Bflag's Pleasures of Criticism

[twelveoone]

Poems only last so far as people experience the same inexplicable feelings over and over.

(people write) Poems describing the same inexplicable feelings over and over.
sounds like banging on the conundrums without sticks

So where do we go from here, my love? With the rose, when all the good colours are taken? Fucking Raw Sienna? I just got an inexplicable feeling.

It wasn't good.

C' mon. It is a given at any moment, some asshole poem has an asshole fan, get enough of them, it then falls out of favour. And then some asshole critic (like Bloom) revisits and well some people look at it again. But most are fucking clueless and need to be told. And this to a certain extent is what you are doing, and you are telling, not so much showing.
This argument:
"The author of the Rebetiko may hold a special place in contemporary Greek culture, while the author of the Song of Seikilos can have a relevancy at any given time for any human culture."
Can be made for Pop music over any sub-genre regardless of merit, if it is relevant, it is relevant to individuals, there is no mass universal that can be exploited.
The questions you raise are good ones, the defining lines you set up are suspect.
My question (unaswered) is there seems to be a completely different view between you and Senna Jawa as to in general what constitutes "good" and in particular the case of foehn.

 

[twelveoone]

Something from years ago that I finally got around to polishing up.

Have at it.


The Gunslinger's Story


Skeleton resting
Back against a boulder
Another cowboy that lived and died

Empty is the canteen
Slung across his shoulder
Rusted sixgun still holstered at each side

Somewhere on the blazing horizon
Galloping through the mean cactus maze
The stallion he was meant to ride
Melting out there in the haze before him

Where legendary outlaws hide

Desire remains ever present these days
In the hollowed eye sockets of his skull
Full of fiery gold daydreams
And cold silver prospects

There is a cautionary tale to be told
Spoken by the wise old soul
Dressed in traditional native attire
Who now sits in a worn out lawn chair
To the left of the corpse he propped up
And adorned with dime store spectacles

To the right
A dead scorpion
Impaled by a nail
Decorating a wooden sign staked in the dirt
Scrawled across it,
WISDOM $1.00

The Indian says as he waves around an eagle feather,

For all the dollar signs in his eyes
Gunslinger had not any sense
His vision of untold wealth
Left him too farsighted to grasp
Bugs crawling on mesa rocks
Resembling crawdads in creek
Were venomous like asp
Or any other snake rattling about the desert

And he adds while producing a shoebox
Filled with cheap magnification glasses,

Five Dollars apiece

If there is a moral to this story
I am too blind to see it

specifically:
Another cowboy that lived and died
not a cowboy and "lived" is not needed, assumed, and his "life" is not in question
Where legendary outlaws hide
suggestion; where outlaw legends hide poem is not about outlaws
Truth:
Scorpion stings generally will not kill you.
I am too blind to see it
suggest Damned if I can see it.
whether you want to pursue this...there are some other small weeds.

 

[bflagsst]

(people write) Poems describing the same inexplicable feelings over and over.
sounds like banging on the conundrums without sticks

So where do we go from here, my love? With the rose, when all the good colours are taken? Fucking Raw Sienna? I just got an inexplicable feeling.

It wasn't good.

C' mon. It is a given at any moment, some asshole poem has an asshole fan, get enough of them, it then falls out of favour. And then some asshole critic (like Bloom) revisits and well some people look at it again. But most are fucking clueless and need to be told. And this to a certain extent is what you are doing, and you are telling, not so much showing.
This argument:
"The author of the Rebetiko may hold a special place in contemporary Greek culture, while the author of the Song of Seikilos can have a relevancy at any given time for any human culture."
Can be made for Pop music over any sub-genre regardless of merit, if it is relevant, it is relevant to individuals, there is no mass universal that can be exploited.
The questions you raise are good ones, the defining lines you set up are suspect.
My question (unaswered) is there seems to be a completely different view between you and Senna Jawa as to in general what constitutes "good" and in particular the case of foehn.

More importantly, people write different poems describing the difficult to describe from new angles showing new technique, at least good poetry anyway. I've no clue what SJ or anyone else thinks is good poetry. I thought I was trying to show what was worth keeping vs. what was worth tossing. The critic doesn't reveal anything that isn't already there.

