What do you think of poems addressed to a "you"?

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Blottingpaper -- my blog | Mimesis -- an international journal of poetry, artwork and opinion

I do enjoy the old nursery rhyme "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep."

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Clearfield Review: Prose, Poetry, Art.

Hmmm...I don't understand the point on the question. It's like asking, "What do you think of poems about ______ ?" I suppose my answer to any question like this would be the same: if it works, it works.

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The sea was angry that day, my friends.

Building off ~slather, while it's great when it works, most of the time it bothers me, especially if the action is vastly different from what I'd do, in which case it provokes the reaction 'I do NOT.'

Same with implicit 'you's (such as imperative forms). They can be fantastically effective, but they can also make me feel like a piece of paper/pixels on a screen/another person is trying to boss me around.

Oddly (?), I never take love poems personally. The 'you' in the love poems always seems to be the poet's loved one (as if their name is 'you', or I'm thinking of my current flame during the reading, as if by reading I'm rewriting the poem for said flame. It's never me.

You're right, the question doesn't make sense. I was trying to avoid an explanation that might bias anyone who cared to respond.

A lot of people find poems that address a "you" pretentious and affected if the you is not a specific person as in a dramatic monologue. Poet Andrew Philip explains his problem with "you" poems further in this blog post: "And here's the problem: This you pretends to generalise a particular experience; it tells the reader "you do/see/think this" when, in fact, they don't and quite possibly wouldn't or couldn't for any number of reasons. It attempts to steer around the ambiguities and problems of the poetic I; it neither steams ahead with the first person nor engages with postmodern games and doubts about the self. It can't decide whether it wants distance or intimacy and, instead, opts for something that purports to provide both." He feels that "you" poems only work when there is a specific addressee.

And it's a pretty popular opinion. I'm working on a set of instructional (obviously "you") poems and I frequently get the comment that it's contrived or "just not working." But there are others who feel that it works, so I don't know.

I suppose my question really is, when do "you" poems work?

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Blottingpaper -- my blog | Mimesis -- an international journal of poetry, artwork and opinion

Oh. There's a tremendous difference between a poem addressed to a specific "you," either singular or plural, and a poem that addresses the reader. Rather than pontificate at length, I'm just going to get to the chase and agree with him up to the point where he says they "only work when there is a specific addressee." Never say never.

Are you posting your instructional poems here? DA "poets" by and large aren't versed enough in the art form to provide much besides gut reactions. But that's no secret.

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The sea was angry that day, my friends.

Gut reactions to what?

I've posted some of my instructional poems here. Most are in draft stage, though.

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Blottingpaper -- my blog | Mimesis -- an international journal of poetry, artwork and opinion

I wrote one addressed to "youse" once. It made me famous in Bensonhurst.

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Breaking entering
The dark and lonely places
Finding a big gun

I'm working on a "y'all" poem. An epic.

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The sea was angry that day, my friends.

I haven't read this book (yet), but it addresses the very question you ask. Not that Helen Vendler is the last word, but she offers thoughtful interesting critique and theory based on close readings of her chosen subjects. You might find it interesting.

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I feel my brains, like a pear, to see if it is ripe; it will be exquisite by September.
-AVS, 1910

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