tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post6556809847603406219..comments2024-01-23T18:21:17.066+00:00Comments on Surroundings: DesignsRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-54735541342402173692007-05-19T19:59:00.000+01:002007-05-19T19:59:00.000+01:00From Milton to Samuel Johnson, designs on the read...From Milton to Samuel Johnson, designs on the reader were expected. Even the Romantics, like Keats, had an agenda: excite the reader's "Fancy." Modern and Post-Modern poetry have changed this, and Eliot deserves some credit for "Tradition and the Individual Talent" where he opines that the poem is a thing unto itself where the author and reader meet without designs on each other.<BR/><BR/>It is hard to get a hearing for rhetorical poetry nowadays unless it be light verse. But I think that in the hands of the right poet, rhetorical poetry can still be done well. <BR/><BR/>I've been studying Jane Hirschfield of late, and despite her famous, focused Zen meanderings, there are times when her poems do appear to have a design upon the reader--but the design happens so organically that the reader doesn't mind.C. E. Chaffinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02639448512282317750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-65846950574292140112007-05-19T10:49:00.000+01:002007-05-19T10:49:00.000+01:00Thanks for the interesting comments. This is the P...Thanks for the interesting comments. <BR/><BR/>This is the <A HREF="http://www.everypoet.org/pffa/showthread.php?t=54496" REL="nofollow">Pffa thread</A> on the subject. Some really thoughtful observations there too.Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-20335425571057035512007-05-18T15:52:00.000+01:002007-05-18T15:52:00.000+01:00An interesting question, and it goes back to "who ...An interesting question, and it goes back to "who do we write for?" Most of us would say we write for ourselves, and so we wouldn't write with the deliberate aim of influencing or impressing a specific sector of readership (that's what I take "having designs on" to mean). If writing a poem is an act of communicating however, who are we trying to communicate with? I definitely don't write to communicate with myself - I already know what I think - so do I have an idealised reader in mind? Not sure, except that it's important to me that the reader is a listener.Colin Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15627539650929533832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-9055309046890970772007-05-17T23:04:00.000+01:002007-05-17T23:04:00.000+01:00If "having designs on the reader" means trying to ...If "having designs on the reader" means trying to convince the reader that the *poet* has the right way of looking at the world or some part of it, then it is not a good thing.<BR/><BR/>But a *poem* that has no designs on the reader ain't worth much, usually.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps this is where we can go to Keats again, with his "negative capability." If I remember correctly, it's hard to figure out what he meant by that in the context where it first appeared, but here I would use it to mean that the poet does not pursue his or her own designs on the reader in order to turn the poem into something that can manipulate the reader in its own way.Andrew Shieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02804655739574694901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16166950.post-10324159271244750222007-05-17T21:25:00.000+01:002007-05-17T21:25:00.000+01:00This is one of those cases where I feel like a com...This is one of those cases where I feel like a common language is getting in my way. I don't know how to read "having designs on the reader." I think of having designs as being ulterior motives, but what ulterior motives can exist in poetry writing, other than nailing the hot babes?Julie Carterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06878713173193835861noreply@blogger.com