Your difficult to describe nausea may have been covered well by Sartre, but it's not represented all that well in Bloom's Canon. It's probably not a shame that Sartre and Heidegger weren't poets at heart. They sure enjoyed Rilke though:

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.


I think my point was there are near-mass universals that poets do exploit here, there, everywhere...Basho in his cave, Chaucer and his tavern knave. I wouldn't defend it philosophically beholden to Charles Sanders Peirce, but as a practicing poet I'd have to. But this is talk of content, I'm not even 1/10 of the way done with investigating sound.

 

[butters]

sometimes . . . sometimes i feel as if i'm sitting cross-legged on the camp floor in front of the fire, listening to the elders speak words i only half-understand but am too mesmerised to look away.

sometimes.

other times i'll concentrate on the fire, let the sounds wash through me, and carve another poem out of the flames

 

[bflagsst]

My obsession with making the same statement over and over regarding meaning what I mean and being perfectly clear about that thing which shan't remain namelesssssssss.

Why Craftsmen Outlive Rulers
by bflagsst

I'm only people pleasing, -lamented Pharaoh,
I'm only as contemporary as the kohl
we run beneath our eyes, or the places
on the obelisk I've ordered my name etched.
-Alas, my name won't remain as immutable
as those defamed and defaced structures
I've come to scratch my name...


http://www.aldokkan.com/society/craftmen.htm

 

[Magnetron]

specifically:
Another cowboy that lived and died
not a cowboy and "lived" is not needed, assumed, and his "life" is not in question
Where legendary outlaws hide
suggestion; where outlaw legends hide poem is not about outlaws
Truth:
Scorpion stings generally will not kill you.
I am too blind to see it
suggest Damned if I can see it.
whether you want to pursue this...there are some other small weeds.

I think I was trying to convey that most gunslingers were just cowboys with guns who rarely achieved legendary status. A dime a dozen, nothing special. So few outlaws get honorable mention in U.S. history.

Painting this one out to have Gold Fever was a way of saying he had big dreams of easy money and notoriety. He was just another that lived and died because there was nothing noteworthy in between for the history books.

As for scorpions, it all depends on how many stings you receive. And I suspect our Indian friend might as well be named Sitting Bullshitter.

I went with blind to reinforce the theme of vision. See only carries so much weight.

 

[Magnetron]

sometimes . . . sometimes i feel as if i'm sitting cross-legged on the camp floor in front of the fire, listening to the elders speak words i only half-understand but am too mesmerised to look away.

sometimes.

other times i'll concentrate on the fire, let the sounds wash through me, and carve another poem out of the flames

Quit slouching, Dances With Words.

 

[twelveoone]

sometimes . . . sometimes i feel as if i'm sitting cross-legged on the camp floor in front of the fire, listening to the elders speak words i only half-understand but am too mesmerised to look away.

sometimes.

other times i'll concentrate on the fire, let the sounds wash through me, and carve another poem out of the flames

see that is one thing I've learned from 20 fucking years of gender studies, men can piss on campfires and create a big stink and walk away unburnt.
women have to be subtle, creative.
It is this great power alone that fools us into thinking we ruled the world for 7,000 years. And then Edison fucked it up.
Abe wipe off the shovel, piss on the fire and go to bed.

 

[twelveoone]

More importantly, people write different poems describing the difficult to describe from new angles showing new technique, at least good poetry anyway. I've no clue what SJ or anyone else thinks is good poetry. I thought I was trying to show what was worth keeping vs. what was worth tossing. The critic doesn't reveal anything that isn't already there.

...I must be fucking awesome...or fucking nuts...revisit

 

[twelveoone]

My obsession with making the same statement over and over regarding meaning what I mean and being perfectly clear about that thing which shan't remain namelesssssssss.

