A question of modern language and poetry

[miss_mystery]

Hum. Why would I choose the word artifice?
It does imply trickery, to a degree, but I would argue that of deception. A poet does rely on stratagem, on trickery, to make a poem. These things are generally known as craft. Examples: assonance; consonance; meter; rhyme; simile; metaphor; imagery; diction; deliberate manipulation of voice, tone, mood, etc. These are one and all 'tricks' that good poets use.

I was curious, so I checked my own dictionary (The New Penguin English Dictionary), and got

artifice: n. 1. an artful device, expedient, or stratagem; a trick 2. clever or artful skill; ingenuity. [early French from Latin *artificium*, from *art-*, *ars* skill + *facere* to make, do]

artificer: n. 1. a skilled or artistic worker or designer 2. a military or navel mechanic.

And I'm not going to bugger around looking up expedient, but quite simply, the definition is 'a means to an end'. I think there's a faulty assumption that 'deceit' is consequent to 'artifice' and 'expedient', and that the latter two can only result in the former.

Does that answer the question?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I don't think it's a lie or a trick. You give them something to read. You hope they will respond. Where is the deception?

I think there would be deception if you pointed them in the wrong way in your poem but if you help them to understand whatever it is you are writing about then in my mind that's an honest exchange.

The deception is intrinsic to the something you give them to read. There's no deception in the publishing and hoping they will respond. (Well, there is, but let's say there isn't.) But there is deception in the writing itself. That's the very definition of poetry, of art even. If you're not hiding anything, if you're not tricking your readers into feeling or thinking something, if you're not selling anything, you might as well just give them the actual thing you're supposed to be writing about, or write its technical specifications.

 

[Tzara]

And dear Tzara, I think your opinion is idealized. Good poets, if they're being honest, would admit they'll use anything to make a poem work better. That's clever. It may be other, higher-minded things, like "artistic," but it's also clever. Poets who say what inspires their writing process is all art are full of shit, in my opinion.

Maybe. Again, it looks more like we are arguing different connotations of the words "clever" and "trick."

Of course, a skilled writer will use whatever techniques at their command to achieve the effect they want. "Clever" seems a poor word to describe that. "Skilled" or "in command of their art" (yeah, phrase, I know) seem more appropriate to me.

And certainly we agree that poets don't sit down explicitly to make "art." What I think is wrong with the visual arts today, actually. The MFA programs seem to teach people to be artists rather than give them the skills to let them go out and make things that might be art. Wrong way around, I think.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Well, I think we are splitting hairs. I would say it implies skill in the use of technique. To use an analogy I've used before, a skilled writer (poet, novelist, whatever) has a mastery of craft--of being able to use words in a way that conveys to the reader the feelings he or she wishes to invoke. A cabinetmaker has mastered the skills of his or her craft as well. I wouldn't think of calling a master cabinetmaker someone who deals in artifice unless he or she happened to specialize in builidng accessories for David Copperfield. But then it would be a compliment.

I would. A Portuguese word for a mechanical artist (like a master cabinetmaker, for example) or an artisan is "artífice".

 

[Sara Crewe]

The deception is intrinsic to the something you give them to read. There's no deception in the publishing and hoping they will respond. (Well, there is, but let's say there isn't.) But there is deception in the writing itself. That's the very definition of poetry, of art even. If you're not hiding anything, if you're not tricking your readers into feeling or thinking something, if you're not selling anything, you might as well just give them the actual thing you're supposed to be writing about, or write its technical specifications.

I think we are essentially saying the same thing but the words are getting in the way. If I ignore the negative connotations I see in the words you use to describe the writing process than I do see what you mean.

Maybe I'll even start my next poem with, "Hello my name is Sara and I'm a big fat liar."

 

[Sara Crewe]

Hum. Why would I choose the word artifice?
It does imply trickery, to a degree, but I would argue that of deception. A poet does rely on stratagem, on trickery, to make a poem. These things are generally known as craft. Examples: assonance; consonance; meter; rhyme; simile; metaphor; imagery; diction; deliberate manipulation of voice, tone, mood, etc. These are one and all 'tricks' that good poets use.

I was curious, so I checked my own dictionary (The New Penguin English Dictionary), and got

artifice: n. 1. an artful device, expedient, or stratagem; a trick 2. clever or artful skill; ingenuity. [early French from Latin *artificium*, from *art-*, *ars* skill + *facere* to make, do]

artificer: n. 1. a skilled or artistic worker or designer 2. a military or navel mechanic.

