last few months me and a couple of friends had this one heated argument about the right to critic one's poetry and a poet's responsibility towards his/her poems. the discussion started when one of my good friend, dianne made a complain about people or rather her friends (which was us really) making wild assumptions about her poetry. to be fair yes i do believe that making wild assumptions( to the point of destroying his/her image ) about your friends are something that is unacceptable. a friend should have not done that in the first place. but I guess in our defense, we made that assumptions totally based on her poems and that it got nothing to do with her personal life what so ever or what we perceive towards her as friends. then, because we were talking about her poetry at first, the discussion moved on to questions such as whether or not readers can critic a poet's poem or rather make assumptions based on his/her writings.
we had two separate opinions on this matter where in one hand some of us believe that it is okay to critic but to them also, critics can kill creativity as it tends to shut a poet's imagination and creativity. on the other hand there was me who didnt believe that making comment or "assumption" towards one's piece of writing can kill his/her creativity or even freedom. being in this literature field, we were exposed with all sorts of criticism theories and we too were taught to give comments or critical analysis to certain poetry and poet's works of art. for me, critical analysis that people make one's poetry can not and will not kill his/her imagination or his/her force to write. criticism is crucial as it shows that people respond to your writings. being imaginative is a poet's job and thus no matter what the readers say about your poem, it is not in the control of the poet whatsoever.
another discussion that we had was about a poet's responsibility towards his/her writings. For me, this topic is pretty much a grey area where no one can be right or wrong in discussing the topic. the issue is that about whether or not a poet write about poems that he/she has no experience whatsoever in experiencing the situation that he/she writes about. In other words, if a poet writes a poem about someone's situation or story and made it as it is their own. My concern is that whether or not it can bring justice to the poem as the poet has no personal experience towards that particular true event. for me, yes the poet can try to relate or drown himself to that feeling but the fact remains that what the poet writes will never portray the reality of that particular situation.
I understand that a poet can write anything that he/she wishes to and that creativity should have no boundaries . but I always believe that if a poet writes something that is not belong to him, the poetry will have no soul in it. as a poet, I believe that we must have our own integrity in writing and that writing a poem that originates from other sources should be considered as lying or play acting. well, I may sound too harsh about this whole lying thing but forgive me as I can't find better vocabulary in stating my opinion towards this issue.By lying, perhaps I meant that the poet is both lying to his/her readers and himself. I know that some poets like it when readers say that they appreciate the poet's effort in writing the poem that they can relate to but don't you think that it is such a hypocritical action by the poet that in truth, he/she (the poet) has no right whatsoever in claiming that feeling as he/she did not experience the same experience as that particular reader. of course people will feel good when they can relate themselves to someone else (who doesn't), but to relate something that is not original (poem created out of someone else's story or experience) for me is not fair somehow. I don't know about today's trend in writing poetry but I always believe that the purpose of writing poetry is so we can share or give voice to our heart and let it flows gracefully out in the form of words.
Again, I'm not saying that those who write poems based on someone else's experiece is wrong. My intention is not to hurt anybody's feeling or ego. this is what I believe and the truth is I missed the original discussion/argument that I had with all of my friends months before. I felt alive at that time and so passionate at the same time. Not a surprise though as we have always been over passionate bunch of people since the day we met 6 years ago. if you read this, whoever you are, I hope you can share your view on this matter.
to Dianne, what ever it is babe, I will never judge you. sorry if you feel betrayed. I honestly think you are a very talented and great person. one of a kind! and yes, terima kasih kerana menjadikan saya seorang pakcik dalam 4 5 bulan akan datang. i love you and your soon to be born child too..I refuse to say love to said yea.
2 comments:
Hi, stumbled across your blog. You have a really interesting argument here and I'd just like to add my two cents:
When you say poets shouldn't write about things they haven't experienced directly, do you mean this in the first person or third person narrative? I wouldn't personally phrase it as 'lying'; I think that they are just trying to do the same thing that novelists, dramatists, musicians and painters do at some point: go beyond the comfort zone of their own experiences and try to tell more creative ones.
As you mentioned in your post this doesn't always work and plenty of poets end up sounding fake when they try to take on other personas. But art is so intensely and exhaustingly personal that sometimes, you just want to take a breather and play someone other than yourself, you know?
Of course this doesn't mean that critics are free to jump to conclusions about the poet's personal life or identity based on their poems. I wrote a poem about a very passionate relationship once (I had never been in one myself at that point) and when I showed it to my friends hoping for constructive criticism, they laughed in my face, read each line out mockingly and said if I had never experienced love, I'm not qualified to write about it (needless to say, my ego landed somewhere at the bottom of the sea next to that diamond from Titanic.
Ultimately, I think it depends on the poet's ability to convince the reader.
(sorry to take up so much room in my rant)
hai yanna.thank you for sharing your opinion.
I understand that some poets, novelists, dramatists, musicians and painters do at some point go beyond their comfort zone and write their work in someone else's persona.there is nothing wrong in doing that, yes. but like I said my concern is about the responsibility of the poet and the criticism that follows after as a result of their writing.
I don't understand when some poets tend to go head over heel when someone applauded their poems for bringing the story of common people alive but when people give negative criticism and make assumptions about the story behind the writing, the same poets unreasonably lose their temper and go berserk saying that it is not fair to them?
as I mentioned before, a poet has no power whatsoever to control the reader's opinion. as much as people can't control the level of creativity that a poet has, the same should apply to the poet as well in term of taking criticism. for me it is irresponsible for a poet to feel excessively happy when readers give praises to them but when other readers give bad feedback to the same poet, then the poet rejects the opinion by saying that readers have no right to make assumption and that the poem is not a reflection of the poet's life since it was written in someone else's persona.
you said that ultimately,it depends on the poet's ability to convince the reader. if that so,can we blame the readers if they become totally convinced that the story behind the poem is so true that they believe the poet must have experienced the situation but instead of applauding the poet for the poem, they chose to go against the writing?
I am sorry to hear about your experience with your friends. somehow I believe that you are a very talented poet yourself and I truly believe that you should not stop writing poems that you have no experience in.in fact i will be honored if you want to share with me your collection of poetry.
:) no need to apologize for your long feedback.I'm happy that you used so much space in giving me your opinion.
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