Why Craftsmen Outlive Rulers
by bflagsst

I'm only people pleasing, -lamented Pharaoh,
I'm only as contemporary as the kohl
we run beneath our eyes, or the places
on the obelisk I've ordered my name etched.
-Alas, my name won't remain as immutable
as those defamed and defaced structures
I've come to scratch my name...


http://www.aldokkan.com/society/craftmen.htm

http://www.literotica.com/p/a-walk-on-the-path
a walk on the path
bytwelveoone©

the goldenrod have turnt burnt orange
choke cherries crowd the tiny path
rent by misspent webs spun
by spiders of intent

on the bridge the boards are now rotten
but graffiti artists have not forgotten
this forsaken place
sprayed a face of mickey mouse

ah so billy how have you been
the mouse face covers half your name
ah the fleetingness of fame

do you remember
when we where the young
dipshits of summer
artistes of white trash
krylon cans in our hands

you were an asshole
even back then
taking the money
coming back with pink
fucking pink fucking pink
now how fucking cool was that

such a beautiful day today
white clouds tinted with gray
and larger than your life
in four foot letters on the old railroad bridge
LY
in decrepit albino flesh
so nice to remember
you like that

or nature trumps the stumps two slightly different views of a similar situation. Two radically different ways of getting there. Did we check out the colours todski? Probably not. Yeh, I'm fucking nuts. Complex (and redundant in the sense of fail safe) intersection, versus repeated statement. Both serve the purpose. Shake often used repeated statements, one saxon the other latinate.
This is dual purpose:
rent by misspent webs spun
by spiders of intent

One I am telling you how to read it, and laughing (and at myself) because I know you will miss it. The Green Table of Kubrick.

 

[twelveoone]

But this is talk of content, I'm not even 1/10 of the way done with investigating sound.

fucking pink fucking pink (also dual purpose)
reader supplies variance as to whether revisiting or remembrance via inflection (sound), similar to foehn's tactic with his sets of threes.
Here is the really sad part, if 1/10 of what was said would be considered by the denizens of this dump, they would be better writers, and outside of butters (who is subtle*) I doubt anyone is paying attention.

*see above

 

[bflagsst]

fucking pink fucking pink (also dual purpose)
reader supplies variance as to whether revisiting or remembrance via inflection (sound), similar to foehn's tactic with his sets of threes.
Here is the really sad part, if 1/10 of what was said would be considered by the denizens of this dump, they would be better writers, and outside of butters (who is subtle*) I doubt anyone is paying attention.

*see above

I don't get sad, I'm here to explore for my own purposes.

I have an intolerable belief that the same reader who values content only gets there through the value-added mechanics. So if someone isnt getting a reward from hanna they might not be up to snuff in reading. Most people cant pick up a slick form and read it correctly if they havent exercised the dogma of stresses. It's the front and back advantage of knowing your lineage in the art you practice. Contemporary forms still adhere to rhythm at opportune moments within poems. im a fan of the flat run on sentence poem that buries rhythm, ee Cummings has fans...but would anyone say ee cummings wasn't most interested in the architecture?

 

[butters]

Fucking Raw Sienna? I just got an inexplicable feeling.

It wasn't good.

holy shit, my sides hurt and my screen needs wiping. as do my eyes. now if you could also supply some mind-bleach, tyvm

 

[twelveoone]

I don't get sad, I'm here to explore for my own purposes.

I have an intolerable belief that the same reader who values content only gets there through the value-added mechanics. So if someone isnt getting a reward from hanna they might not be up to snuff in reading. Most people cant pick up a slick form and read it correctly if they havent exercised the dogma of stresses. It's the front and back advantage of knowing your lineage in the art you practice. Contemporary forms still adhere to rhythm at opportune moments within poems. im a fan of the flat run on sentence poem that buries rhythm, ee Cummings has fans...but would anyone say ee cummings wasn't most interested in the architecture?

Consider this bflagsst, where do we agree, where do we disagree?
So pardon my cynicism here, most people can't pick up a slick magazine...
So your statement "I have an intolerable belief that the same reader who values content only gets there through the value-added mechanics." will be read by me with a dose of sarcasm here values content, but the general direction, bingo!
I'm going to say this to you, I think you will halfway understand:

Suppose you show the reader A, B, C
Reader x sees(more correctly feels) the "content" A by the "hidden operations" of B and C. This is what I assume you are saying, if so I somewhat agree.
Reader y may be to some degree of the "hidden operations" - a good description of the better poets here?
Now reader z. may be pick up on the fact that, the writer may be showing something like: this is Not A, or this is Not B, or this is Not C, a different level of hidden operation. All esoteric writing requires this, and poetry is maybe the most
esoteric of writing.
In short where I hedge a bit, it may be the mechanics that add the value to the content. I think you are saying the same thing. I am most sure of it.
In short, foehn is showing us a this is Not A. It is not about horses, nor even Hanna, it is about no Hanna. It is about foehn, and foehn is not in the poem.
Magnetron may be doing the same, this is Not A, but is a hybrid, and playing the "kitsch".

