TSM Poetry Corner

[Firestarter 0]

Kibagami and I are having a PM conversation about poetry, how it should be written, and how to learn to write it. I thought I'd post my remarks here so godthedog can feel all mushy and good about my fucking constructive contributions. As a courtesy, I'm leaving out Kibagami's words, but I'll give you the gist of his question.

 

Y'all are welcome. Now read on; then go, and be better writers.

 

What makes a poem good?

If I had to choose one word, it'd be "tightness." Whatever the purpose of the poem and the manner of its execution, you have to adopt Edgar Allan Poe's first principle and make it your own: you have to make every element count. Nothing extraneous. Nothing irrelevant. Every single aspect of the poem must be deliberate; every last facet must be cut and ground and polished until it reflects what you want (and of course that might be a problem in itself). Waste or misuse even one resource available to you, and the final product is flawed at best, garbage at worst. Using language that jars with tone doesn't mean the poem is fine, or merely lessened, even if sense, rhyme, and meter are all perfect. It means your work is crap.

 

You can't have a single discordant note in a symphony. You can't have a single discordant element in a poem. It must be perfect, and when you strike it with a hammer, it must ring true and clear.

 

Even if you're as freewheeling as an ee cummings, you don't quite have the freedom of prose. If you choose a rhyme scheme and an iambic meter, as all beginning poets absolutely must, you have to move through three separate stages - all of them awful and inexcusable. There is no shortcut. The fact that I'm telling you about them before some of you have reached even the first changes nothing. You will move through each one in turn. Accept it.

 

1) Letting the form dictate your words

- this leads to sing-songy crap and it will not be tolerated. The underrated Robert Service accused himself of this fault, saying "Rhyming has my ruin been." He was overcritical of his work, but stuff of this sort is commonly called "verse" rather than "poetry," and you should be prepared for derision if you willingly indulge in it. It requires little talent and less effort, and everyone knows it.

 

2) Working around the form

- this is what happens when you start to acquire a basic understanding of the form, but still know too little to be comfortable with it. You fill up lines with the correct rhymes and the correct syllables, but without substance. The greater part of your poem may be good, but if you're impatient and sloppy, it will show through in the lines that demand hard work.

 

3) Brutalising the form

- this is almost, but not quite, a regression. It happens to everyone. Like a sweet girl who kissed you on the first date, the form has started to give you some of her secrets. Your lack of knowledge, your impatience, and your fear of rejection make you uncomfortable. You transfer those insecurities to the girl or the poem and make yourself feel an artificial contempt for her. Don't fall into this trap. You are the problem, not the poem. Work with the form. You're not better than it is. All those straining things within your heart, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, are unformed, unready, and probably quite cheap. You're not losing anything of genuine value by working with the form. Be patient. Woo her, tease her, see how far you can push her with her consent, adore her honestly for her beauty, and above all, if you want to having a lasting relationship, respect her.

 

Finally, if you have talent, and if you're willing to spend a great deal of time on this sort of thing, you should move on to the fourth and final stage. It's sort of like being "in the zone." Things just make sense; you've acquired an ear for the form, you don't have to count syllables and you know how to play with stresses. You learn to say the things you have to say in something that's almost a different language, but not quite. Its vocabulary is the same but the meanings of words change; the values of articles and prepositions change; the colour and scent of nouns and adjectives change. Imperceptibly, a bit at a time, everything changes. It's like that song from Aspects of Love:

 

"Love can make the summer fly,

Or a night seem like a lifetime;

Yes love, love changes everything,

Now I tremble at your name

Nothing in the world will ever be the same.

Love, love changes everything,

Days are longer, words mean more;

Love, love changes everything,

Pain is deeper than before...

Love makes fools of everyone,

All the rules we make are broken

Yes love, love changes everything;

Live or perish in its flame..."

 

You literally have to be in love with the English language in all its forms to ever reach this point. You have to drink it, breathe it, touch it and know it. Writing poetry is itself a way to make love. You can't just read poetry, or prose, or pieces from a particular era; you must understand instinctively how to create mood, the different connotations of different words for the same thing, the way Latin, Greek, and Saxon roots glow through your letters. You must read to yourself, to others, with others, both aloud and silently; you have to be able to taste words. You have to acquire a sense of history, a sense of depth, and you have to acquire an ear for the music of language, a feel for the conductor's baton of punctuation. It takes a very long time.

