Don't know yet
---Coyote Moon
I am a vapour, I am the water that seeps through the solid earth, the rocks and every other thing that doesn't crack.
---Anonymous
Can't see that
---eritain
The ebb and flow of my course seeping through, freezing and melting
---Kathryn, NH
Wearing away the things that can't crack.
---Kathryn, NH
Won't understand it
---Kathryn, NH
The meticulous locking into single forms, freezing
---eritain
to ice too hard for anything not to crack.
---eritain

this poem is not a very good one so change it to make it seem more real.
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Don't listen to that son of a bitch.
poetry is subjective.
if YOU feel it then it's beautiful.
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Umm ... I'd say if the *reader* feels it then it's beautiful. If no one but the author feels it, it's like intellectual nosepicking: Nobody cares but the picker. And that kind of thing oughta be done in private. --eritain, feeling unusually inclined to use simile today (which may be a bad trend)
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I diasgree, eritain. Writing to please others is fine for those of you working at Hallmark. True art can only come when you write for yourself.
--Kevin
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~ There's a subtle distinction here. I do not believe you are correct in likening all intentionally-communicative writings to the mass-produced superficial pulp that is pop writing. Back to this topic shortly.
~ I'm no Hallmarker (as you would have suspected, had you in fact bothered to look at my poetry on this site); but this idea, that no one has to understand a writing but the writer, is disturbing to me. All too often I have watched narcissistic ne'er-do-wells cower behind it with an "oh,-well,-*you're*-not-supposed-to-understand-this" handwave, and this is sad. So I try to substitute something else for it. More on this in a moment.
~ Now, I think I know what you meant to say in "True art can only come when you're writing for yourself." If what I hear is what you meant, believe me when I say I wholeheartedly subscribe to it. (Nobody obligates you to believe me, but, hey, some things are built on trust.) Would it be an accurate rephrasing to say, "If the writer isn't happy with it, it's fake art."? To say, "Art only happens when you're wholly involved in your writing."? What about "wholly committed to your writing"? I believe all this -- it's a question of integrity. If I wrote and posted something that I could not be pleased with, I would lose that integrity; I'd be a kind of poetic prostitute. Said another way: Being *able* to be my own strongest critic means I am *responsible* to be that strongest critic.
~ Now ... back to the alternate attitude I mentioned. A lot about art, to my mind, hinges upon the question, "Why do you do this?". I pose that question to you now. *What is art for?* I await your answer with interest -- I'll post my own after I see yours.
--eritain the longwinded
Endnotes:
(1) Regarding "happy with it" and "real art" -- not H implies not R, but does this mean R iff H? R implies H, that I accept, but....
(2) Where would promiscuous subjectivity get you? (I ask only because I've tried it, and I know others who also have. From that attitude, many have derived some really, um, interesting and enjoyable moral conclusions. Yet I have found that its ultimate end must needs be loneliness and despair. Consequently I'm very interested in *any* form of subjectivity.)
~ Anyhow. Now I really will shut up. --eritain
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I'm sure you're reading too much into what I said. What I was trying to say is that if the writer doesn't feel passionate about what s/he writes the reader won't either. The reader may still not feel it even if the writer does, for any number of reasons, but if the writer is in touch with the feeling there's a chance of communicating it.
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If by "all intentionally-communicative writings" you mean things like text books or stop signs, well there's nothing wrong with being either of those things but they're not particularly artistic.
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What is art for? Art is an attempt to connect on an emotional level with other people.
--Kevin
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That's fair. I'd say art is a substitute for experience. --eritain
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Don't get Zen with me! Art IS an experience.
--Kevin
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i thought it sucked

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If you don't recognize the author's honesty, or acknowledge their right to feel differently than you. You threaten all of our freedoms.
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Perhaps ART (short for artificial or Man-made) is ony the result of the artist's experience and you didn't recognize it because your experience has been different. drk