Natural language or don't bother

[Luckieman]

Context, Taste and Imperfection are Gifts to the Critic. They are Comical Weapons for the Artist; whereas Techniques are Poetic Techniques.

All is Music


By Comedy, I mean sense. All Sense is Comedy.

Why should I give gifts to the critic, and why should these be such gifts? Too much poetry these days seems to be written for them instead of for the public. Which may explain why the poetry shelf in most general book shops is a token gesture, because the expectations of the two have unfortunately diverged enormously. If we're not writing for ourselves alone (which is a legitimate but private purpose), we should reach out to the general reader, not just our fellow poets and the critics. All the memorable poets of preceding centuries wrote for the public - Shakespeare was a commerical playwright, but that didn't stop him creating some of the most powerful imagery in the history of European writing. His public actually expected him to. But the public has largely lost interest in modern poetry and we should ask ourselves why - whether it's down to us, not just assume it's their philistine nature. It's likely that the public hasn't changed as much as we have.