 

But the work is its own reward. You will learn, someday, that poetry is not "whut Ah'm feelin'." Poetry is fucking sweat and blood and callouses; it's drunken nights and morning hangovers and cold grey rainy Sunday afternoons; it's tears and fights and make-up sex; it's devotion and betrayal, climax and redemption, and everything in between. It's incredibly difficult. You can't let yourself become cynical and manipulative either; despite the callouses, you have to take joy in the mental exertion, in maintaining the relationship. You have to retain the ability to feel pleasure in writing. It's work, but it isn't a chore. If it ever becomes a chore, stop. If you hate what you're writing, no one will find joy in reading it.

 

Lazy, wannabe amateur hacks like the people in this "poetry" thread have nothing to say, and they spend a lot of time saying it. They just want to bask in approbation; they're not willing to put in the effort it takes to earn it. That's why you get dull, insipid lines like "I will never forget their wonderful sight, my trees" - it's the sentiment itself that's stupid and wasteful; the words just fluff it up and make it worse. It lacks tightness; it's slack and sloppy - the writer just wanted a line, any line, to end the poem, and the reader can see that because it shows through abominably clearly in carelessness and irrelevance. It's disrespectful of your readers, of the language, and your own work. If you don't give a shit about your own goddamn poem, why the hell should your readers?

 

Same applies to the so-called "monologue," that rambling, incoherent, clumsy text cover of Lovefool. That particular "work" could be used as a case study in the dangers of allowing incompetent beginners to work without form. It isn't really prose. It certainly isn't poetry. It's just garbage. Contrary to popular belief, writing a perfect sonnet is the easiest thing in the world. Perfect in every way, too - not just technically perfect, according to rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter, but perfect in sense, perfect in expression, perfect in substance, perfect in tone. Blank verse, such as Milton's Paradise Lost, is a thousand times harder to write. Free verse is a thousand times more difficult still. And that ambiguous expanse between poetry and prose, which Auden reached most brilliantly in The Sea and the Mirror, is a million miles beyond both. In essence, the writer of the "monologue" attempted to build a nuclear reactor before he learned that he shouldn't piss in his shorts. Unsurprisingly, the results were disastrous.

 

You have to learn discipline before you can be trusted with freedom.

[Nighthawk 0]

But remember, you can go through all that effort and still suck. There is a learnable skill involved, but there's a natural talent you either have or you don't. There's no shame in just giving up, or sucking forever. Try writing something else, or paint a picture. That'll probably suck too, but trying builds character.

[Firestarter 0]

Much agreed. I should have given greater emphasis to the words in boldface below:

 

Finally, if you have talent, and if you're willing to spend a great deal of time on this sort of thing, you should move on to the fourth and final stage.

The talent must be cultivated in turn, of course, just like the skill. Experience is also a huge factor. Get out of the house, do something, feel something, accomplish something; live. You can have all the talent and technical proficiency in the world, but if you haven't done or seen anything worth writing about, your work will still be garbage.

 

Like IDRM said, though, there's no shame in writing garbage, if you admit it. The shame is in writing garbage and pretending, to yourself, others, or both, that it's good. In spouting pompous bullshit like "Your lack of appreciation for my poetry is your own loss!" or "I kick all kinds of ass!"

 

Mmhmm. Sure. However old you are, when you say such things, anyone with an education hears only a snotty little brat bragging about the time machine he built with his Tinkertoys and a rubber band, insisting to Mommy that he really did see dragons flying around where the house is now and if she doesn't believe him it's just too bad! The more you insist that dross is gold, the angrier you get, the more furiously indignant you become, the less I listen.

[Hoff 0]

Double post? No way. GET OUT.

[Hoff 0]

*flips through old notebooks*

 

This is something I wrote that got a good reaction, so we'll see what the TSM Book & Cigar Club thinks. I'm very aware that it's too sing songy, and that A A A A B B C C is not a great rhyme scheme. Still, I stand by the work.

 

"The Sinful Saint"

 

I am the sinful saint, believer lost his way

Forgotten all the lessons which shaped my life today

Abstinence a gesture, a token which I pay

Despite the lustful images which on my eyelids play

My tongue would fare no better, were it subject to a test

In vain, my Lord, I take thee more often than the rest

Yet while my body fails me, my soul is holding out

So I remain the sinful saint, immoral yet devout.

 

Judge away.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I hate that olde flowery english bullshit. You're telling me "Tyger, Tyger burning bright." is something just PROFOUND? Yeesh.

 

I'm more into freely rambling things I think of, and using elements like disgust, boredom, humor, and all other hallmarks of "bad" poetry.

 

You just happen to like verse swung by seraph on links of golden cheese.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I hate that olde flowery english bullshit. You're telling me "Tyger, Tyger burning bright." is something just PROFOUND? Yeesh.

 

I'm more into freely rambling things I think of, and using elements like disgust, boredom, humor, and all other hallmarks of "bad" poetry.

