HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THIS?

Thank you very much, Em-ily, for choosing my poem to be one of your reading list. It's very kind of you.

However deep and meaningful the subject of this piece is (and it is doubtful that it is since the questions you ask here have been asked over and over again and in more engaging ways than you ask them),  {See, for instance, what is set out on the questions mortality raises about the meaning of life in the collection of poems and epitaphs known as The Greek Anthology]. it is certainly not written in a beautiful style since it’s full of deixis --and therefore leaves much of what you are saying unclear. It’s also turgid and reads like what sophomore’s when they want to show themselves as capable of being philosophically profound.  
 
And if you are trying to say (again) that all that life offers to human beings is despair if human beings are contingent things and do not have an afterlife in some celestial realm of glory,  you haven’t said it, let alone said it such a way that readers will marvel at the craft in which that message is set out or, without a great deal of work on their part to guess at what you are (presumably) implying,  get your point.  
 
“What can this trip be for a man?”  
 
Deixis.  Which trip is “this trip”?  
 
“Is it an act life can't repeat?”  
 
The question is nonsense since the unspecified trip you mention is not something life does.  A person engages in living a life.  And of course, millions of people believe that no human lives through only one span of time.  
 
“By chance you came”.  
 
More deixis.  Came where?   And if it’s into the world, this is more often than not by chance.  It’s trough a deliberate choice on the part of those to whom one is born to have a baby.  
 
“How can those two  
who brought you here bring you again?”  
 
More deixis.  Brought you where?  And more nonsense.   is conceiving someone a “bringing’?  And why is the fact that one’s parents are not capable of bring one somewhere again important.  How would the fact that a person’s life is finite and that a person would eventually still have to die change the world?  
 
“You're on the earth, a passer-by.”  
 
To be a passer by, one has to have come from somewhere with the ability and the realization of an intent to go somewhere other than the place one passes by.  
 
“What is the purpose of being here?”  
 
Why must there be only one, let alone a final, purpose?   And does the fact that life is contingent and limited really make life purposeless?  For many, it is the very fact that they are not immortal that gives meaning to life.  
 
“Can you delay your little stay?”  
 
Yes, if you eat healthily and exercise.  And by not doing so you can shorten your “little” stay [on earth].  
 
“What is the force that takes away?”  
 
Another instance of deixis.  Takes WHAT away?  
 
“Men come and go from where to where”  
 
Better “from one “where” to yet another “where””.  
 
“and feel they have to achieve works  
that leave a trace”  
 
Deixis again.  What kind of trace?  
 
“or they depart  
as if they have not come and left.”  
 
This is nonsense.  If someone departs, even without leaving some unspecified trace of some unspecified thing, he/she STILL is someone who at one point in time came [into the world] and has left it.  What you presumably meant to say (but didn’t) was that those who never left a “trace” upon the word while they were in it feel as if they should never have been born or as if it had been pointless to have been alive and that it made no difference to the world if they had never been in it.  And the import of your statement is that if men do indeed leave a trace of themselves that persist after their death – which is often the case, no matter how limited and how many people recognize it, as you do when you read poetry written long before you were born  – they don’t feel like they never existed or that their time on earth was wasted”  
 
“What is this life if all the crowd"  
 
"the" crowd?  WHICH crowd?  
 
"arrive and leave with no hope found?”  
 
Hope for what?  
 
“Are we to pass and disappear  
where no eyes see or ear can hear?”  
 
Did you mean “to where”.  Otherwise, you are noting the place in which people disappear is there is no sight or hearing.  
 
Sorry,  but in the light of all of these things,  as well as your own criteria for what a writinh must show itself as having to be considered a poem,  your submission is not one,  
 
Cue the insults,  the red herrings,  the irrelevant claim that what I have said above is  "boring", and the absence of any attempt or effort to demonstrate through argument that the points I have made about how poorly this submission is written  and how poorly its subject is dealt with,  are invalid.

Thank you very much, Baldwin, for the great interest and the time you have given me to write this lengthy account for criticizing my poem. Sorry, l can't explain the points you have raised to make you understand my poem. I consider that all your points can be answered to make you understand my poem, but to do so, l need to write pages and pages to explain the points which other poets find very clear. Why you don't understand them is beyond my ken although you are supposed to be a poet. Anyhow, l am not ready to write pages to explain what l find very clear or supposed to be clear to one who considers himself a poet. Thank you for raising my standard to a sophomore, Baldwin.

Why I don't understand your points is that they are set out in such a way that they are not understandable.  And if you were a good poet,  they wouldn't need to be explained.  The fact of explaining what one meant to convey in a submission means that you didn't do your job as a poet -- which is to ensure that what one wanted to say in your submission was already clear.    
 
But more importantly,  I am not asking you to explain (let alone for pages and pages) what you meant to say, or even what you thought you had clearly said.  I am asking you to show me how and why my notes on how the deixis in almost all of your verses make what you say in those verses unintelligible are invalid and how and why my notes on how you don't say what you presumably meant to say are wrong.  
 
