To the poet who feels the need to explain that you won't understand her poem before sharing

[scottwoods]

If I may offer a bit of unasked for advice: never feel like you have to explain to a poetry audience that your poem wil be unfathomable.

If your poetry isn't as, shall we say, accessible as the other work you've heard that night, that doesn't mean you need to warn us that your work IS in fact genuinely inaccessible.  Just read your poem and let the

Comments

[fengi]

Because I am less diplomatic, I will say no matter what the poet intends, the first impression of such caveats is we're being told we aren't capable of understanding the deep, complex poem. Which makes me anticipate a poem no one "gets" because it is stupid.

[ladyofthestorm]

Thank you for this Scott!

My opinion on the matter:

Poems are supposed to be interpreted. Unless you're doing a feature, and explain AFTER, you have no reason to explain your poem. Everyone takes different things from the different pieces of work in a night.

[nerak_g]

I am copying and sending this to my team :)

[campana]

i once heard a line in a poem about poetry- "my poetry is so deep y'all could never understand it."

[d_arte]

Insecurity often leads to self-sabotage disquised as self-protection.