 

You just happen to like verse swung by seraph on links of golden cheese.

[Firestarter 0]

I hate that olde flowery english bullshit. You're telling me "Tyger, Tyger burning bright." is something just PROFOUND?

Nope. You're just betraying your ignorance by implying that that's Blake's greatest poem, and seemingly judging him on its merits alone, and confusing affectation with reality. In Blake's time, "that olde flowery english bullshit" was the language. There was no other. It usually looks silly when a modern writer uses it, but throwing every 18th century poet in the trashcan because their idiom is strange to you is the mark of a foolish and uneducated mind.

 

I'm more into freely rambling things I think of, and using elements like disgust, boredom, humor, and all other hallmarks of "bad" poetry

Emotion isn't a hallmark of bad poetry. Your lack of discipline is.

 

You just happen to like verse swung by seraph on links of golden cheese.

Find one such line in anything Housman ever wrote. Then come back.

[Hoff 0]

I hate that olde flowery english bullshit. You're telling me "Tyger, Tyger burning bright." is something just PROFOUND? Yeesh.

This brings up an interesting question for the group. How seriously do you take your writing? Obviously, there's varying degrees, but even two verses on the same subject can have very different tones. At the same time, something with a serious "feel" can be intended as totally lighthearted.

 

I'd place myself somewhere in the middle: serious, but not trying to come off as the next great philosopher of our times.

 

What about YOU~?

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Nope. You're just betraying your ignorance by implying that that's Blake's greatest poem, and seemingly judging him on its merits alone, and confusing affectation with reality. In Blake's time, "that olde flowery english bullshit" was the language. There was no other. It usually looks silly when a modern writer uses it, but throwing every 18th century poet in the trashcan because their idiom is strange to you is the mark of a foolish and uneducated mind.

 

I didn't imply that it was his best poem whatsover, just one that annoys me that a lot of people like. I am also quite aware that the vernacular has changed quite a bit through the years, and while the older stuff is certainly still "good" to whatever definition you want to draw there, but it's also without a doubt outdated and nigh-impossible to relate to on any sensible level.

 

As far as lack of discipline goes, you're absolutely right when it comes to me being a poet, because I fall into that "This is what I've written, and I don't especially care what you think about it, since it's not like I give a shit about yours," file. Any music, poetry, prose, etc that I write is for my own amusement and no other, although should someone else happen to find it entertaining, bully.

 

I admittedly can't quote any Housman off hand, although I suspect that's more of a case of our tastes being absolutely different moreso than my lack of education.

[Jingus 0]

I am also quite aware that the vernacular has changed quite a bit through the years, and while the older stuff is certainly still "good" to whatever definition you want to draw there, but it's also without a doubt outdated and nigh-impossible to relate to on any sensible level.

Outdated, sure. Anything a couple hundred years old can said to be "outdated", whether it's a poem, a building, or a saran-wrapped mystery meat left in the fridge. But how is it impossible to relate to? Blake wrote in English. I can read the words, and understand what he's saying. Just because he wrote the words with a feather quill pen instead of with Microsoft Word doesn't invalidate their meaning. By the standard you're claiming, everything Shakespeare ever wrote is old and worthless too.

 

As to the "talent vs. discipline" argument: in my experience, there are simply some people who are born with the ability to be good writers, and others are not. Oh sure, with practice you can improve anything. If I practiced a lot at basketball, I'm sure I could be a much better basketball player than I am right now. It still doesn't mean that I could play for the NBA, or even for a high school team. I was born with clumsy coordination and middling height. A crappy writer can practice their craft and improve, but some people just don't have (and never will have) the skills to be any good at all.

 

And about Ulysses: I can't really say much about the book, as I gave up on reading it on about the third page. Was Joyce trying to invent his own new rules for grammar in this? I've read passages written in foreign languages that were more comprehensible, and I can't read any other languages.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I never said everything old was worthless. I just used the phrase "Flowery old bullshit" which is how I talk. Convoluted, maybe. Perhaps I should study and hone my craft like a fine gemstone, this preventing yet another eyesore to be misinterpreted.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

By relating to something, I meant drawing a similar personal conclusion through another artist's expression. I don't do that with any of the Blake I've read.

[Spicy McHaggis 0]

Again, Marney, post just one of your superbly crafted poems and there will be no problem.

 

 

Speaking of superbly crafted poetry...

 

(Also, if you can't see the lightheartedness in comments like the above and "my kick-ass poetry", that's your own problem.)

 

 

The Darkness of Disappointment

 

The darkness of disappointment descending around me,

My head is down, my eyes are low, how could this ever be?