Are you actually claiming that the lines I pointed out as being deictic are not deictic?  Yes or no  (which, BTW, is a question that won't take pages and pages to answer).  
 
 
Your complaint about how it would take you too long .to do what I didn't ask you to do is just another way of avoiding doing what you, to be honorable,  should do when someone points out to you on the basis of sound literary theory of what should not be done in writing poetry, as well as your own criteria for what makes a writing a poem, that you have written poorly.   Surely, your use of this tactic helps you disguise the fact that you know that the claims laid against your work having any real poetic quality are indeed valid or that you don't have the critical ability or the knowledge of how to counter the claims made against your writing style and the truth of the statements you make within your submissions if they are invalid.  
 
And who in particular are the other poets whom you claim have actually said (and in so many words) that your points are "very clear".  Have they also said why they think so?

Cue the "I don't like to give names" card.

I’m not sure if the unending barrage of negativity from the above commenter is an ongoing type of banter or something else entirely, but I would like to say this:
I find your work to be emotional and often I find myself ruminating on what I have read.
The beauty of poetry is equal parts the writers intention and the readers interpretation. Thank you for sharing.

"I’m not sure if the unending barrage of negativity from the above commenter is an ongoing type of banter or something else entirely"

It is an assessment of how this piece is so awkwardly written that it does not communicate whatever it intended to say with any linguistic felicity and why it should not be regarded as well-crafted poetry.

But if you disagree, perhaps you'll do me the kindness of demonstrating how and why my assessment that the lines I comment on contain deixis and are therefore ragged and poorly written and nowhere near as intelligible as they could have been, and that the truth of many of the claims made in the submission's lines is questionable is off the mark and that my "barrage of negativity" is unwarranted. and undeserved..  

And isn't the beauty of poetry, and its ability to make a reader feel that he or she has read something stirring and memorable and touching and observant, a **product**  of **how** a writer says what he/she wants to say rather than what a writer intends to say?  Lots of people have intended to speak evocatively of love but have failed to show that they know how, or have the linguistic talent necessary,  to do so.

If you are unable to read what a person has written and not find some meaning in it, whether intended or interpreted, maybe just move on. I notice you spend an awful lot of your time leaving paragraphs worth of comments on this gentleman’s work and I have to wonder why you bother with it if you deem it to be so poorly written.
Is this your form of bullying? Do you take this type of time “critiquing” anyone else’s poems?

It doesn’t matter that you think this poets poems are not poetry. I highly doubt he’s here writing for you. Seems your time could be better spent injecting positivity or just ejecting yourself from his comments.

How interesting that there's nothing in your message to me that answers what I asked you to do.  And the issue isn't whether someone can find some meaning in a person's submission, but whether that person has written in such a way that whatever he/she intended to say is clear and felicitously stated and does not have to have meaning read into it or (perhaps incorrectly) interpreted to be understandable, let alone evocative.  

And whether or not I critique any other persons's submissions is irrelevant since the issue is whether any critique I make and what I say within it is warranted and justified.  I note that you have avoided saying, let alone demonstrate,   that you think (if you do),  that my remarks about J-Z's submission were not.   Are you not skilled enough to do so?

"It doesn’t matter that you think this poets [SIC]  poems are not poetry. I highly doubt he’s here writing for you.

I never said he was.  But given that he's posting to a public forum,  he IS writing for an audience that does not deserve to do any linguistic house cleaning of his lines to make sense of them, all the while claiming explicitly and implicitly that he has a master's grasp of writing well and is incapable of writing poorly.

In any case,  do you have and use any criteria for judging whether or not something is well written,  let alone "as least as well written as good prose (Ezra Pound)"  Or is your determiner for saying something is well written is if you can find meaning in it no matter how grammar gaffed and syntactically challenged it is and/or whether or not it is what an author intended the meaning of his lines to be?

Do I think that Joseph is writing on the level of the greats? No, I don’t. But in saying that, I can only assume that he doesn’t either (Joseph, please correct me if I’m wrong in this assumption). I do understand what he is writing about here, and I can take something from it that has value and meaning.  I am not in any way qualified to critique another persons poetry, therefore I don’t. Clearly you think you are however, your overkill approach with Joseph’s work makes you come across as a pompous individual, and what you do in the comment section of his poetry isn’t a critique at all. A critique consists of actually showing the writer how they can improve a piece by offering suggestions on grammar, ways to strengthen enjambments, meter, etc. You don’t do this as part of your “critique” which tells me you aren’t qualified either. All you have to offer (which isn’t much) is negativity and demands (which no one is obligated to respond to). In fact, what you ARE doing boarders on harassment and if you were in my comments like that I’d block you.  
Clearly Joseph has 10 pounds more patience and grace than I do. I’m sure you will reply, because you clearly can’t help yourself, but I will not be wasting my time responding to you further.  

Just know that the way you behave here does not go unnoticed.  

