A Discussion on Expression

 by Isabella Tarttelin

In my practice interview, we talked mainly about my studies and my CV. But as the conversation moved to the topic of poetry, the interview interjected a more opinionated question, stating that he thought that ‘modern poetry [in his eyes] was simply chopped up prose’, and asked me what my response to that would be. I quickly replied, questioning - why should we, as the reader, the audience, the mere onlooker to a poet's piece, critique their expression? As poetry, like all forms of art, provides a place of expression, and if one’s interpretation of personal expression is, as he put it, ‘chopped up prose’, why should it be changed?

He looked rather taken aback at my in depth response, and commented later in his admiration for ‘putting him in his place’ - even now I worry if I was too direct in contradicting his opinion - but the initiating question he gave stuck. 

Why should expression be constricted and critiqued? The beauty of it is that no two are the same. Since expression is purely the translation of emotion, how can we define it? We can’t define emotion, so we can’t define expression. It is completely personal, completely our own. One might view a pastoral setting and feel pensive and melancholic, due to its ever shrinking presence on the earth because of climate change, or another might feel incredibly awestruck in the power of Mother Nature. And how these two express their experiences in this setting will be different, one may paint a landscape afflicted with a melancholic atmosphere, yet the other will paint one with a focus on the dominance of nature. With these differences, does it make one better than the other? The second one may be higher valued, especially due to its Romantic interpretation of nature, but despite the first not fitting to a ‘category’ per say, it doesn’t make it any less good. And why should the affliction of others limit something that is powerful and personal? Sometimes conventions within art, like poetry, for example, only limit one’s creative expression. I know when I try to interpret my own emotions into writing poetry and struggle to find words which rhyme, it only halts my momentum, as I am so stuck in the effort to appease this invisible audience that the emotion I felt fades and gets harder to interpret into words. Especially nowadays, with the focus to ‘do well’ and succeed in one’s creative expression and be highly praised for it, this hyperfixation on how the audience will view it only limits creativity. 

It raised the question of the importance of the audience in writing/painting/creating art. Is the purpose of art to be aware of the audience? Is this what gives it value, and credibility, because the audience likes it? This just subverts the meaning of expression itself, all personal aspects are gone because its aim is not to interpret, but to please. Perhaps someone could’ve written the most heart-wrenching, existential piece of poetry, which, as you read it, reaches at your soul and touches it in such a way, but written in the form of ‘chopped up prose’ and therefore was deemed ‘not worthy of value’. If artists could just ignore the words of others, art could be so much more diverse and creative. (Note: I’m in no way critiquing those who write in conventional schemes! There are many poets who write such expressive poetry, such as ‘ Lines Written in Early Spring’ by Wordsworth, one of my favourites of his works which is written in ABAB): here.

Maybe it is the notion of vulnerability that expression gives that makes many ‘creators of art’ (I’m only naming it as such as there is such a range of art) afraid to truly express how they feel in their work. They strive to reach conventions as they are safe, and expected, and many of the time one can hide behind the traditional iambic pentameter and ABAB rhyme scheme. Perhaps it is all a message towards the concept of emotion and humanity itself: that true expression is seen to be weakening, as real emotion is too personal, too private for an audience to bear. I wonder how much the world of art would be changed, if the restraints of conventions and emotion didn’t hold us back.