Falling through the depths of grief, I feel unable to cope

As I can see only the flaws in personality.

With difficulty, I sense the light, the glimmer of hope.

 

I push the pain down too deep, hoping to smother the wound,

My flaw is in attempting to find the closure too soon.

The right words will be said, causing emotion to burst out,

Though feeling despair, the tears will be an ultimate boon.

Certain to bring recovery, they wash away self-doubt.

 

My therapy is the cleansing tear, the water of life,

It greets me at the events of love, happiness, and strife.

My action is in giving to others that which I love,

The sadness can still hit home, like the biting of a knife,

But I will show a spirit of strength, I will rise above.

 

 

The Sun

 

Break of dawn,

The sun rises as a golden opportunity.

A sweet song,

Unwritten melodies, all the possibilities

I know I can achieve.

 

At high noon

The sun beats down on me; I feel the world's weight.

I hope soon,

With adversity staring me in the face,

I'll know I can believe.

 

The sun sets

As its light turns dark clouds into beauty.

I will let

Its serenity truly envelop me

I know I still believe.

[Firestarter 0]

Marney, post just one of your superbly crafted poems and there will be no problem

Nope. I won't do anything of the sort, and there's no "problem" even now, at least not on my side. If there's one on yours, that's your problem and not mine.

 

I've considered sharing my work privately on occasion, as I probably shall, eventually, with Kibagami, but I'm simply not going to post them on a public message board. And you're going to have to live with that. First of all, I'm not that good; at the moment, my range is limited, and I know it. Second, my work tends to be more honest, more intimate, and more personal than anything any of you have posted. I could possibly show it to one person. Not to several dozen.

[Guest Fire and Knives]

"How seriously do you take your writing?"

 

I write every day. I write to the exclusion of work and school. I stay up until four or five in the morning on a regular basis so I can finish writing something down. I write about anything and everything; an entire subsection of my work is devoted to converting everyday occurances and common experiences into poetic form. I write for friends, for family, for total strangers, for people at work, I write different styles for different readings to different groups of people. I am the stereotypical shabbily-dressed writer that always has a pen and paper handy.

 

The criticism I hear most often from people that are indifferent to poetry or actively dislike it is that it's an art that is either unwilling or unable to be understood by the masses. This is something I've never been able to quite wrap my head around. I understand it on an intellectual level, of course, but I simply can't grasp what it feels like to not understand poetry. Marney's approach is of enormous interest to me because it's completely opposite my own; where Marney has emphasized discipline, I've relied on intuition.

 

The things I do in my work may very well fit her idea of discipline as it relates to form, but I don't do any of it consciously. I can identify what I've done after I've done it, and given enough time, I can even articulate it properly, but I don't know what the hell I'm doing as I'm doing it. I'm using basics I never learned. I'm employing techniques I can't name.

 

I have a number of friends that are almost as passionate about poetry as I am, but I'm doing things with the medium they simply aren't capable of doing. I'm making leaps of some kind every time I read another poet, every time I try a new angle of approach to an idea I've used before. I'm starting to garter some local acclaim for this, and my first real acid test is coming up in about ten days: I've set up a local reading that will be moderated by the chairman of the English department at St. Mary's College. I asked for him by name, and he's familiar enough with my work that he's agreed to participate. I'm doing something right and I'm desperate to understand what it is I'm doing. Poetry is looking more and more like my career path, and it doesn't really matter if I'm comfortable with the lack of benefits or not.

 

So yeah. I take everything I write pretty fucking seriously.

 

 

"I am also quite aware that the vernacular has changed quite a bit through the years, and while the older stuff is certainly still "good" to whatever definition you want to draw there, but it's also without a doubt outdated and nigh-impossible to relate to on any sensible level."

 

This is like arguing that classical music is outdated and irrelevant because you don't like to listen to it. I don't listen to Bach or Mozart recreationally, but I have an appreciation for how music has evolved and been influenced by what they did. I don't have a subwoofer so I can bump Miles Davis, but if I went into the Music folder and said that Kind of Blue was nigh-impossible to relate to on any sensible level because I wasn't familiar with jazz in general, I'd hope you would have the common courtesy to slap me in the back of the head.

 

 

As to the "talent vs. discipline" argument: in my experience, there are simply some people who are born with the ability to be good writers, and others are not.

