At 8:47 AM +1100 19/3/02, Printmaker wrote:
>I've decided the way to go is to put all new works in a
>drawer for at least a year and then review them then. The
>hindsight of greater experience works in art, it must work
>the same in poetry too?
It does work, Josephine, and one of my own favourite tactics. I'm
aware that what I said about offering criticism on works in progress
sounds very like a cop out - it isn't, I don't _think_ so, anyway.
It comes from a million different uneases, some to do with my own
experiences of very generously offered criticism from people I highly
respect, some to do with offering criticism to others - and maybe are
a little difficult to articulate.
I'm very much one of the those who thinks that the best way to learn
how to write poetry is through close and intimate conversation -
either with poetry (by poets, dead or alive) or on-going
conversations with fellow writers. An ongoing conversation permits
nuances, doubts, contradictions; more importantly, it's equal,
between human beings. This is hard to find, especially when you're
starting off; I remember writing in what felt like complete isolation
as a young poet for about a decade, and I remember what a difference
it made when I began to find like minds, or elective affinities. It
wasn't so much that people didn't offer good advice given with the
very bets of intentions (and I knew I sorely needed it): it was that
the advice they offered often seemed to be: "Write like I do" or
seemed to presume some ultimate authority of judgment which I found I
don't believe in. When a poem is in the plasticity of creation, such
advice can shut off doors quicker than anything. As a result,
especially with longer poems that were in a state of chaos, I found
myself getting totally confused. In the worst circumstances, I
totally lost sight of why I wanted to write the poem in the first
place, that "feeling".
I am not in the least saying that poets shouldn't seek advice or
criticism - how are we to learn anything if we don't? It's just -
difficult!
Best
Alison
PS Pratchett is very funny. I've only read his book loosely based on
Australia, and some parts are wickedly accurate, parodying the parody
that's our alleged self image (Fosters ads, etc)
--
"The only real revolt is the revolt against war."
Albert Camus
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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