Young Writers Society

Until the age of ten, I lived in a rural area. The school wasn't the best. I didn't live on some surburban street where I could ride my bike or hang out with friends. As a result of this *slightly* isolated existence, most of my time was spent reading.
I was considerably more advanced than the majority of my video-game-playing classmates, so my teachers introduced me to literature early on. I eagerly followed my first-grade teacher out of the See-Spot-Run world into the neighboring fourth-grade classroom, where I was handed real books. I started with American Girl; historical fiction was my first favorite genre. I moved into realistic fiction with The Black Stallion and fantasy with Redwall. I read countless books well past my level in elementary school, and enjoyed them immensely.
And was that what counted? The enjoyment? That I found them to be entertaining? Beautiful? Or...was it that they had some higher meaning? I doubt it. I believe that I have always enjoyed books and films...I prefer not to interpret them. Interpretation is for anthropologists and biblical scholars. Enjoyment is for readers.
Then high school hit. Now I live in the suburbs. I go to an excellent school. English class, however, has become one of my least favorite. I have even found myself dreading books. We're being forced to examine them under these...microscopes...in English class. I find myself attempting to read outside of class, for enjoyment, and I'm finding that it's no longer enjoyable. Now, I see everything as "motifs" and "metaphors" and "underlying theme". I know they were there before, but they were more like gentle and extremely subtle seasoning that I picked up on and didn't consciously label. Seasoning is exactly what it was. One does not taste food and say, "Why, the paprika truly enhances this!" One tastes food and says, "That's delicious. This stuff the cook put on just hits the spot."
I can no more define a human being by listing each property of his genes than I can define a work of literature by listing its properties in the form of elements and devices. This is not to say that science is useless, or that literary analysis is useless; these things may help us better understand what we living in, but nothing can ever fully define life or art. We will never fully understand the feeling of being ALIVE or the true appreciation of art.

Sophomore year (just wait 'til I'm a junior) is slowly and painfully constructing my newest philosophy; that one does not need to be educated in literature to fully enjoy it. At the fully uneducated age of nine, I knew nothing of underlying meanings, of metaphors, of motifs, but I was still impacted by what I read. I'm quite capable of analyzing classic literature, but my grades in English are barely A's...I can't stand to do it. It doesn't make me feel ALIVE. Literature is an experience, not a recipe.

Most novels, plays, films, and other long works have some sort of this elusive thing called "meaning", but does a poem have to have meaning? Does it have to be about some higher ideal? Must it express some timeless idea about life? Or...can it simply exist for its own purposes? Is its existence enough to justify its purpose? Is it enough that the writer cares enough to create it? That the reader enjoys it or finds it beautiful or provocative? Experiences it fully?

See the middle stanza of my poem "Splenda" for more rambling food analogies. See "Introduction to Poetry" by one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins, for a a concise and well-written version of everything I just tried to say.

Thank you for your time,
Colleen

Sometimes, sometimes not. Like, there's plenty of nonsense poems that exist, not to impress with meaning but to just play with words. But after a while, this sort of poetry gets to be a little dull. As fun as it might be, a nonsense poem with meaning is still better.

So nonsense poems are REALLY the only poems that could get away with a lack of meaning. Otherwise, the poem falls flat. And why?

Writers can't exactly produce the emotions that they want to alone. For instance, you may want to write a poem about loneliness, but if you write something like this:

They all ignore me
That everyone
I am alone
So very alone.

That would be boring! It just tells the reader what you're feeling. It does have a meaning, to the mreader anyway, but it dies on arrival. And why? Because you failed to include the reader. You failed to illustrate your loneliness in original way. You have failed to explain it to the reader. And by not doing this, you have choked your poem and killed it.

Let's look at another poem (okay, heheh, they're lyrics) about loneliness:

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
running over the same old ground. What have we found?
The same old fears,
wish you were here.