 

I couldn't agree more; I'm living proof of this. What bothers me about natural talent is that I don't know what to practice. Conversing with Marney has left me feeling that I owe it to myself and my work to go back and ground myself in the basics - but doing this would take a tremendous amount of time away from the rest of my work. I don't exagerate when I say I make leaps based on one new poet or one new experience. I wrote my first epic in about an hour and a half a few days ago, and I have two more in the works. All three deal with totally different subjects, all three have totally different tones. One of them incorporates three different methods of writing and six different sections to produce what reads as a seamless account of one particular experience. All of this was drawn from reading d.a. levy's "SUBURBAN MONESTARY DEATH POEM" and an essay on his Tibetan Stroboscope work with D.R. Wagner. I'm reluctant to put this sort of thing on the back burner to go back and work in the confines of iambic pentameter after three straight years of free verse.

 

 

"By relating to something, I meant drawing a similar personal conclusion through another artist's expression. I don't do that with any of the Blake I've read."

 

Fair enough. By this definition, I don't relate to Slayer - but that doesn't invalidate their music, and I recognize that at the same time I express my personal distaste for it. I'm not implying that you're characterizing all of Blake's work based on your opinion, I'm simply trying to illustrate how subjective even the best poetry can be.

 

 

"Again, Marney, post just one of your superbly crafted poems and there will be no problem."

 

Yes, there will. Your poetry will still be atrocious. You've yet to respond to criticism with anything other than, "Oh, yeah? Well, let's see what you did!" I have been forced to spend a great deal of time and energy dealing with smug, self-satisfied hacks like yourself in the past and I'm beginning to tire of your insinuation that criticism that comes from a less-than-perfect source isn't valid. Marney could post the following "poem" if she wanted to:

 

Life is bad

It makes me sad

I hate my dad

I am so mad

 

It wouldn't make any difference at all, because it would not affect the validity of her criticisms in the slightest - not that you're interested in criticism. You don't want help. You want to be patted on the head and told that you're wonderful, or you want to cry foul and tell us that poetry can't be bad. Well, it can, and as long as I'm shattering your touchy-feely illusions, opinions can be wrong, feelings aren't sacred, and there's no fucking Easter Bunny. Either suck it up and try to contribute something other than all the crap I wrote during my first year of middle school or keep your goddamned mouth shut while the grown-ups are talking.

 

K.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

I guess I could be glad/disqualified from this thread since I don't set out to write poetry. Nor, to my recollection, have I ever.

 

Either suck it up and try to contribute something other than all the crap I wrote during my first year of middle school or keep your goddamned mouth shut while the grown-ups are talking.

 

Nowhere in this thread have I seen a required skill/experience level post. Noone here is under any obligation to post work that conforms to someone elses classification of quality or usefullness.

 

As far as saying "well why don't you just prove me wrong with your own work" goes, that's a fairly juvenile response. Especially since I don't foresee anyone posting any work and having 15 posters immediately follow up saying "OMG thanks 4 sharing".

 

...poetry can't be bad. Well, it can,...

 

In the sense of proper techniques, yes it can. As a means of expression, no it can't. But I fear this could simply end up as a matter of opinions on what is and isn't poetry. Then again, I could be off base on that since I know very little about it to be honest. Just one humble lyricist's opinion I suppose.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I'm simply trying to illustrate how subjective even the best poetry can be.

 

That's exactly the point I was making, and now everyone thinks I hate Shakespeare and Beethoven.

[Ripper 0]

"Same applies to the so-called "monologue," that rambling, incoherent, clumsy text cover of Lovefool. That particular "work" could be used as a case study in the dangers of allowing incompetent beginners to work without form. It isn't really prose. It certainly isn't poetry. It's just garbage."

 

It is suppose to be natural speech. It is suppose to ramble...its not suppose to have form. Who the fuck speaks in form. Who follows the "rules" of poetry when they speak? Who makes structurely correct thoughts when expressing feelings?

 

The thing is written in the perspective of a selfish, whiney, love-lorn guy, not in the words of a English scholar. He doesn't speak as if he is in LOVE with the english launguage because *gasp* most people are not. If I write something in the perspective of a HUMAN BEING, it most likely isn't going to be perfectly balanced speech. It's going to have stumbles, studders...hell when I first wrote it, I had him use words incorrectly while trying to sound intelligent.

 

Proper form and love for the language have their place, but not in writing the dialouge or thoughts of a normal human being. It wasn't meant to be beautiful and make you appreciate the English language. Natural speech is the hardest thing to acheive and while I am not saying I did a good job there, it would probably require more stammering and such to really illustrate the feelings of someone in that situation. That would go even more against form.

 

 

I can say this. As a artist, nothing is worse than those people that say anything creative sucks if it doesn't follow certain Rules. Its called art. If you like it, fine. If not, fine. But to call anything crap that doesn't fall into the area of "right" art and "wrong" art is true ignorance. Not saying that anyone here is like that, but there are some tip-toeing the line.

