I recently posted a couple of 'experimental' poems on writeoutloud.net. One was William Carlos Williams' The Red Wheelbarrow. Some positive comments, but some negative ones too.
1) Some people seem terribly suspicious that people are being fooled by
these types of poems. They, however, are 'immune' from this, because
they've guarded their imaginations against this somehow. What they can't
seem to realise is that some people actually enjoy that kind of stuff and seem to be of the opinion that their taste is the only legitimate taste. The emperor may have no clothes, but maybe he really wanted to be a naturist...
2) Poetry for some seems to exist withing very carefully defined
barriers, and what's outside 'isn't poetry'. Others have much more fluid
boundaries, and others still seem to almost have no boundaries. It
seems important to some to have these boundaries, but to others it's not
as important.
3) Ideas of authority - who gets to define what poetry is/isn't - seem to bother some people a lot. There are questions of tradition around this too: as if Western white male poetic tradition were the only 'legitimate' tradition, and, say, Chinese womens' poetry, or African praise song, or haiku, say, were not really poetry.
4) How to define 'good' and 'bad' poetry seems to bother some people.
What is bad poetry when any form is allowed, a poem can be visual or
sound-based and still be a poem? For me, bad poetry is whatever sets my teeth on edge.
5) The question of meaning is another difficult area. A poem that
doesn't have much meaning, or in which there is real difficulty working
out what it does mean, seems to bother some people. Though in fact these
problems are opposites, they both seem to be bothersome. If it's either
too simple (like The Red Wheelbarrow) or too difficult (JH Prynne
perhaps) it's somehow keeping out its audience.
6) It seems to bother some that some poetry is not going to be enjoyed
by everybody, or a lot of people. Accusations of 'elitism' come up; as
if somehow you're only supposed to like what everybody else likes. But
most of us who like experimental poetry probably like it much the same
way that we might like Thai food; because we like it. Because it gives
us good feelings or experiences. Or we might prefer Captain Beefheart to
Kylie Minogue because we just prefer that kind of music. Insert your
own likes/dislikes.
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