Ranger20 Apr 2006

Having said all that, however, I should also say that I'm often hesitant to use 'ordinary' language in any more than minimal quantities. Whereas poetry is partly about detailing life it is also about making an impression. It is about being memorable, and ordinary language very rarely does that. Even the passage I took from Blueprint is not ordinary. Whenever I read a poem I think 'could I have written that?' And if the answer is 'Yes, easily', then I get turned off to the poem. I don't want to find poetic writing easy; I want to test myself. And if that means that I test the readers, then great. The trick is to provide an easily-accessible surface story if I've buried a more complex meaning in the language. It will also mean that I improve my own reading of text. It's no good being able to write well if you can't read well, in my opinion.
Anyway, these are just general points, I will spend some time looking at how to incorporate your advice into my writing.