My response to Alice-is-here's comments
This post is in response to comments by Alice-is-here on my poem “I hate my girl”.
These are her comments:
“Mr Poet, see your age and stage, does this poem suit you, or you've written your son's experience???”
“I wonder how all these poets have gathered to comment on not so worthy poem..hating a girl, publicizing his incapability and gaining fake sympathy from his own clones..SHAMEFUL!!!”
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Dear Alice-is-here:
1. You say: “…hating a girl, publicising his incapability and gaining fake sympathy from his own clones…”
My Answer:
You are here at Poetfreak and I assume you are a poet. As a poet, you seemed to have not understood word play and moving beyond the literal meaning of a text. I assume you are a poet and I expect you to understand the literal and metaphorical levels of meaning in a poem. I also expect you to recognise a persona and so not ascribe things personally to the writer.
The poem is not about insulting anyone; it is subtle humor and irony that is legitimate within the literary world.
2. You say: “…and gaining fake sympathy from his own clones…SHAMEFUL!!!”
My Answer:
My readers are intelligent people who understand the levels of meaning in my poetry. In your failure to transcend the apparent literal level of the poem, you have misunderstood my visitors too. I can accept that you might call my poem “an unworthy poem” – but you should not resort to insulting my visitors.
3. You say: “Mr Poet, see your age and stage, does this poem suit you, or you've written your son's experience???”
What is “age and stage”, dear Alice-is-here?
This is literature – and I take my literary endeavours seriously – age and ‘stage’ do not come in.
And really, it is nobody’s business if I have a son or daughter.
Kind regards
Raj Arumugam
Raj, Please don't rise to the bait. Talentless attention seekers with sad self loathing lives misuse the internet to try to obtain some kind of notoriety and recognition, however irrationally and pathetically. Ignore them and they eventually get bored and go away.
Some people are ignorant of the fineness of poetry...then some others pretend to be ignorant only to find fault in it
Relax Raj..keep your cool
Art does not have moral boundaries, art is, in part, a search to feel out those boundaries as they relate to the artist's personal experience and outward concerns. Humanity, which as a whole exhibits the entire plethora of behaviors, from the most depraved acts of wholesale murder to the beauty of selfless love is both heroic and evil. Art is a reflection of everything. There is no right or wrong angle in which to attack a work of art from. Everything is game. A viewer can love it or hate it, even try to deny it, but one viewer's view or even a mass view cannot ever devalue its right to exist.
Friend , There always will be a few who may not see beyond the real & apparent literal meaning & sense !! Because of the same I have to spend a lot of my time diluting & simplifying my English Story with Footnotes to reach various categories of my readers ! Knowing you for a long time now - your best intentions & aspirations are always appreciated ! -Raj, New Delhi
Raj, I think Alice-is -here's comments are best ignored....that being said I commend you on your response!!
I do wish to clarify for the record, when I wrote....... "There is no right or wrong angle in which to attack a work of art from."........That should be read as, there is no right or wrong way, an artist can put him or herself in anybody's shoes to approach the creation of a piece. They can the character of the serial killer or the policeman hunting him down. Alice is right in highlighting that the question of morality and art is a long-standing debate, that can never be fully agreed upon, it will go on forever. Me and her disagree on this matter, respectfully. But, there are mountains of artists who have frequently expressed strait-up nightmares, dark claustrophobic landscapes and such, meant to scare and not meant to reinforce hope of any kind. Dali, Poe, Wolfgang von Goethe, Black Sabbath, Francis Bacon, Steven King, Bram Strocker, H.P. Lovecraft, Wagner-- to name a fraction of a fraction. I am not willing to regulate their works to a separate corner called "Art, but not as important as morally righteous art."