This tells a much better picture of loneliness than the one I wrote above. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, agonizing about "OMG, I'M ALONE" it directly questions the listener, "Is what you know really what you know?" For instance, can you tell heaven from hell? Is your perception of heaven justa hell in disguise? And, by altering perceptions, it gives a feeling of loss, of hopelessness, and finally, of loneliness. The last stanza (verse) really sets it off. "How I wish you were here." Just by these simple which don't even have the words "loneliness" it portrays a feeling of loneliness which is so deep that it cuts you inside.

By presenting it in a different, sophisticated manner, Pink Floyd has gone above and beyond and created poetry that stands alone, even without the music. And that is wonderful.

As a writer, if you want to present your poem in an interesting way, you have to put some parsley by it to attract the reader to read it. Poetry is too competitive an industry to not do this.

As far as the reader? While there exist a bunch of levels of commitment to reading, generally good writers read better and you should pay attention to metaphor. As Limyaael said, she doesn't like to read blindly. And, though I am not really a thorough reader, I try to sort out puzzles of poetry and generally have fun analyzing it my own way. It's like unlocking a jigsaw puzzle, except once I unlock it, the poem turns from being a part of the author to being a part of me. And I love that feeling. ^_^;;

There is something I have to say here. Everything has a meaning even if you don't see it. The fact of the matter is everything comes down to choice. You want to feel alive, but reading doesn't do it for you fine, find something else to occupy your time. Everything has meaning if you wish to see it, but it's apparent you don't. So you believe what you want and I'll do the same. Just remember the choice is yours. Do or do not, there is no try. That my be from Star Wars, but it's true. Now choose, can you find the meaning in that or not.

I'm sorry if I've angered you, I'm alittle sensitive on this kind of stuff.

Thanks for the quick responses! Oh, parsley.
I wasn't exactly referring to so-called nonsense poems when talking about poems with no apparent meaning. Also, there are few things I dislike more than poems that express things a little too openly, such as the "I'm so depressed and no one loves me" poems. That's meaning in the extreme, which is also a bad thing. Subtlety = good.
I'm trying to find out if a poem can be really enjoyable but still not have a *ka-boom so important* meaning (as defined by English teachers in high schools worldwide). The meaning may be open for interpretation; it may hold some importance for the writer that is not apparent to the reader, and may not even be relevant to the poem. I could write a poem about crabs, and the reader will never know that I think about my grandparents when I think about crabs, but it won't matter. It could just be an enjoyable poem about crabs, and maybe it'll make the reader think about their vacation in Florida where they saw one on the beach. Perhaps the poem didn't express some idea about life. Perhaps it didn't intend to! But...did the reader like the poem? Did it make the reader laugh? Cry? Think? Or perhaps, did the reader simply enjoy the language? Did it give him or her shivers?
I'm not saying that I choose to never see meaning in anything or that I think literature can stand without meaning. I know that elements and devices are important and and I do pay attention to them; I simply dislike openly labeling them.
If I walked into a room and thought that it was nicely decorated, I'm not going to list every single object in that room that matches the color scheme or whatever it is. I could if I wanted to, and some of those objects do stick out, perhaps a chair or a rug, but one cannot appreciate a room when one is going through it, nose down, looking at each of its components individually. The components are important, and the designer of the room certainly chose them with care, but the designer intended that I see the room as a whole, not unravel it completely.
I do see meaning in a lot of things, and I also think that a poem can create emotion without having some central, hidden, important theme. I just dislike picking things apart to try and see what they mean. Really, go read Billy Collins's "Introduction to Poetry." Here's a link: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/001.html . He's an intelligent person who can express this much better than I can.
I don't think that things have to be interpreted or analyzed the way that is generally accepted, or even the way the author intended the work to be understood. Obviously, if I read a poem someone wrote about death and I think it's about a puppy, I'm wrong. Still, I might feel, based on personal experiences or opinions, that the poem is about memory or time, and I'm not necessarily wrong. The poem has made me feel something, and that is what the author created it to do. Unfortunately, I've met teachers who will tell me that the poem is about death and death alone, and that it is no longer open for analysis. Gotta hate that.

