Poets vs. Critics

When Stephanie asked me to join the conversation on this blog, I was nervous to be writing with two “real writers.” I don’t consider myself a writer, in the creative sense. Through my education, I have focused on analytical writing and criticism. Instead of being a poet, I became a critic.

Let me explain the distinction that I draw between “poets” and “critics,” which I think applies outside of the realm of literature as well. A poet is someone who creates. Writing poetry is an inherently creative process. The poet makes something from nothing. (After all, the words “poet,” “poetry,” and “poem” come from the word for “to make.”)

The critic, on the other hand, describes the work written by the poets. The critic’s job is to categorize: to find similarities between the work of different artists and determine a “school,” or to understand the underlying processes that make the poet’s work “work.” As a critic, I am interested in understanding poetry as a whole, not just the expression of an individual poem. Of course, poetry consists of poems, so in order to generalize about poetry one must carefully study the individual works.

The poet creates; the critic categorizes and explains. I don’t think this distinction is only applicable to the criticism of poetry. Criticism seems like more of a science; poetry, more of an art. Consider the work of mathematicians, however. While the study of math in classes is focused on generalizing, and you understand new mathematical concepts by analogy with concepts you already know (working in a “scientific” manner, like a critic), the practice of research in math is a creative process. The research mathematician chooses a particular area to focus on, and studies that area, trying to understand/invent interesting properties it has. (There is often discussion among mathematicians of whether math research is a process of discovering things that already exist, or of creating them. While I tend to sit on the "discovery" side of the fence, there is no question that the act of discovery can feel a lot like the act of creation, as inspiration often has to strike essentially out of the blue.)

The distinction is not complete: poets benefit from understanding general principles of the form in which they work (by doing critical work), while critics can write poetry (although my poetry, at least, is often more informed by my understanding of poetic form than any essential inspiration). In many studies, however, it seems that the work can be divided up between the creative and the critical. What would it mean to bridge that divide? Is such a synthesis something that would improve our understanding and production of art, or is it better for artists and critics to specialize?