And I'm not going to bugger around looking up expedient, but quite simply, the definition is 'a means to an end'. I think there's a faulty assumption that 'deceit' is consequent to 'artifice' and 'expedient', and that the latter two can only result in the former.

Does that answer the question?

It does. Thanks. We are just debating the meaning and connotation of certain words.


For example, you say, "...assonance; consonance; meter; rhyme; simile; metaphor; imagery; diction; deliberate manipulation of voice, tone, mood, etc. These are one and all 'tricks' that good poets use."


I would disagree. In my opinion, they aren't tricks because that word belittles the craft and art of poetry. I would call them tools but in the end, we probably mean the same thing.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I just remembered something funny. Fernando Pessoa's (author of the The poet is a faker poem I quoted up there) first paying job as a writer was in advertising, as an ad copy writer. He wrote the first slogan for Coca-Cola in Portugal. Using poetic devices.

 

[WickedEve]

Come Back To Me My Language: Poetry and the West Indies by John Edward Chamberlin


Excerpt: There is of course always an element of artifice in poetry; and typically poets (such as Walt Whitman) who break new ground by bringing a supposedly more "natural" language and rhythm into their poetry are accused of having no regard for standards of good form, or no ear for music, or no sense of poetic propriety. On the other hand, poets who highlight the artifice of their language are often called pretentious or insincere.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

On the other hand, poets who highlight the artifice of their language are often called pretentious or insincere.

Pretentious or just-plain-weird. That's what PCs on my poems say.

 

[Tzara]

I just remembered something funny. Fernando Pessoa's (author of the The poet is a faker poem I quoted up there) first paying job as a writer was in advertising, as an ad copy writer. He wrote the first slogan for Coca-Cola in Portugal. Using poetic devices.

Pessoa turned tricks for Coca-Cola?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Pessoa turned tricks for Coca-Cola?

Hey, it made him the despondent multiple-individuals we grew to love.

 

[WickedEve]

Pretentious or just-plain-weird. That's what PCs on my poems say.

Your poetry isn't weird. It touches my heart. I sprout angel wings and flap them around my house after reading one of your poems. Your poetry makes me feel all weepy and blessed inside. Sometimes I use a vacuum cleaner on my tear ducts, if I feel that I haven't cried enough after reading your poetry.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Your poetry isn't weird. It touches my heart. I sprout angel wings and flap them around my house after reading one of your poems. Your poetry makes me feel all weepy and blessed inside. Sometimes I use a vacuum cleaner on my tear ducts, if I feel that I haven't cried enough after reading your poetry.

You're as big a faker as I am.

 

[Angeline]

And certainly we agree that poets don't sit down explicitly to make "art." What I think is wrong with the visual arts today, actually. The MFA programs seem to teach people to be artists rather than give them the skills to let them go out and make things that might be art. Wrong way around, I think.

You're right. One writes because the need to do so is there and if what happens is "art," so much the better. And yes what I really dislike about programs like the one at the University of Iowa is that it seems to be more concerned with teaching the attitude than the craft. Naropa, too. I've known graduates of both programs and that's my impression. Maybe I'm being small-minded.

I guess what I've really been skittering around is what Lauren defines as deceit. I agree with her that art is deception; it's not natural, so in that sense what else could it be? Still that doesn't imply that it's the same kind of deception as that, say, a shoplifter would have because it's motivated, not by an intention to commit some crime, take something that isn't yours, but by a need to communicate.

So yeah, we're arguing semantics, really.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

So yeah, we're arguing semantics, really.

You anti-semantic bastard.

 

[CeriseNoire]

When I was in college, a friend and I would sit in front of tv with a tape recorder and switch channels, recording, and make poems of what we got (which we then read at poetry readings). It was pretty funny stuff ("Tidybowl makes you want to say/John, I'm pregnant"), but in retrospect I don't think it was poetry. It wasn't for me, anyway.

I wonder, wouldn't that be a form of found poem? If so, do you think found poems aren't poetry?

 

[WickedEve]

I wonder, wouldn't that be a form of found poem? If so, do you think found poems aren't poetry?

Like anything, some can be.


I found a poem in your post, but is it really poetry?
I don't think poetry should be that easy.

I wonder about found poems,
wander until they're found.

You think found poems aren't poetry?

 

[CeriseNoire]

Like anything, some can be.


I found a poem in your post, but is it really poetry?
I don't think poetry should be that easy.

I wonder about found poems,
wander until they're found.

You think found poems aren't poetry?