Colleen

What is a poem? What is the point of a poem? When it's there, sitting on the page, what is it meant to do? If it doesn't fulfill that, then it can't really be called successful.

To my mind, poetry is about expression and creativity: what that means is not that "anything I write is wonderful because it's a new expression of my unique creativity" but rather "what I write has value based on what it expresses and how that expands the bounderies of what people have already expressed and what people have not yet put into words."

Expression is given value by how creative it is - poems with a good idea badly expressed don't still class as good - but the reverse is also true: without something to express, all the creativity in the world is just soulless posturing, literary masturbation. How clever something is, how it uses wordplay or literary/poetic techniques, the language and subtlety of it, all these are vital for creating the connection between poem and reader, but they fail at a basic level if there is nothing to communicate.

So, yes: a poem does need a meaning. It doesn't have to be something earth-shatteringly progressive or unique on the face of the earth, it can be something as old and worn as the meaning of life, or love, but there has to be something the writer wants to get across for the technique to be effective; it's that technique that stops the subject from being cliche or getting old.

Poetry is about expressing ideas in a new way, allowing people to see the same old things in a new light. Don't make the mistake of thinking that intelligence will win the day when you lack something to say - it won't. Finding the balance between overanalysis and ignorance of literary technique is important, but the simple answer is 'yes' - a poem must have a meaning.

I liked your response, bob.

..."what I write has value based on what it expresses and how that expands the bounderies of what people have already expressed and what people have not yet put into words."

I thought that was very well-put (boundaries is spelled with an a, by the way, but who cares ).
Perhaps that's what I was trying to say; meaningful poetry is made that way because of the subjects and forms of expression in such poems.

it can be something as old and worn as the meaning of life, or love

I personally have never written a poem about love itself, just love and leave it at that, but I've written poetry based on the experience of being in love. I would separate those. Would you?

Do you think that the "point" of a poem can be only to express emotion? Can it be left at that? Or must it actually have a theme/lesson/ideal to express?

Thanks so much (again),
Colleen

Colleen,


First, I'm glad threads like this are getting attention.

A brief anecdote: when I read this title, I was instantly reminded of what was called "Literature" in the Middle Ages. Anything literary had to have a "moral/religious lesson" behind it--otherwise it was just mindless prattle. "Beowulf" is, of course, the first real document we have detailing this posturing. What does this have to do with your question, Colleen?

Well, everything and nothing. There is the first issue of what "Poetry" is (and there are a multiplicity of ways to classify this thing), and the more important issue of what is "meaning"? what is it to speak of meaning? Assuming you disagree with the pomo philosophy, then meaning DOES exist, and in fact (as poststructuralist thought showed) there are intersubjective networks (basically, networks between "subjects" which offer communication, reciprocation, etc.) which constitute a textual meaning in those networks. Now, that may sound very Marxist, and indeed, it is, but it's also at the heart of Poetry. In-between words, that is what is most important. Any subject by itself has no meaning--it is only through its interaction with other objects/subjects that meaning is created. Likewise, if a poem consisted of a single word, it would not carry any meaning. However, poetry is NOT a single word, as we all know; it is a string of words separate and punctuated by certain means, and it is through this interstitial space of interaction that meaning is bred in a poem. In a way, then, even the most nonsensical poems have meaning, and indeed, one could argue we should reformulate the question from, "Does Poetry have to have meaning?" (since the answer is implicit) to "Does meaning have to have Poetry?"

