Emotional Attraction

Since discovering and participating in Pondrin, I have found it to be a valuable medium and continue to enjoy its service with not a little enthusiasm. Nonetheless it has aspects that have puzzled, intrigued and sometimes irritated me. (I confess to having 'a grumpy old git' as at least part of my persona) I observe, in the combination of creativity and responding comments (a most valuable feature - since I consider that creative art has no meaning in isolation, but must in its nature comprise communication) a curious imbalance between what seems to me the value of the piece of art (mostly in the form of poetry) and the number, not to mention the enthusiasm of the responding comments.

 I observe that a poem filled with despair, hopelessness, self pity and apathy, can be guaranteed to produce a flood of praise and positive comments, enough in one case to place it among the most popular of all the submissions. To be fair it may contain some effective use of language, but so have many others of higher emotional content, that have been neglected. On a lighter note, in another poem in the 'most popular' category, the poet states that she has nothing to say, can't think of a poem, and is too tired to try. We've probably all felt that, but probably decided to hold back until we had something to contribute. This one produced a deluge of positive comments and praise that baffled me, and possibly one or two others. I don't so much deride the submitted poem, but why such enthusiastic approval?

[I exclude my own efforts from this discussion - people have been very kind and complimentary about my efforts]

I suggest that a possible explanation of this phenomenon is associated with human emotions, their relevance to how we perceive the communication of others, and how they are contained and expressed in  the poems. I submit the following verses In which I have tried to outline the elements of my reasoning.

Emotional attraction

While in this world it seems that opposites have attraction
Male and female, positive and negative, north and south, captain and crewman
Between these terminals, energy is generated by their interaction
And drives the mechanisms of existence both physical and human

But another vector impels us but not by contrasting causation
It draws together the similar and those of perceived identity
Thus species, races, interests, hobbies, languages and nations
Coalesce, combine, blend, merge with close affinity

In human life, its creations and exchanges, not to mention sin
Our actions and products are coloured by emotion
Thus what attracts us will tend to match what we feel within
This agreement partly explains what brings affection or even devotion

Enough of all these generalities and abstractions
So before your eyes are completely glazed, near closure
An example: one who finds in melancholy poems an attraction
Will have within themselves some sadness they're not yet over

As it's been observed, behind faces of sanguine insulation
There may be hidden emotion well concealed
And many live lives of quiet desperation
That in our responses may be unwittingly revealed

Tags: happy, riddle, hope, wishful,