How ambiguous does a poet have the right to be?

Answer 1

The body of the poem and the lines themselves must be lucid, but the body and the lines themselves may be interpreted differently.

So for example, as a poet, I could write:

Cold water warms quicker inside a hot room

(Not that this is a good line of poetry, but bear with me for this example.) There is no ambiguity to this "line." We know we are talking about cold water, and that the water is warming up because the room is hot; however, maybe the water represents ambition, and the water warming represents that ambition fading, and the hot room symbolizes a life full of despair, etc. The interpretations are endless.

Ambiguous poetry, that is to say bad poetry, would read more like, "Cold is the water, everything is cold." "Everything" could mean anything. In other words, ambiguous. It's an abstraction and obviously is vague, hence it's bad poetry.

So a poet can be ambiguous to its meaning, but the line and poem itself must still make sense at a surface level.

Answer 2

How ambiguous does a poet need to be? The conundrum here is that if the poet is writing for himself, then he can be as ambiguous as he wishes. If, however, he is trying to communicate something to others through his poetry, he owes it to them to be at least unambiguous enough that they will be able to understand what he is saying.
Poetry is, after all, a form of communication. And if one partner in the dyad doesn't understand the other, there isn't much communicating going on.

I think that I shall never see
A poet who can talk to me
About the balmy southern breeze
Whose pollens only make me sneeze....

Answer 3

There seems to be a movement in modern poetry that encourages ambiguity. But there is an equal movement that seems to stress clarity; use of clear imagery and concrete language that, while not inartistic, is still understandable for the reader. The more arcane the poet attempts to be, the less he is understood, and likely he will not have much of an audience. I prefer clarity, but artfully done, in my own poetry and in the poetry I read. There is just too much inside references in poetry today, as if you need a guidebook to fathom it. There, I've had my say.

Answer 4

As ambiguous as he wants to be!

Answer 5

I'm uncertain about that question.