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[Jenifer]

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Recently, I found myself disagreeing with something Father Luke had to say on a thread in poetry. 

This thread to be specific:

http://literarymary.com/forum/index.php?topic=10835.0

I've been experimenting with
an objectivity.

I did this.
They did that.
She, he, him, the postman's dog...

If a pome has something to say,
metaphorically -- and why write posey
without metaphor? -- then write the thing
and leave the ego out of the fucker.

My original response was this:

leaving the ego out, while popular among a certain set and certainly trendy, has always been overrated as far as i'm concerned.

leave the sentimentality out, sure. 

but each poem, being unique, requires it's own unique formula.  poetry is not math.

and it is possible for the poem itself to be the metaphor. 

we're going to have fun here.  i can tell.

Dictionary.com defines 'ego' as this:

e⋅go
  /ˈigoʊ, ˈɛgoʊ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ee-goh, eg-oh] Show IPA
Use ego in a Sentence
–noun, plural e⋅gos.
1.    the “I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.
2.    Psychoanalysis. the part of the psychic apparatus that experiences and reacts to the outside world and thus mediates between the primitive drives of the id and the demands of the social and physical environment.
3.    egotism; conceit; self-importance: Her ego becomes more unbearable each day.
4.    self-esteem or self-image; feelings: Your criticism wounded his ego.
5.    (often initial capital letter) Philosophy.
a.    the enduring and conscious element that knows experience.
b.    Scholasticism. the complete person comprising both body and soul.
6.    Ethnology. a person who serves as the central reference point in the study of organizational and kinship relationships.

If, what Father Luke is referring to is the removal of the 'I' from work to make it better, I must disagree.

I believe that good poetry lets the poem write itself, using whichever devices fit the particular poem at that particular time. 

To consider that a piece will automatically be better if the ego is removed is to reduce poetry to a formula.  Poetry is not math, although some math can be considered poetry.

It should be noticed that I may choose to edit the nature of this debate if I have somehow misunderstood Father Luke's intentions with his statement.

[Tobacco]

crybaby me a>
[blub]blub bla quack of crybaby me s of crybaby me e quack blub, by quack bla bla crybaby me ng crybaby me e blub to bla quack.  blah blub WF.bla. [/blub]

crybaby me uck.bla?

bla, crybaby me nce is, I bla blah blah blub blah quack blah blah quack on. crybaby me t blah to quack, crybaby me , bla crybaby me , bla bla bla quack, quack crybaby me , bla blub crybaby me .

bla, crybaby me  at crybaby me s of bla blub blah's crybaby me ... bla so blah, bla so crybaby me . If blub's a crybaby me , quack it, blah bla it.

[Sana]

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to bring about a change in writing/ writing style, the writer needs to experience a change in his/her perspective as well. it's a complex process. telling them they suck, or they're just riding the same shitty technique won't do. subtlety & pointers might. it is alchemy. 

[Tobacco]

crybaby me a>
[blub]crybaby me  blah blah blah, or blah're blah quack bla blah quack crybaby me ue bla't do. [/blub]

quack bla me, crybaby me e blub.

[Sana]

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telling them they suck, or they're just riding the same shitty technique won't do.

Worked for me, multiple times.

yes, for those who are ready to take the bullets as they come. 

[astronacht]

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I owe my improved skills to a history of verbal abuse as well. Want to be a better writer? Pour your heart into something and give it to someone who shits all over it. It's healthy to watch cold fingers shred those lonely aortae.

I've recently started writing in a different style, and I didn't really make a conscious decision to do it. I used to write these carefully controlled, thesaurus-raping poems that flourished more in their use of language than in communicating with another human being, and lately I've discovered that I don't so much write to create beautiful things anymore. That's certainly a part of it, but the primary thing for me is to reach out and make someone say "omg". Not in the surprised or startled way, but in the "goddamn it my heart got handed back to me" way. I've read a lot of omg work, and if I could give someone that feeling in their heart--the one where it feels like it just got pulled underwater and bobbed back to the surface before drowning--I'd be happy with what I wrote.

I'm not at that point yet. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to do that and in what way I'm going to enjoy it.

[Vulgar]

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Interesting convo, it's good to be back. When I write now I kind of let my mind do the talking. It's a strange thing because I know I have control in steering, but my own inner intentions do the talking. I don't know what this has to do with ego in writing.. I'm still a student here and have a lot to learn.

[skafloc]

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Deep, you guys.

Freud said that the ego - the Self - is essentially created by the tension between the id and the superego, between the basic animal desires and the injunctions of the world in which we find ourselves. 

Metaphorically, this reminds me a little of the more modern theories of cosmology and quantum physics: because of the essential nature of spacetime, particles are constantly appearing and disappearing in the vacuum.  What we call matter is the leftover stuff - the stuff that appears, but hasn't yet disappeared.  The tension caused by the very structure of reality causes everything we've ever known and loved to appear from nowhere.

For Freud, the ego comes from nowhere, an inevitable result of two forces working in opposition.  For physics, everything comes from nowhere, an inevitable result of forces we still don't fully understand working in opposition.  The ego might therefore be seen as a non-thing existing in a non-universe.  Existentialism pushed to the point of insanity?

What use then to try to leave ego out of anything, if we ARE the tension?

[Sana]

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What use then to try to leave ego out of anything, if we ARE the tension?

Beautifully stated.

[Father Luke]

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Don't know what point anyone is trying to make anymore, but it has nothing to do with my point.

 The narrator in Fight Club is unnamed throughout the novel. Some readers call him "Joe" because of
his constant use of the name in statements such as "I am Joe's boiling point". The quotes "I am Joe's
[...]" refer to the narrator's reading old Reader's Digest articles in which human organs write
about themselves in the first person, with titles such as "I Am Joe's Liver". The film adaptation
replaces "Joe" with "Jack", inspiring some fans to call the narrator "Jack". In the novel and film,
he uses fake names in the support groups. In the film, Bob calls him "Cornelius" on the street after
his testicular cancer support group name tag.