littleworkpage

First there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is. An academic criticised this as being at best nonsense. In fact it's a reference to an old Chinese text (by Lao Tzu?), pointing out that if you analyse something, you may lose sight of the original object, but later, the object returns richer than before. However, what the text doesn't point out is that before you study a piece you need to realise it is difficult and that it's worth the effort. The critic found these words from a Donovan song difficult because they're deceptive - neither the context nor the content give the readers any hint that work is required. This demonstrates one of the many types of difficulty prevalent today, but not the most difficult to deal with. It's just a matter of finding the "missing key". Reasons Why are there more difficult poems around nowadays? There are many legitimate reasons There's an increasing use of irony, collage and fragmentation, not just i...

One of the more challenging problems that a workshop has to face is how to deal with poets who repeatedly present bad poems. The usual guideline is to be tactful. The benefit of this to the group is that it creates a more socially relaxed atmosphere, giving people a chance to learn in a supportive environment. The democratic, non-elitist mix of poets guarantees variety in the group. Tactfulness and honesty need not be at odds and after all, individuals can ask for honest comments either privately or to the whole group if they want. Moreover, newcomers to the group won't be scared away by fears of being adversely criticised. The guideline also makes it easier to stamp out gratuitous insults. However, there are disadvantages as well, for the group and the individuals. To accurately express one's opinions is never easy, but to express them tactfully is harder still. In some groups even calling a poem bad constitutes a tactless insult. Tact too easily leads to bad poems being welco...

"The test for allusion is that it is a phenomenum that some reader or readers may fail to observe" [12, p.39] Allusions are far from being the sole preserve of literature. Cinema, painting and music frequently contain quotations from other works. Early still-lifes in particular depended on a rich vocabulary of symbols which many admirers are unaware of today. But how important for the contemporary reader is the awareness of a poem's allusions? And how has this importance changed? The Mechanics of Allusion According to Ben-Porot [5, p.109] the process of a reader's actualisation of an allusion involves recognition of marker identification of evoked text modification of the initial local interpretation of passage activation of evoked text Full actualisation may be frustrated at each stage - recognition of marker If an allusion is disguised or unobtrusive (it doesn't appear in quotes, it has a tempting non-allusive interpretation, etc) the reader may not realise...

The technique of art is to make objects 'unfamiliar', to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception, because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. - Shklovsky, "Art as Technique", 1917. Why are some poems 'difficult'? There are many reasons, lack of control or concern by the writer amongst them. Here I'd like to concentrate on some of the more legitimate reasons for obscurity, borrowing some ideas from maths and the visual arts. Though poetry may aspire to music, it shares many inherent problems with painting. The discovery of perspective in the middle ages provided a rigorous method of transforming 3 dimensions into 2. We have little difficulty in restoring the lost dimension ourselves. In poetry the loss is more extreme and the restoration more problematic. A poem is, after all, just a long line of characters concertina'd to fit onto the page, a one dimensional thread that began ...