From: jb6o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jason Andrew Barshay)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Criticism
Date: 9 Oct 92 14:02:11 GMT
Organization: Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Dear Stephanie,

I understand your position wrt criticism and in some ways I feel the
same.  I also agree very much with what Mr. Rilke had to say.  I think
it all comes down to what exactly your purpose is in writing poetry. 
There are many who say that they write because they feel compelled to or
because it is what they must do and that they don't care what anyone
else thinks of their work.  Deep down, I think many of these people
really hope that their work will be accepted and as such are deeply
disappointed when it is not.

Rilke said that one should only write if to be denied the ability to
write would be to be denied life itself.  If you feels this way and can
look deep and hard inside yourself and try to explain what you think and
feel and see then you will not question whether what comes out is good
or bad because it will truly be a part of you.

Give me the best writer in the world, one who can follow all the rules
of grammar to a T and who can makes words sing and flow.  If what they
write does not come from deep within, from a need to express what they
think and feel in their own way, then they have accomplished nothing. 
But give me what you may call the common writer, one who has not had
years of schooling in diction and form.  If this person can turn away
from society.  If they can renounce their need to conform by it and fit
in with it.  If they can concentrate on himself and their feelings and
their life and, as Rilke refers to them, GREAT things, then what they
will write and what will flow from their mind can only be great.

These thoughts and ideas I propose are rather radical for me, having
been in the past a very closed minded person when it came to art and
expression.  All art does not appeal to me.  I have read much poetry
which I did not find interest in.  But it is not important whether or
not I like what I read.  Whether I think the form wrong or the grammar
flawed.  What is important is whether the poetry sprang from a need
within the poet to create and express.  If this is so and if it is a
genuine reflection of their heart and soul then how can it be bad?  When
I now read a poem that I find speaks to me I feel touched for having
been given a glimpse into the soul of the writer and for having come
upon the realization that someone else understands how I feel.

I don't ask you to agree with everything I say.  I don't ask you to
change your mind about what you think.  After all, who am I to say which
of us (if either) is more in the right.  I do point you to the book that
got me interested in Rainer Maria Rilke.  I first read of him in a
collection of his correspondences with a poet entitled, "Letters to a
Young Poet."  If you have the time, seek out this book and read it.  It
is a short collection of only 10 letters.  There have been several
translations of it from German to English.  I point you toward the one I
found most appealing by Stephen Mitchell.

I enjoy your thoughts and views and would be delighted to hear from you again.

Sincerely,
Jason
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems