During one workshop in grad school, my professor, the poet Jane Miller, spoke about the difference between ambiguity and ambivalence. She taught me so much more, but this bit has stayed with me. I found the difference between them could be applied to life and literature. Poems, she said, if they’re good—hold ambiguity in their confines. Ideally, there are a few ways a poem might land—or a few lines that could be interpreted differently. Ambiguity, she said, is desirable in literature while ambivalence is not. When I think of feeling ambivalent, it means I don’t feel one way or another; in fact, if a poem tells me how to feel, I may quit reading, feeling meh, feeling bored. Some poems may obscure; they may have nebulous lines, words, or a confusing surface. But if the energy or emotion of the poem is clear to me—I’m riding on that energy. I’m not ambivalent—I want to keep reading.
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