If, on the other hand, you take up the pomo stance--that identity, language, perception, et. al. is fragmentary--then there are a whole host of people you can turn to for explanations of meaning in literature. I will, time being, give Baudrillard's explanation. Baudrillared postulates the vacuum into which everything progresses, a nullified space in which even meaning is meaningless. This, he argues, is the object of the universe. He supplements this argument with discussion of entropic growth in the universe (i.e. the scientific postulate that the universe tends towards entropy, chaos, disorder), and then builds a bridge connecting physical processes emitting entropy to literature and communication tending towards totality. In literature, we seek to "make it new," and as bob said, this is especially true of poetry. Baudrillard argues that, at some limit-point, there will be nothing left to make new--everything everywhere will have been covered with nothing left for us to inspect. At this time, he says, meaning will not mean anything. It won't be valuable to speak of a meaning, since all of it will already be there. Sort of a vague argument, but you can follow its logical tendrils. Critics of Baudrillard and the like have argued that society is constantly evolving with technology and politics, and this will always give the writer something fresh to approach.

So my answer(s) are: yes and yes. In the first case, meaning is always-already part of everything we do, and so it is pointless to ask if Poetry must have meaning. In the second case, there is a hesitation to say yes, since it is only a conditional yes (the condition being that at some point the answer will be no). Something interesting you should probably wrestle with yourself is that, in fact, if meaning is always-already everywhere, haven't we always-already hit Baudrillard's "limit-point"? Your call.

Returning to the anecdote: literature is really whatever we, as a collective body, deem it to be. There aren't any hard-and-fast rules that the universe cooks up for this stuff; even though certain literary styles and types may appeal to us, as individuals, that doesn't a universal rule make. Let's face it: if some guy took over the world and told us poetry was eight lines long, with thirty-four syllables and "heart" had to be included in the verse--well, we wouldn't be able to call anything else "poetry". So this whole idea of a poem is a collective one, at best--something we, as a community of self-ordained writers have decided to be the case. There's nothing wrong with this, and even here, on the YWS, I see a growing definition of what is "good" poetry and what isn't--and that is the best thing, in my mind, that can happen. Without that standard, there is no guiding hand or force or direction for the site to grow with. I expect questions like yours will only further this movement.


Best,
Brad

I personally have never written a poem about love itself, just love and leave it at that, but I've written poetry based on the experience of being in love. I would separate those. Would you?

Not precisely, no: I think that "love" as a broad subject encompasses a great many things, from lust to marriage to friendship to the way we appreciate beauty to patriotism to the experience of being in love to heartbreak to lonliness - all of them are integral to what is a vastly intricate and complicated subject. So, no, they are no separate per se, but rather the second is a component of the first.

Do you think that the "point" of a poem can be only to express emotion? Can it be left at that? Or must it actually have a theme/lesson/ideal to express?

When you say 'emotion,' what do you mean? To say you have written a poem on 'lonliness,' for example, would not be the whole story: you may well have expressed a view on a small part of what makes up 'lonliness' such as social isolation or heartbreak or solitude, but you will not have written just about 'lonliness' because that is something far too large to compress into one poem. Even if you write on 'heartbreak' it is unlikely that you have written in the whole history of heartbreak in all its myriad forms.

No, a poem always has a theme - it may be 'one particular aspect of love as shown by this image or that image' or it may be 'the lonliness of being in a Scottish cottage, cut off entirely from civilisation' but the theme is there. Simply saying you have 'written about love' is absurd - as well to say you have encompassed 'existence' within a book.

'Theme' is misleading - you must have something to express, though it can just be showing how a single mother doing her hair alone in her room exemplifies something of love, or how soldiers playing football with Arab children proves a point about the irony of tolerance and human nature in the world or something of that sort.

So, again, a mixed answer - no, you cannot just write 'about an emotion,' but you do not necessarily need a 'theme' or 'lesson,' all you need is a new way of looking at something, anything; then figure out how to express it. That's what's important.


EDIT: and what Brad said, 'cos he's well clever, innit.

But wait!