[Nighthawk 0]

It seems to me poetry is one art form that really should be subject to a more rigid set of rules, because if you take them away, what are you left with? Indeed, natural speech.

You're walking a fine line with the definition of art. A white coat of paint on a white canvas, is that art? Yes, but what will anyone get out of it? Pretty much the same thing they would if you explained the idea to them without actually doing it. So it's art in theory which doesn't benefit from the execution. Take away all the form of poetry, and you're just left with the concepts, with whatever merit they had on their own. Might as well not call it poetry at all.

[Ripper 0]

It seems to me poetry is one art form that really should be subject to a more rigid set of rules, because if you take them away, what are you left with? Indeed, natural speech.

You're walking a fine line with the definition of art. A white coat of paint on a white canvas, is that art? Yes, but what will anyone get out of it? Pretty much the same thing they would if you explained the idea to them without actually doing it. So it's art in theory which doesn't benefit from the execution. Take away all the form of poetry, and you're just left with the concepts, with whatever merit they had on their own. Might as well not call it poetry at all.

Are you really prepared to say that the way we speak natrually isn't something to be appreciated?

 

Don't get me wrong, a writer that is clearly in touch with the English language is something to appreciate and admire. But I also think, and I might be alone in this, that the ability to capture nature, capture how we actually express our feelings is a extremely difficult, and when done correctly, beautiful thing. So few people can actually do it(and once again, I'm not saying I did) because nature is the hardest thing to capture in any form of art.

 

Limitations on what is art and what is poetry just really annoy me.

[Nighthawk 0]

Nah, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying it's not exactly poetry. And this is a poetry thread after all. What's left then, any string of words is poetry?

 

Limitation on what is art is difficult. Art is an abstract concept. Limitation on what is poetry is somewhat easier, depending on what kind of definition you want to use. I'm not one to say something isn't art, I'll just say I don't like it. I'm all about personal growth and fulfullment through art. It's great. I'd just rather not have someone get all philosophical when we're trying to do something as a group. Everyone is painting landscapes, but one kid wrote a song about cheese and says "It's the same thing, you can't restrict art." Not saying you're doing that, but hopefully you know what I mean.

[Ripper 0]

Nah, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying it's not exactly poetry. And this is a poetry thread after all. What's left then, any string of words is poetry?

 

Limitation on what is art is difficult. Art is an abstract concept. Limitation on what is poetry is somewhat easier, depending on what kind of definition you want to use. I'm not one to say something isn't art, I'll just say I don't like it. I'm all about personal growth and fulfullment through art. It's great. I'd just rather not have someone get all philosophical when we're trying to do something as a group. Everyone is painting landscapes, but one kid wrote a song about cheese and says "It's the same thing, you can't restrict art." Not saying you're doing that, but hopefully you know what I mean.

Oh okay..I see what you mean.

 

I guess what I put would be considered creative writing, but why start another thread? I think it all belongs here.

[Spicy McHaggis 0]

Kibagami and Marney represent exactly the type of arrogance that keeps me far away from any english department ("good they don't want you"). The whole point of this thread is for people who write to post their work and possibly get feedback. "You suck, I'm so much better but I'm not going to prove it" is not constructive, K. I'm still going continue posting my poetry here. If anyone offers constructive criticism after reading my entire poem, I'll gladly consider it. I hope others will do the same.

[Ripper 0]

Oh dude, don't get all pissy about it. Just hit the scroll button a little longer when you see one of their post if you dislike what they are saying so much. Post your shit dude.

 

I personally enjoy all kinds of critisizm(venom spewing and constructive) but I can see how it might get to others...just ignore it.

[godthedog 0]

looks like i missed a lot.

 

I thought I'd post my remarks here so godthedog can feel all mushy and good about my fucking constructive contributions.

and i'm masturbating to that post as we speak.

 

talent vs. discipline

talent is part of the equation, but i believe it tends to get overrated. i don't believe anybody starts from scratch as a good writer. it's a craft, with tools, and most people can learn it. some people will naturally have the capacity to get better than others, but even those people have to work at it to get better. to take an example similar to (but outside) poetry: i write a lot of drama, and my dialogue tends to be at least interesting. i may have a talent for writing dialogue, i may not; but when i started out, my dialogue was horrifically bad on all sorts of levels. i had to pound away for a good five years before i was able to hone anything remotely readable or speakable, and it's only in the last year or so that i've gotten "good."

How seriously do you take your writing?

it's probably very clear how seriously writing is taken by each respective person in this thread. it's not a matter of how seriously someone says they take their writing, it comes out in what they write and the ways they talk about writing.

