What is the difference between a poem that is difficult because it is deep and one that is difficult because it is bad - asking for a friend

[Coder65]

I read a lot of contemporary poetry and I genuinely cannot always tell whether something is challenging in a productive way or just obscure for its own sake. Is there a way to think about this distinction or is it always subjective?

Looking for a critical framework not a verdict on specific poets

[Arty Leah]

The intentionality question is worth asking. Does the difficulty serve an effect or is it difficulty for its own sake. Celan is difficult because the experience he is writing from cannot be expressed directly. Some contemporary poetry is difficult because clarity would reveal how little is there

[Jackson77]

The test I use: does re-reading the difficult poem produce new understanding or just continued confusion. Productive difficulty opens up with attention. Obscurity does not unlock regardless of how carefully you read

[Gaz90]

Genuine difficulty usually rewards you somewhere. A line, an image, a moment where something becomes clear. Pure obscurity gives you nothing to hold onto anywhere in the poem

[NicholasCleverley]

I ask whether the poem is withholding or whether it is empty. A poem that withholds has something it is not quite saying. An empty poem is performing depth rather than having it

[ReacherBadger]

The peer pressure problem is real. If everyone around you says a poem is important you feel the difficulty must be your failure. Sometimes it is. Sometimes the emperor has no clothes. A healthy critical community requires the latter possibility to exist

[SpinState22]

Context helps with the withholding versus empty distinction. Understanding what a poet was doing, what tradition they were working in, what they were responding to, often makes difficulty unlock. If context helps it is usually genuine difficulty. If context does not help it is usually obscurity

[Mason0]

The honest answer: some of it is always subjective. The same poem is difficult-and-rewarding to one reader and obscure-and-empty to another. The framework helps but does not resolve all cases