Returning to the anecdote: literature is really whatever we, as a collective body, deem it to be. There aren't any hard-and-fast rules that the universe cooks up for this stuff; even though certain literary styles and types may appeal to us, as individuals, that doesn't a universal rule make. Let's face it: if some guy took over the world and told us poetry was eight lines long, with thirty-four syllables and "heart" had to be included in the verse--well, we wouldn't be able to call anything else "poetry". So this whole idea of a poem is a collective one, at best--something we, as a community of self-ordained writers have decided to be the case. There's nothing wrong with this, and even here, on the YWS, I see a growing definition of what is "good" poetry and what isn't--and that is the best thing, in my mind, that can happen. Without that standard, there is no guiding hand or force or direction for the site to grow with. I expect questions like yours will only further this movement.

Don't entirely agree with that, thought some of it's about right. I think that society determines to a point what makes up 'poetry' (well, what constitutes anything, really...), but I think it's more unconscious than someone ordering it to be so - it's more to do with language and the effect that it has on the brain, so that the way we speak and the way we read combine to spark off those unconscious psychological triggers (hehe, I love that phrase) that make something appealling to us as readers. And that's what's most effective as poetry: we can claim that these new innovative and postmodern forms of verse are lovely and progressive etc. etc., but there are certain techniques that affect the brain differently than others, and poems that utilise those will always be more effective at connecting with people than others.

Anyway, yeah. The rest of what you said is good, though.

Oh, those are wonderful responses! I had to read them over a few times, and not just because Brad's was completely over my head the first time.

This is a topic that comes up at meetings of my high school's literary magazine. Yes, I've ranted about this literary magazine quite a bit, haven't I? That's probably because it's filled with fantastic people who would like this thread.
Anyway, it's inevitable that the debate on meaning in poetry will come up at some point throughout the year at our meetings. Yes, it really does come down to how one defines "meaning".
In middle school, we were always told the "meaning" of all the things we read. It was straightforward, one-way, and pushed in the face of every student who went through Language Arts class, so, of course, most freshmen who attend meetings of this magazine are shocked to discover that no one can tell them the "meaning" of a piece or that two people will disagree on it.

To quote bob: "When you say 'emotion,' what do you mean?"
I'm not entirely sure. A feeling, a sensation, the passing hormonal imbalances that govern our lives? No, I don't mean to say that writing a poem expressing an emotion encompasses all possible dimensions of that emotion; nor is it a poem that says, "I'm lonely and depressed."
When I speak of a poem expressing emotion, I mean that the poem puts into words what the author feels. It is an embodiment, or a manifestation, so to speak, of that sensation. It could be what my mother thought of me at age eight compared to age thirteen (it's weird when she writes poetry about me), the "loneliness" a child feels, or the awkwardness of a first kiss. If it's a well-written and provocative manifestation, the reader will hopefully experience an emotion as well.

Ah, but I spin in circles. Thanks for the responses.
Colleen

bob:

Don't entirely agree with that, thought some of it's about right. I think that society determines to a point what makes up 'poetry' (well, what constitutes anything, really...), but I think it's more unconscious than someone ordering it to be so - it's more to do with language and the effect that it has on the brain, so that the way we speak and the way we read combine to spark off those unconscious psychological triggers (hehe, I love that phrase) that make something appealling to us as readers. And that's what's most effective as poetry: we can claim that these new innovative and postmodern forms of verse are lovely and progressive etc. etc., but there are certain techniques that affect the brain differently than others, and poems that utilise those will always be more effective at connecting with people than others.

You must admit, though, that what chemically appeals to some reader(s) will not be the case for another.

I disagree with the closing lines. Brain structure is different more or less from person to person, and the environment one grows up in DOES affect how a brain reacts to things. Likewise, certain forms of poetry won't ALWAYS appeal and connect with people--as society changes, so does our environment. And I think, as we've seen on this site countless times, what some users call good and claim to have really been moved by, other users (such as you and me) remain unimpressed. Obviously, the poem DID affect those people in ways it didn't us.

