'Working a Thing Out'

Long ago an editor urged me never to assume I knew what readers were thinking or what they wanted. It’s presumptuous to do so. Mind-reading quickly turns into seeking approval from readers and sucking up to them. Be clear, don’t condescend, respect the reader’s intelligence. That’s one half of my “philosophy of writing” (something I’ve never concocted). The other half is a little more nebulous: write what I would like to read. If readers choose not to read something I’ve written, that’s not a big deal. No one’s obligated to do so. 

The late Australian poet Les Murray was asked by an interviewer: “I get the sense from your work that you have always thought of yourself as defending the honor of working people. Is that the most important aspect of your poetry?” He answers:

 

“No, though there is a sort of ideal audience in my head, and mine is fairly egalitarian, without being suppressive, without being a mob. There are more important things, like getting the poem right and working something out. But I would like to use the poem not to snub people, unless it was to punish some dreadful bugger. But even then, if I snub someone, he might not have a name; he might just be a figure, like the doorman.”

 

I’ve always been skeptical of the “ideal reader” but maybe there’s something to it, and I’ll try to formulate that something negatively. I don’t write for English majors or graduate seminars. Nor do I write for illiterates or alliterates. I want to give readers a chance to enjoy what I enjoy. I don’t write in support of causes. In no sense am I an “activist.” A reader has asked me to define my “ideal reader” and, to be reductive about it, that would be anyone who finds something to like in what I like, all seven of you. For my purposes, that comfortably culls the herd.       

 

The interviewer has a follow-up question for Murray: “Could you elaborate a bit on what you mean by ‘getting it right’ and ‘working something out.’” Murray replies:

 

“What does some phenomenon in the world mean? What does it lead to, what does it point to, what deeper dimension can you find in it? I do a lot of that, and I think of it as contiguous to what science does: working a thing out. Seeing its less obvious connections. Surprising yourself. But I wouldn’t always want to be forensic like that. Sometimes you just want to play around and find musical, surprising stuff to say.”