But poetry can't always be difficult to count, I think. Besides, you did a 'treated' found poem (I think that's what they're called). Easy as it may seem, your version did add a bit of personification.
Maybe poetry is ultimately in what the reader sees.

 

[Angeline]

You anti-semantic bastard.

Don't tell my parents. They couldn't handle it. It's bad enough that my great-grandparents (well their portait) spent 20 years on my dining room wall, staring at the Christmas tree every December.

 

[WickedEve]

But poetry can't always be difficult to count, I think. Besides, you did a 'treated' found poem (I think that's what they're called). Easy as it may seem, your version did add a bit of personification.
Maybe poetry is ultimately in what the reader sees.

I did a treated found poem? You think I'll find that if I google it?

 

[Angeline]

I wonder, wouldn't that be a form of found poem? If so, do you think found poems aren't poetry?

Well yes I think it was found poetry, and I do like found poetry, some of it. I've never read any found poems that I think are "great," although I've seen some very funny and satirical ones. I guess it is poetry just not, in my experience, really good poetry.

I know that there is some pretty off-the-wall stuff that many, at least the people who create it, consider poetry. I remember going to a reading years ago at St. Marks Church in the Bowery in NYC (they used to have wonderful all-night readings there every New Years Eve). Anyway these two poets were standing on opposite sides of the stage and one poet would say "A" and the other would say "B." That was it. That was the "poem." And dumb as it sounds it was really funny because of the performance. But it was no Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.

 

[CeriseNoire]

I did a treated found poem? You think I'll find that if I google it?

I think so, unless it's called something else in English (I just kind of directly translated what they were called in French when a was in school).

Angeline, in your opinion then, can funny poetry ever be great?

 

[Angeline]

I think so, unless it's called something else in English (I just kind of directly translated what they were called in French when a was in school).

Angeline, in your opinion then, can funny poetry ever be great?

I suppose it can. I mean this is all pretty subjective, isn't it? What I think is great is not necessarily what you, or anyone else, does. And I shy away from superlatives like "ever," "never," "always." The only thing that's "aways" true is that there's always an exception to the rule, right?

For me, great poetry is "great" because it makes the reader recognize some universal truths and, more to the point, feel them. I feel like I've read something great if I can lock into some collective experience and feel it. That's my opinion, of course, but to me good poems elicit strong sense reactions in readers. And Prufrock probably isn't a great example of that because it's a cerebral poem, but maybe it's an exception to my rule.

And, in general, comedy doesn't elicit that kind of reaction in me. Maybe Chaucer's Miller's Tale is an exception to that rule. In fact, the only comedies I can think of that to me are both funny and rich in the sensory reactions I experience are some of Shakespeare's, like As You Like it, Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night or The Tempest. And to me they're not pure comedy; there's a lot of sadness and other stuff going on there.

 

[CeriseNoire]

I suppose it can. I mean this is all pretty subjective, isn't it? What I think is great is not necessarily what you, or anyone else, does. And I shy away from superlatives like "ever," "never," "always." The only thing that's "aways" true is that there's always an exception to the rule, right?

For me, great poetry is "great" because it makes the reader recognize some universal truths and, more to the point, feel them. I feel like I've read something great if I can lock into some collective experience and feel it. That's my opinion, of course, but to me good poems elicit strong sense reactions in readers. And Prufrock probably isn't a great example of that because it's a cerebral poem, but maybe it's an exception to my rule.

And, in general, comedy doesn't elicit that kind of reaction in me. Maybe Chaucer's Miller's Tale is an exception to that rule. In fact, the only comedies I can think of that to me are both funny and rich in the sensory reactions I experience are some of Shakespeare's, like As You Like it, Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night or The Tempest. And to me they're not pure comedy; there's a lot of sadness and other stuff going on there.

It's kind of what I was thinking. The poet can try, but ultimately, it's the reader that determines if it's poetry.

As for comedy, a lot of what is funny is so because there's some truth or observation of human emotion in it. (Or that could just be my weird sense of humor). Incidentally, I'll be teaching "Twelfth Night" to one of my classes this year. Part of the reason for choosing it was actually all that's there beyond the comedy.

 

[sophieloves]

Maybe I'll even start my next poem with, "Hello my name is Sara and I'm a big fat liar."

you know, that sounds like the beginning of a fine poem to me. there is beauty in truth, and besides which it would jolt the reader. not an easy first line to forget!

not all poems are lies. many are a complicated combination of all shades of truth and lie -but it's the poet's job to make it a truth for the reader, surely, so when the reader interfaces with the writer during the actual act of reading the work then it exists in that moment of time as its own tangible truth.