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Stuart said
"Does this admittedly sad level of knowledge on my part, or
on the part of
other equally sad individuals, negatively affect the poem?
For me, it
does, because every time I see something that strikes me as
clearly wrong,
it undermines my confidence in the writer, and I wonder how
many other
mistakes there are in a given text that I don't recognise
through lack of
knowledge on my part."

I'd take this a little further and question who the writer
is writing for. As my reading progresses I am finding that
most contemporary poetry is as referential as contemporay
art. I can pick the references in the latter, but not the
former. So to me at least it seems that currently both
artists and poets are making works for their peers who are
equally knowledgeable in the media and its proponents rather
than for a general audience. They used to aim to please the
patron or the church, now they aim to please each other as
its their peers who sit the grants boards.

The two main artistic measures for the general public in
regards to art are whether the subject is well represented
(if its representational) or whether the colours match the
curtains (if its abstract) and they tend to just walk past
anything else completely baffled. What is the equivalent in
poetry?

Josephine
(busy with sonnets still)