry. Yes, one must be accurate when it comes to choosing words, but I don't think poets who understand the function of their work actually think in all-latinate -- such is the realm of scholars and try-hards. Ultimately, if all your thoughts have a tendency to language that isn't as accessible to your intended audience, then you'll just have to change your style, your language, of thinking, just as a poet in French wanting to make it in the American market without involving translators would have to learn to speak fluently English first.

As I tried to include in my response - complexity cannot be an end.
Neither can simplicity - the end needs to be the poem itself.

The author of the article states (in an over-complex fashion) that simplicity > complexity in poetry.  He uses examples of metaphor, allusion and language and complex imagery.

Then, in a rather circuitous route, he suggests that either you agree with him or you think that complexity>simplicity.  Here is the false dichotomy.

Poem are simple because life is simple.
Poems are complex because life is complex.

Both of these statements are true.

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Nice to see you milo. Granted the question is a bit leading. I took it mostly to mean complexity for its own sake--not necessarily any depth or layering of meaning in the poem.

I don't disagree with the points you make though.

Somehow my response came across as complexity>simplicity which is not my intent.  My intent was to show that neither thought is correct and neither should be an end goal for a poem - the poem itself has to be the end goal.