My apologies for the micmac argument above, but I overall agree with your thesis: certain forms will appeal to readers, and others simply won't. That as it were, I don't think those forms are concrete and invariant under the ebb of time. Many students of mine have produced dazzling critiques of old forms, the way they can only hash through certain themes; in the same breath, many students of mine have also argued for those forms. I fall somewhere in between.


Take care,


Colleen:


I think basically what bob and I can agree on is that theme, emotion, meaning--they're all intrinsically bound up in communication. The worth of a poem is determined on its ability to evince these things, bring them closer to us in a way we previously could not conceptualize. Admittedly, many, many writers will never reach this mastery, and luckily for them, our society does not demand that (e.g. Stephen King) in order for them to "make a living."


Best,

Brad

I think teachers try to teach meaning in only one way because they want to have people know that meaning can and does exist. However, I don't see how they can claim only one meaning exists and it seems awfully ignorant for them to claim so. Everybody views something in a different way and to mold everyone to have the same thought is very Orwellian.

Exactly, Snoink! *shakes head* This is why I need to organize an army of disgruntled high school literature freaks to write to our Board of Education and demand advanced English courses for those neglected middle-school souls.
(Edit: Well, my parents are teachers. Dad, social studies; Mom, English. I can understand why teachers would want to teach something one way, and it works for plenty of students. In English you have those straightforward lessons on meaning. In social studies, of course, we're awfully self-centered about it. Europe-centered and all, I mean. But...if we tried to teach history without doing that, we'd fail at getting the point across.)

Quoting Brad: "I think basically what bob and I can agree on is that theme, emotion, meaning--they're all intrinsically bound up in communication. The worth of a poem is determined on its ability to evince these things, bring them closer to us in a way we previously could not conceptualize."
Sounds right. I like that.

There's a hole in my six-dollar sweater...
Colleen

Ill be different and give a short answer:

Yes. A Poem does have to have meaning. A nonsense poem also has meaning -

The Jabberwocky makes perfect sense because of the use of language by Lewis Carrol emphasis emotion.

Given - some poems do not have meaning and these are slaughtered by critters, if you want to be publishable Id say go for meaning all the way.

I think basically what bob and I can agree on is that theme, emotion, meaning--they're all intrinsically bound up in communication. The worth of a poem is determined on its ability to evince these things, bring them closer to us in a way we previously could not conceptualize. Admittedly, many, many writers will never reach this mastery, and luckily for them, our society does not demand that (e.g. Stephen King) in order for them to "make a living."

Precisely, yes!

And you're absolutely right about upbringing and differences in brain structure: I think that culture and raising have a massive influence (the reason why, for example, the Shakespearean sonnet doesn't connect so well with speakers of English as a second language, and much Indian poetry - another example - seems off-kilter and strange to many English speakers), but I also think that there are equally as many similarities as differences in the human brain, and that's why some techniques of poetry are eternally successful (rhythm, for example, regardless of which particular version panders to the brain structure of a certain culture) while others will probably never be effective.

I also think that you touched on a massively important point, which is communication: for poetry on the internet and in books, I find that a large part of the reason people don't 'get' poetry is because they aren't capable of properly reading poetry; if you can't bring the rhythm and meter to life off of the page or screen, you're always going to struggle to understand and connect with the piece. I have a feeling that's why poetry read out loud is so much easier to like and identify with - I've been experimenting with recordings of poetry, and I've certainly found I get more detailed and more effective critique when people actually hear the poem as it's supposed to be read.

Anyway, that's kind of an aside, though it does tie in with the main subject in a lot of ways

I just read "since feeling is first" by ee cummings and the first stanza ("since feeling is first/ who pays any attention/ to the syntax of things/ will never wholly kiss you;") made me think of this thread. cummings later says "and kisses are a far better fate/ than wisdom" and "life's not a paragraph". I wholeheartedly agree.