Blargle! I wrote this, and then google booted me out and I hadn't copyed and it didn't save and I lost it all at 2 am and now I am re-writing it but I am a wee bit bitter about it. Saving often...
I read somewhere... no, more specific, I shall tell you where. I was reading poems on a webpage dedicated to poetry, and within the "Comments about this poem" section I read something that surprised me. A little more context - the poem was
Alone Looking at the Mountain ~ by Li Po
All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.
Sidenote: I have always enjoyed this poem and I am... Insulted? Surprised? Amused? Concerned? that a poem that was writen back around 700AD in China and has managed to remain in circulation all this time was rated at 7/10 by the "internet". Seriously?? I shudder to think of what anchors these people.
Anyways... within the comments section was a person (hereafter designated "he" though my gender interpretation is based on a generically masculine username) who I believe was trying to suggest that the comments section wasn't for "this poem is so great, thanks Mr Po" comments (on the ground that Mr Po is a chinese man from 700AD and therefore does not speak english, and has also been dead for 1300 years) and should be more for intensive english analysis - what do the birds MEAN? And he concluded his statements thusly "Poetry is both emotion and reason, not simply one or the other!".
This comment interested me in a number of ways. Firstly Henry David Thoreau was extensively critised as being "lesser" to Ralph Waldo Emerson because he "overthought it". So it is clearly more complex than this statement leads us to believe. How much reason, how much emotion is required? A cup of one, a dash of the other? Those of us to aspire to Emerson and not Thoreau (not based on poet preference but on a lack of thick skin) require more specific guidelines for this information to be helpful!
Secondly I think that people over value critical analysis and under value emotion (and I realise that I may write emotively and therefore that I might be bias but hear me out). Yes, understanding the imagery allows a greater depth of understanding of the poets message, and yes often the greatest fun in writing poetry is adding layers of meaning by selecting the best images, the best stories, the most well defined words. So thinking critically about a poets work and what they could mean aside from the obvious has a place.
But I think first, before that, its about emotion. Perhaps the dinosaur is a metaphor for consumerism, for innocence lost or societal repression or parental restriction or overeducation or financial insecurity or childhood fears, but first and foremost if it doesn't make you feel like running down a half familiar corridor from an unseen monster with a sister you may or may not have then the poem is wasted on you.
What IS reason in poetry? I mean, what does reason mean in that context? Logic? Judgement? Explaination? Sanity? The only part of the definition that seems relevement is a basis or cause, and for the poem as a whole I say yes definately, but for each image, word, concept I think that is a very pedantic view.
And I think that there are other theories about what makes good poetry, good art in fact that may be more correct. A quote (from my favourite book - again I may well be bias here) goes "The finest paintings are nothing more than the red head of a flower, nodding in the breeze when you were two years old; the most exiting film is just the way everything was back in the days when you stared goggle-eyed at the whilring choas all around you." And I think this may be more correct, regardless of the effort put into the reasons, if the poem is not evokative of something inside the self then it isn't worth remembering or analysing, it doesn't have the sustainability of a great poem. And I bet that some of the great poems were accidents. I bet some of them didn't have nearly as much work or layers put into them as people attribute. Coleridge wrote down his opium dreams... I know a least one song off the top of my head that was actually intended to be about just what it seemed and yet plenty of people are convinced that it has much... more elusive meanings (and yes, I believe the writers, they don't have a good reason to lie about it and in the grand scheme why believe their writing and not their statements?). Because in truth, people superimpose their own opinions and beliefs onto others. A great example I saw one time "Dave Matthews must be christian, I mean, I have never heard him say specifically but I love his music so much and his music is so great"... I don't know about Dave Matthews faith either (actually I read the wiki, he was brought up Quaker but is now agnostic), but I can pull out plenty of lyrics that would cause a priest to aneurism (yeah, I like him, if you haven't heard him give him a listen, try "why I am" if you need a start point) however this listener in question was clearly ignoring any evidence contrary to their desired opinion which was probably based on their own faith and desire to believe that Dave Matthews shared that faith and holding anyone who did share that faith in higher esteem (and from their vibe distaining anyone who did not share that faith) - my point being that so much of the time our interpretations are just confirmation bais and subjective validation. (Actually, just go here and read the entire blog, its great.)
