Simplicity in Poetry

[milo]

First - don't get too excited when people don't agree with you. Poets rarely agree with anyone on anything.

Second - yes, your process seems very strange to me as I have never ever put that type of pre-planning into writing. That being said -

Let's say you never added the step of considering your target consumer into your pre-planning

1. Your poem wouldn't be any worse (possibly better as it wouldn't have this unnecessary constraint placed on it)

2. It would appeal to people outside your "target" group more.

I still don't see the benefit in adding a target. In addition it now occurs to me that you are altering your writing away from what might have been your more original voice.

Anyway, carry on. It seems to work for you (I am guessing based on what you say) but I highly doubt it would help any other writer of poetry in the known universe.

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There's another portion of her book that's called "The Dangers of Concentrating on Publication," and I think that this might connect with some of the things I'm hearing:

...the danger, I think, of connecting writing with publication is that you can end up focusing on writing in a way that will be acceptable and publishable. If you concentrate on publication possibilities when you're writing, I think you lose your focus on the writing itself. Instead of the process of writing -- the desire to shape our experience into language that can form a bridge between your life and that of others -- you concentrate on what is bland and acceptable. You become afraid to take any risks in your work.

When you're writing, you need to concentrate on the poem or story you are writing; you need to find the voice inside yourself that fits the poem or story and that is honest and true to the story. Publication is important. We all like to be published and to win prizes and awards. It validates us and our work, but in the end, it is the writing that matters. If it's any good, it will last long after no one remembers the names of any prize, no matter how prestigious.

I could paper ten rooms with rejection slips and contest letters informing me I didn't win, but I don't care about it as much as I did 20 years ago. I have to believe in what I'm doing with my work and where that works needs to go, even if no one else agrees. I know that I'm on a journey and that I have to follow wherever my instinct about writing leads me. I can't worry who likes what I'm doing and who doesn't. I hope that the readers of this book will learn much more quickly what it has taken me so many years to learn. Your instincts know more about what you need to write than anyone who exists outside of your skin."

Am I on the right track with this?

The italics are mine. I highlighted that bit because I think that relates back to the original post, accessible language being a more efficient vehicle to bridge the gap between writer and reader.

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As I mentioned before, writers do not have actual audiences as writing makes for poor performance art so I am assuming we are talking about consumers.

I'm using these notions interchangeably. Perhaps that's where I'm getting confused. I go to poetry readings and what not, but I mostly read poems for myself in print so theatrical presentation was not what I had in mind. But, Shakespeare was a poet and his work is presented in theaters. Perhaps I should say reader?

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Milo: Is your point about the children's writing that you can't know specifically who is going to be reading the poem, just that they would be children in general? What I hear you saying is that if you don't know the person who's going to be reading your poem, then you can't write for them personally but rather in a general style. Is that accurate?

My point about a children's poem is that it is just a type of poem not an audience. Plenty of adults (myself included) read children's poems. knowing whether the children are deaf or war refugees or suburbanites or whatever will not produce a better poem than just knowing the type.

I have written several children's poems myself but I tend to mess them up by peppering them with complex words . . .