Marney's approach is of enormous interest to me because it's completely opposite my own; where Marney has emphasized discipline, I've relied on intuition.

they're two sides of the same coin, essentially. even if you do it intuitively, you're clearly practicing a lot and getting a better feel of how you can make things work. even if you can't neatly fit it into a set of propositional statements (as marney has), the discipline is there. think john coltrane: he stated over and over again how much he works just by feeling, but he was supremely disciplined in using his instrument for expression and knew what he was doing.

 

I wrote my first epic in about an hour and a half a few days ago, and I have two more in the works. All three deal with totally different subjects, all three have totally different tones. One of them incorporates three different methods of writing and six different sections to produce what reads as a seamless account of one particular experience. All of this was drawn from reading d.a. levy's "SUBURBAN MONESTARY DEATH POEM" and an essay on his Tibetan Stroboscope work with D.R. Wagner. I'm reluctant to put this sort of thing on the back burner to go back and work in the confines of iambic pentameter after three straight years of free verse.

i'd tell you to keep going on that. jumping in way over your head and trying by trial, error & sheer force of willpower to make it work when you don't know exactly how or why it might work is how i've learned most of what i know now. again, it wasn't poetry, but i've applied it to drama, prose & movies, so i don't see why it shouldn't work for you. by trying your hardest just to make that thing work, you'll learn a lot. and you'll learn it the hard way, which makes it that much better for you.

 

And about Ulysses: I can't really say much about the book, as I gave up on reading it on about the third page. Was Joyce trying to invent his own new rules for grammar in this? I've read passages written in foreign languages that were more comprehensible, and I can't read any other languages.

i guess i've already become the official carrier of joyce's jock here, so i'll have a crack...

 

it's clearly written in english, with sprinkles of latin, french, etc., and its sentence structure is based very firmly in english, but it could easily be approached as another language. a better analogy might be to say it's like suddenly being dropped in a foreign land where you don't speak the language; you're immersed in it, you have to accept the fact that you won't get it right away & have to learn your way around it as you go. if you come across something you don't understand, you can't just stop and go "well shit, i don't get it" and close the book. if you come across MANY things in succession you don't understand, you just keep pressing on. the first time i read it, i didn't really get a handle on things until around page 250. but once i started being able to feel my way through it and noticed what was going on, i couldn't put it down. i've since gone back to it 3 times in the last 4 years, i get something new out of it every time, and it never fails to amaze me. it took me a year to convince a friend to read it because it's so daunting, & she went into it kicking and screaming, but once she finished it the first thing she told me was, "i want to go back and read it again."

[Guest Fire and Knives]

Kibagami and Marney represent exactly the type of arrogance that keeps me far away from any english department ("good they don't want you").

Fantastic. All the more so because I have absolutely no connection to the nebulous 'English department' of which you speak until next Friday. As you would've noticed had you focused on other parts of my post besides the ones that made you sniffle, you'd remember that I don't have any formal training. Almost everything I've ever written is free verse, and the only poets I have an appreciation for are the ones I've stumbled upon by chance in bookstores. This doesn't mean I'm avoiding the academics I rail against in much of my poetry; I'm having a rather productive discussion with Marney despite the fact that her views are entirely contrary to my style and approach. I'm seeking out exposure to your arrogant English department because it's something I don't currently understand about poetry and it might broaden said understanding. This does not make me part of said establishment, and I know at least a few people that would have a fit if you tried to lump me in with them in the future. To condense, if Marney is your idea of what the English department is like, then I should be your idea of what the streetcorners and used bookstores are like, and make no mistake - people on both ends of the spectrum think you suck at this.

 

"But Kibagami, that's not constructive! It hurts my widdle feelings!"

 

Yes, it does, and yes, it is constructive. It's attempting to save you the embarassment of trying to be taken seriously like you're doing right now. I'd encourage you to write better poetry the same day I'd suggest that Linkin Park should write deeper, more meaningful song lyrics. They wouldn't want to do it even if they had the capability. I'm doing you a favor whether you want to see it that way or not: since you write for yourself, keep that writing to yourself.

 

K.

[Nighthawk 0]

Seriously man, I'm talking to Spicy here, I know you don't like the way they've been talking, so me, a nice guy, I'll tell you. Your stuff, it's not very good. Ask anybody besides your mother, they'll tell you the same. It is apparently working for you, so don't quit doing it. I'm not even going to say quit sharing it, but quit being so defensive.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

And about Ulysses: I can't really say much about the book, as I gave up on reading it on about the third page. Was Joyce trying to invent his own new rules for grammar in this? I've read passages written in foreign languages that were more comprehensible, and I can't read any other languages.

i guess i've already become the official carrier of joyce's jock here, so i'll have a crack...

