the abstract vs. literal

Going back to when Nathaniel Mackey visited our class, I really wanted to ask him how he balanced abstractness with literal material, however I decided not to when I realized that I found his poetry to be a bit too abstract. I really feel, that when writing poetry, there really needs to be a balance between those two. In fact, poetry itself seems to be a struggle between the two. When I write I want to make sure that what I write can be followed along with and understood, but also not too literal so it’s interesting and intriguing. Not being literal is basically not being cliché and therefore overlooked. I found that Mackey’s poems were a bit too abstract, I found that I couldn’t follow along or get a hint at what he was trying to explore, but that may just be his personal style. The poem of his that is dedicated/about Jimmy Hendrix has a mix of abstractness with literal description, but still a little too abstract. I really thought it was insightful though, when asking him about using poetry vs. prose poetry. It really makes sense that one would use prose when wanting to examine something with more specificity, whereas a poem with line breaks is less specific.