Intention and Critique

[Lizzie]

If the author doesn't know what he is writing, and writing is subconscious and "therapy" why even edit at all? Especially if the editing is coming from people who are outside of your subconcious. Perhaps editing based on critique actually hurts your poem?

As much as it pains me, I have to agree. The initial writing of it would be the end game.

And, I have no problem with that at all. Just don't post it in intensive and then tell everybody that you can't change anything because it was too heartfelt and personal.

Know thyself.

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Poets might make deliberate word choices, but meaning choices?  That's up to the reader, and the meaning will shift once it's out of the writer's head. 

Yes, this is where the rub is: the tension between reader and writer over who gets to determine what the poem means (if it means anything at all). This conflict plays itself out here every day.

But, yeah, that's kind of at the heart of what I took away from the quote. I think it requires a re-imagining of what it means to be an effective writer.

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Maybe it's not meant for us to understand everything written, or its intent. Maybe a poem will never be meant for certain people. Maybe what we don't understand today, we might understand tomorrow. Maybe we haven't arrived. Perhaps levels of intelligence, inability to comprehend or learn, might cause us not to understand the poet's intent, anyway. Maybe where you are I cannot go no matter how hard I try, maybe you will never be where I am.

I'm ok with that.
You're kind, nibbler.