We established early on that it's just not poetry if you're bleeding your emotions onto the page. Much later in the meeting he connected that point with critique of something in poetry: If whatever you're saying supersedes the poem, then it ceases to be a poem.
Example: If I write a poem criticizing the evils of upper-class society and their mistreatment of the poor, but that is not contained within a well-written poem (syntax, musicality, imagery, being communicated well, etc.), then it is not a poem, but a piece of criticism. A poem can critique, but what makes it a poem is its structure and form. He's been saying this for a while, and I'm just now getting it.
My poetry in the past (and perhaps even now) has always had a hidden agenda. I haven't written poetry for the sake of poetry, but for the sake of making a statement. Looking back (quite a painful thing for me to do now that I've studied a little more about how to read and write poetry), I see how bad my poetry is. The details are unclear; the imagery is abstract and thus not conveying my message; I pay no attention at all to punctuation and line breaks; and I've poured too much of myself into the poem. I'm thinking now that my "poetry" hasn't been poetry at all.
It has been a wonderful relief to bow down to Poetry, to concede to it as a structure, a form, something that masters me instead being mastered. It has also been liberating to work from a point of view that the world is not desperate for another poet; there are plenty of poets and poems already out there. That makes poetry (reading and writing it) all about the enjoyment of it. Not to say there isn't a place for anger and some more of the darker emotions and comments in poetry, but to take poetry for the poem is freeing and, I think, right.
It's been a surprising discovery of poetry, approaching it with this idea of mastery without stress. For me, becoming really good at something has always required sleepless nights, hours of intense contemplation, research, agony, distress, etc. etc. But I can sit with Davidson for an hour and just talk about poetry without thinking that my life - or livelihood - depends on it. I am not, however, just willy-nilly making my way through this class. I'm trying to read and write poetry better because that's the purpose of poetry. I don't know how to explain it any better, without making it sound like poetry is unimportant to me. It's become more important, but in a less stressful way, because I'm learning what it is and what it does.
Before, I felt that writing in general was a part of me - it was what made me breathe and think and feel, etc. etc. But that, in a paradoxical way, subjugates the writing to the writer. It ceases, then, to serve as a separate entity that exists for others to read. It becomes so deeply personal that it no longer serves its original purpose. I don't mean to say that poetry and writing in general are not to be deeply personal, or that there is no part of the poet (or writer) in their work, but that it is huge to take into consideration that it exists to be communicated to others. That affects everything about it: topic, structure, technique, etc.
I can't stress enough how freeing it is to be subjected to poetry! I love this idea Davidson has been pushing for: You sort of bow to the poem, and let it work out within in its own restrictions. That makes the whole process enjoyable, and hopefully, you get to experience some pretty good poetry along the way.
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