"---You are right; a successful poet is the one who precisely conveys
what he wants; one that uses words to evoke the feelings he intended;
the smells he felt. Words being such limited digital means to express
an analog world, writing itself is a futile task, going by the writer's
perspective.
Question is: what if the author fails? Is it any loss to the reader?
If the author scribbled some greek and I read and understand E=mc^2,
am I not the beneficiary?---"
So far so good. If the author fails, it is certainly a loss to the
reader. If you read into the piece E=mc^2, it is great! But, what
if you read into it E=mc^3 ? Neither you are benefitted, nor the
author. As a matter of fact, you might create havoc to the rest of
the world, if you let your cat out of the bag!
"---Again the fallacy seems to be that poet is the only one who writes a
particular piece of poetry. No, it is several other people who
"write" it later. By the time it reaches you, the reader, it acquires
lot of baggage by the virtue of "living" so long in the society."---
I agree with you, only partly. But, if in the process of people
"writing" it over and over, the baggage it acquires might become
'excess baggage' and you have to pay for it very dearly! This excess
baggage might even be harmful to the society from which it came!
That is what has happened with a lot of our classics and even
the cATuvulu. The excess baggage might come in the form of theological
dust, mythical spider webs, 'pseudo-historical' mumbo-jumbo, and
what not. That is why we have to dust them off from time to time,
and of necessity they should be retold!
( Portions deleted)
"--- Let us look at the following 'poem.'
tE.gee. reMDu kaakulu koorcuMDe baMDa meeda;
oM Degiri pOye; aMta aMdoMDu migile
reMDavadi pOye; pidapa aMdoMDu lEdu
baMDa maatramu paapa maMduMDi pOye!
Sadly, for the me the meaning of this poem is a strict sum of the
meaning of the words :-)!!---"
I am glad you have read it right.
The poem was written by the author to make fun of the romantic
poets(bhaavakavulu) and their poetry(bhaavakavitvaM). He wanted
to convey through this parody how people try hard to pick out
deeply philosophical hidden meanings out of meaningless stuff.
The writer was anaMtapaMtula raamaliMgaswaami, a parody writer of
yore. He wrote, SuklapakshaM;a parody on dEvulapalli kRshNa Saastry's
kRshNa pakshaM.
"--- PS: I am quite uneasy about the argument I make. If poetry is not for
communication, what is it for?"--- rama---"
Of course, poetry is for communication; certainly not for
miscommunication!
Regards.
--Venkateswara Rao Veluri