What about writing poetry for chilren? Say, Thomas Stearn's Cats book?
Would we say he wrote for a particular audience? what's the connection
in poetics between Cats and the Four Quartets?
In workaday prose, the first question is usually, "who's the audience"
and stated as such in the first para.
Roger
On 10/14/07, Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Kasper says
> > writing 'for' an audience (1) and writing FOR an audience (2) are two
> > separate things. yeah, not being that clear.
>
> I know exactly what you mean.
> It's not about whether you want an audience. It's whether or not
> you deliberately allow your poetics to be altered by your perception
> of an audience's expectations.
>
> Devils-advocating here,
> the latter might not necessarily be a bad thing... particularly
> if your main purpose is to communicate some idea or opinion.
>
> Janet
>
> > the aspect I was talking about is (1); writing not with an audience's
> > desires & expectations as the primary motivation for voice & style,
> > but with the maxim that what is being written (motivations aside) is
> > being written *in order for* an audience to read it. a given, an
> > assumption, a premise. something which must also, I suppose, affect
> > the writing process itself, consciously or not, producing poetry
> > different to that unintended for eyes other than the author's own --
> > which is why I raise the point in the first place.
> >
> > the latter aspect (2) would entail catering to a demographic. not
> > cool. as you said or implied, the prime 'mover of the craft' (not
> > talking scifi here..) ought not to be those to whom the poem is
> > intended. that might sound weird. what moves the poem is the writer's
> > love for that which makes a poem, its musical & malleable components,
> > not what ultimately becomes of a poem (~ read by others); but the
> > latter is its lifecycle, if the former is its life's centre. or SOUL
> > as some poet jerk might say.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
> www.myspace.com/poetjj
> www.proximity.webhop.net
>
> Allegedly, some kid poet came over to Robert Frost at some gathering and
> introduced himself by saying "I'm a poet." Frost replied "That's a
> praise word. I'd wait 'til someone else called me that."
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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