And I know, I am usually the first person on the "let people interpret it how they like" bandwagon. I stand by my pick-your-own-inference policy. But I really resent people forcing their interpretions, or any interpretations on others. To some people it is just a dinosaur, and nothing more, and they are good with that. Is the poem lesser because it isn't about interspecies relations? Are they lesser because they don't see a reptile liberation theme? No one should be forced to see anything in a poem, and I think it is contributing to the decline of litery enjoyment that some people are overthinking for meanings that were never intended and trying to force those with a simplier view point to do the same.
Maybe the poem is a cake, with many layers, and maybe the cake is fuller and richer if you have a slice with all the layers, but some people only like icing and some people have diabetes and you shouldn't force layer cake on person regardless of how good it is.
And I hope that if someone says to us, "man, I dig that dinosaur" that we can put aside our theory on the metaphor for the decline of the british aristocracy and think to ourselves, "yeah, that dinosaur is pretty intense" and just for a moment feel the texture of thick carpet beneath our tiny, adreline filled toes.
7 comments:
[/rant]
Very good, though. I wonder though, whether you are inferring attitudes into the overly critical commenter? Might they not be simply expressing their view, without trying to force it upon others? Maybe they'd welcome a debate with someone who was of the opinion that overly-critical analysis is counter-productive?
I mean, I doubt it, this is the internet. But... I think it's difficult to argue for interpreting things as you want if you disallow some forms of interpretation.
Just playing devil's advocate here, you understand. I personally think that Shakespeare wrote what came into his head, under time pressure, in a fancified version of his present-day vernacular, and that his genius took care of the implications, not his conscious mind. I think that people who try to 'construct' art generally make a godawful, non-empathic mess (though some of them manage to pass it off as 'modern art').
That's my 2 pence.
tehehe, it was a bit ranty wasn't it? Sorry, it just bugs me.
Also, I totally could be reading him wrong, the problem with the written word is that it carries no tone, and a love poem can be a suicide note depending on personal perspective because of that. but here http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/alone-looking-at-the-mountain/comments.asp Have a look and see what you think he was trying to say.
It's actually bloody difficult to work out if he's saying that that's what you should be thinking about, or if he's asking those questions because he wants to know the answers. I suspect you're right in your interpretation, though.
One thing is certain, though - he's about 15-16, and considers himself to be smarter than everyone else... :-P
I wonder about the translation of that poem. I get the feeling that (gorgeous as it is) it doesn't translate too well...
Thank you, by the way, for bringing that to my attention - I've never seen it before...
sidenote: It's really difficult to talk about poetry without sounding at least a little wanky...
I don't think I come off as wanky, I think that might just be you :p
But sillyness aside, I think that is just your wanky high school buddies speaking through your subconcious. It's only wanky if you think calling something beautiful is a wanky thing to do, and that is way too high school for me. I don't know for sure, but my take is, if you like something, then you like it and for the most part no one else cares or will even notice so there isn't any point being self conscious about it (or worrying if it's wanky).
/rant.
Summery - You don't sound wanky, I don't sound wanky, and I will do grievous bodily harm to anyone who says otherwise. :D
Yeah, part of what I like about is that it has multiple translations and they are all beautiful. And potentially all right, because the great thing about other languages like Chinese is that the words don't really directly translate; just like English they have nuances. I like poems that originated in other languages because they have different layers of meaning that just aren't really captured in english, and so every time you see a new translation you get a new meaning but also each translation CREATES depth because the english words have meanings never intended in the original, and yet at the same time it is filtered through the perspection of the translator so you can never really know exactly what the original poet meant without learning and becoming fluent in the original language. And yeah, I am a geek so I think that is cool. :p
For another example, Der Panther by Rainer Maria Rilke. See http://picture-poems.com/rilke/panther.html for the major translations and http://www.thebeckoning.com/poetry/rilke/rilke3.html for more translations than you can handle. My favourite is Stephen Mitchell (at the first link).
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