::adds suitable jock support::

 

I'm just finishing up my first reading of it, and as godthedog knows I really sorta love it a lot too.

 

The giving up on the third page thing is odd to me. The book is divided into 17 episodes, and the first two ('Telemachus' and 'Nestor') are two of the most standard. The prose is a bit embryonic, but the technique is mostly straight narrative. The real killers are 'Proteus' and 'Oxen of the Sun.' The book is always a challenge in the best ways, and I like it for that.

 

Fun Ulysses revelation of the day for nerds: the opening page of Eumeus echoes the first page of Telemachus perfectly. On the second page of the book, Joyce refers to a character shaving. In Eumeus, 600 pages later, in a narrative form designed to echo Telemachus, Stephen Dedalus is covered with wood shavings. Joyce even uses the verb "bucking" in the Eumeus opening to give us the glib reference back to Buck Mulligan. And a million other subtle things that pretty perfectly exemplify the evolution of hero Bloom throughout the day and his developing relationship with Stephen. Clever, very.

 

It's the most playful book of language I've ever read. I loves it.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

If anyone offers constructive criticism after reading my entire poem, I'll gladly consider it. I hope others will do the same.

Shit, I'll have a go at it.

 

The Darkness of Disappointment

 

The darkness of disappointment descending around me,

My head is down, my eyes are low, how could this ever be?

Falling through the depths of grief, I feel unable to cope

As I can see only the flaws in personality.

With difficulty, I sense the light, the glimmer of hope.

 

Okay, so you've got a weird meter here. Uh...I guess I'd call it septameter, since you've got 14 beats in every line but the last, ending in 13. So, good on that, I'll say, even though it's a weird-ass form. The most characteristic formal problem of the whole piece comes in the first two lines. You have a string of alliteration and lots of long, languid assonance and consonance (you probably know those, but that's 'like internal vowel sounds' and 'like internal consonant sounds,' respectively). So the rhythm is really aborted. I'm flowing through the first line, and then I get into a weird, rapid-fire string of almost exclusively monosyllabic words in the second line. There's no consistent mood.

 

The mood you do get is one of deep cliche. Something you may want to read (NO ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AHHH) is Philip Sydney's Astrophil and Stella cycle. The self-reflection and self-doubt is something he basically owned, even if it did get tired as shit after 144 sonnets. You might get some ideas about how to better preserve a mood or lyric flow within stanzas. And you know, I'd actually suggest you try the sonnet form, or some typical poetic form. It's easier to get better in one of those templates than in the somewhat odd 5-line stanza system you've devised.

 

I push the pain down too deep, hoping to smother the wound,

My flaw is in attempting to find the closure too soon.

The right words will be said, causing emotion to burst out,

Though feeling despair, the tears will be an ultimate boon.

Certain to bring recovery, they wash away self-doubt.

 

I dunno. It feels soulless. It's wrapped in a very odd idiom, as if you're attempting a cursory play on a Victorian or early Augustan style (i.e. Alexander Pope, maybe?), but the images are all uber-cliche. Tears that wash away self-doubt? I think that's why you're getting a lot of the eye-rolling - the images are something that a lot of people have seen a million times before. At a certain point they stop being archetypal and start being trite.

 

My therapy is the cleansing tear, the water of life,

It greets me at the events of love, happiness, and strife.

My action is in giving to others that which I love,

The sadness can still hit home, like the biting of a knife,

But I will show a spirit of strength, I will rise above.

 

More on the cleansing tear. A weird sentence on first read - "My therapy" as your subject, considering the discussion of needing tears, seems to suggest actual therapy - i.e. on the couch, with a shrink - as your real subject. Read it over and see what I mean. Since I don't think that's what you're trying to say, invert: "The cleansing tear is my therapy, the water of life." Your subject is going to be your literal element; your object is going to be the figurative one. And the rhythm of your words is off again - your clauses are very awkward when placed next to each other. Sometimes you're doing one in a line:

 

It greets me at the events of love, happiness, and strife

And sometimes two to a line:

The sadness can still hit home, like the biting of a knife

I think it comes off as sloppy rather than varied.

 

Overall, I think the biggest problem with the actual content is that it reads like one of those posters with a kitten holding onto a branch and a Proverb printed in brush script. Your imagery is really conventional, and your form is awkward in many ways. Generally, if you've got one locked, you can get away with the deficiencies of the other aspect. When both are stumbling, the poem is doomed.

 

So, I basically said what IDRM said, except with about 30 times the length. Whoops. I think the point stands - brief dismissal or semi-detailed analysis, the poem still needs a lot of work.