P.s. I would also like to say, so what if Joseph sees himself as being a great writer? And so what if you don’t? Why are you so pressed about it? Others can read his work and form their own opinions. They don’t need your mighty fist of objection to so. Maybe spend your time sharpening YOUR OWN skills.

What evidence do you have that critical poetry sites, rather than vanity sites like this one,  agree with what you say critique involves and what its tone should/must be ?
 
You won't find it on one of the best of these sites, namely, Poetry Free For All (http://www.everypoet.org/pffa/),   where it is stated in its list of rules that  
 
NOTE: "Constructive" [criticism] does not necessarily mean complimentary, flattering, or nice like your mom would be; it can also mean negative or even harsh. "  
 
(http://www.everypoet.org/pffa/showthread.php?44995-New-posters-orientation-please-read-before-posting)  

and elsewhere where one of the moderators notes that  

"Whether or not critique is constructive depends on how the author uses it, not on the manner in which it's phrased."
"
 
and where it is recognized that being able to see and articulate what's grammatically and syntactically and conceptually wrong in the way a writing is set out shows that one who does this is eminently qualified to engage in critique.    
 
In any case,   I dispute your claim that when I critique J-Z's submissions, I do not show him how he can improve a piece of his "by offering suggestions on how his grammar, meter, phrasings of things, language used,  use of punctuation, and his all tell and no show style could be improved.  Moreover, doing so negatively is STILL a way of offering suggestions for improving the way he writes so that it does not create puzzles for his readers to solve, but does what poets like Linda Pastan and other award winners in literature have noted regarding the ins the function of poetry -- to make readers see something with their eyes shut.  
 
And once more,  the issue is NOT whether you understand what he's writing about, even assuming that your understanding is what he intended readers to understand.  It's whether the **way he writes** about the subjects he's taking up is as comprehensible and well worded, not to mention as evocative,   as it could be especially if he'd avoid the grammatical, rhythmical,  syntactical, and conceptual mistakes, as well as the question-begging and all too often misinformed claims and forced rhyme and misunderstandings of the meanings the words he uses have,  that he peppers his submissions with.  
 
P.S.  Since you admit that you lack the skills necessary to determine how and why a submission is or is not well written, then you should not be telling me that I shouldn't have made the remarks I made about how poorly written and conceptually unsound  J-Z's submission is. You are unqualified to judge whether or not they were warranted, let alone on target.

Thank you very much for your amiable comment on my poetry. You really give me great encouragement through your very kind words. Personally, l don't like to defend my poetry because it is normal that any poet likes and is convinced of what he has written. When his defence comes from an honest and courageous person like you, he feels very happy because it is silly for me if a person defends his own poetry. I also hate to interpret my poetry as l prefer other people to understand it by themselves. I appreciate your kind and courageous interference because you have saved me from praising myself. I know that Baldwin doesn't tell the truth because he exaggerates a lot. However, l will never forget your kind interference which will give me a lot of courage and will start great friendship between such a great poet like you and me. Thank you very much again.

"I know that Baldwin doesn't say the truth because he exaggerates a lot."

Please demonstrate that I have not spoken "the truth" (without putting words in my mouth to do so) let alone that this is because I "exaggerate a lot".

"l don't like to defend my poetry because it is normal that any poet likes and is convinced of [the quality] what he has written"

I am not asking you to defend your poetry but to explain why you have written the way you have and why you think when your submissions display the grammatical and syntactical anomalies they demonstrably do you have clearly conveyed what you were intent to convey.

As to your other claim,  you obviously don't know that the poets you consider great were often initially unsatisfied with what they wrote and kept revising it up to, and even after, publication.

Furthermore,  the issue isn't whether any poet  -- especially those who think, as you do,  that it is impossible for them to write poorly --  normally likes and is convinced of the quality of his/her work,  but whether they have reasons that are not grounded in egotism for doing so.

Baldwin, when you quote, you should be sincere to the original. Please, return to what l have written and quote it sincerely.
BTW, l've corrected TO TELL the truth.

You old hypocrite!  What right do you have to tell me to do what you tell me given how many times you have put words in my mouth when you were "quoting" something I said!

In any case, I have no idea what quoting something "sincerely" means.  Did you mean "accurately"?  More importantly, and leaving aside the fact that I indicated that the words "the quality" were not in the "original source" I quoted from, isn't what you meant to say (or were implying) when you (falsely) claimed that

"... it is normal that any poet likes and is convinced of what he has written",  

was

"... it is normal that any poet likes and is convinced of the quality of what he has written"?

After all, the expression "any poet likes and is convinced of what he has written" is an awkward and meaningless one.  It doesn't really make sense without some note describing what it is about his poem that he is convinced of.  And isn't what it is that you are convinced of is that your poems are writings of quality?

But I note that what you've given your attention to in your message is the minor point in my message to you instead of doing what you should have done,  namely, commented upon whether what I said about how your claim was not true,  since many poets did not like the initial form and substance and wording of a poem they wrote and kept revising it.