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I recently in The
Paris Review came across an interesting quote by great poet, by Robert Graves (1895-985). He says, “Never
use the word “audience.” The very idea of a public, unless a poet is writing
for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an “audience”: They're talking
to a single person all the time…... All the so-called great artists were trying
to talk to too many people. In a way, they were talking to nobody.”
I posted it on
Google+, seeking the views of people. I got responses, some usual +1, I’d take
it that they liked and agreed with the statement. But a dear friend, and
wonderful poet Sum James, wrote that
the words which are written for audience and is not something of an ante-thesis
of poetry, as is seemingly contended here. It runs along. I would however,
agree that the term audience here could be misleading. Every poem, I would
agree with Sum James, is intended to an audience. Therein lies the reason for
disagreement.
Poems are not
scalar. Poems are vector, they have a sense of direction inherent in them. They
need to go somewhere. They carry emotions. Emotions which are pent up, held in
the dark corner, as if they were dead, only they aren’t, ride on the arrows
that we call poetry. As all arrows they are directed to some direction and
audience sits there. And audience here is not the reader. Audience has no say
and the Reader is incidental.
However, I think, I
do understand, what Robert Graves meant when he wrote the quote. The poet
writes for the audience, which may or may not be a wider audience. The audience
might not exactly be the one which is obvious. When the poet writes to an
oppressive government, he more often than not, is not writing to the
government. He or she is writing to the citizens, empathizing with them, urging
them to change things or merely offering them a shoulder to cry on. We
fantasize the poet as an eccentric who is so ill at ease with the world in
which he would rather not be.
Nothing can be
farther from the truth. A poet, or a writer for that matter, is the one who is
most impacted by the world around me. Things which other people are not much
perturbed with and are easily able to deal with, are the things which trouble a
poet to no end. He writes out of that discomfort and poetry is his way of
reaching out to the world. He is seldom understood which seldom matters to him.
Thus, it is
established that a poet writes to the audience. The audience can be non-human,
human or divine. This is where the twist is, which explains what Robert Graves possibly meant. His small
discussion is not dependent on the willingness of the audience to listen to
him. He writes words directed towards the audience, but he doesn’t care about
the readiness of the audience. In that sense, his words may wither down and end
up on the ground like dry autumn leaves, but they are there for someone. They are
written in hope, in happiness, in horrid sadness, for someone.
I believe, the poet
meant that poem cannot be driven by the market. Audience is a passive thing for
a poet. Poems are driven by the poet and no one else. He doesn’t care about the
willingness, the want or the readiness of the world. His poems are force of
nature and they are written because they need to be written, like a river or a
flower, or the meadows or the mountains. The poet decides, when and how. Robert
Graves was possibly referring to the commercialization which plagues writing
today, when he said that poets should not write for the audience. After all, he
is the poet who wrote “There is no money in poetry, but then there
is no poetry in money” and also gave, what I would say is best advice
to a poet, on how to handle commercial failures and even success, when he said that
poetry
is a condition rather than a profession. I totally agree with him and
would further advise writers to write poems, if only as an exercise to prepare
themselves for prose. It brings exactness and urgency to writing. Cheers to
poetry, anyways, it is a condition and all it needs is love.
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