 

[bflagsst]

Consider this bflagsst, where do we agree, where do we disagree?
So pardon my cynicism here, most people can't pick up a slick magazine...
So your statement "I have an intolerable belief that the same reader who values content only gets there through the value-added mechanics." will be read by me with a dose of sarcasm here values content, but the general direction, bingo!
I'm going to say this to you, I think you will halfway understand:

Suppose you show the reader A, B, C
Reader x sees(more correctly feels) the "content" A by the "hidden operations" of B and C. This is what I assume you are saying, if so I somewhat agree.
Reader y may be to some degree of the "hidden operations" - a good description of the better poets here?
Now reader z. may be pick up on the fact that, the writer may be showing something like: this is Not A, or this is Not B, or this is Not C, a different level of hidden operation. All esoteric writing requires this, and poetry is maybe the most
esoteric of writing.
In short where I hedge a bit, it may be the mechanics that add the value to the content. I think you are saying the same thing. I am most sure of it.
In short, foehn is showing us a this is Not A. It is not about horses, nor even Hanna, it is about no Hanna. It is about foehn, and foehn is not in the poem.
Magnetron may be doing the same, this is Not A, but is a hybrid, and playing the "kitsch".

Good poetry is only esoteric in the cleanest of senses. I can only imagine a prospective reader as somebody who seeks out poetry to read. I can't spend time imagining a way to create new readers of poems like I'm an elementary school teacher. It is very difficult to write something that can contact a very skilled reader and also a novice from within the same construction. Physics is esoteric because I can't come into contact with anything whatsoever in 99% of physics papers being written this year due to the specialty of language.

I think we disagree where I believe Foehn has succeeded because he is saying something about horses, something about Hanna, and something about himself as one who experiences a difficult to describe feeling. For me, he is expressing something Heideggerian that even Heidegger had trouble expressing because he wasn't a poet(which is absolutely narrow in one sense, but I'm sure others who have read the poem have also thought of the poem as being about be-ing.)

A) as aesthetic, the appeal of sound and image, children can understand that this sounds nice;

B) the image stands for something else, an ability to think about the allusion and metaphor;

C) the reader feels something akin to the writer, or approaches the expression in a way that a monk approaches a meditation and there's not much more one can say about C).

So what I'm talking about mechanics: I believe that the child, novice, expert reader are all given a boost toward meaning because of sound construction. And I'm looking at what that might mean because I think it can help me write more appealing poems if I understand the way sound makes the poems.

The well-read reader of poems internalizes the way you can stress test a poem. Line 1 and 4 don't seem to pair up as well as lines 1,2,3. ...Let me count syllables, maybe there's an extra syllable, let me be a better student and learn common strong/weak syllabic stress patterns and identify missing elements to this form...the advanced reader internalizes much more along with actual study.

To skip past what I've said already in this thread, there is a formula that we feel comfortable writing within and rarely deviate from same as a good musician stays within his song formula or a good painter has steps to get wherever she's going. Good and great poems that are being written right now can be mapped and duplicated as sound constructions. I think I could go through Butters' thread and describe her as constructor of poems ie what does a good Butters poem, or 1201 poem, or Foehn poem sound like.

And it's not New Formalism, I'm not interested in poets creating new forms or relying on end rhyme or imagining how Keats would be Keats in 2014. That irregular meter, no rhyme thing is only approachable after going through the process of what it means to write regular meter, perfect rhyme 140 syllables ordered in stanza.

 

[bflagsst]

Here is a typical atypical bflagsst poem. Take an 8 line two stanza poem, throw in an atypical caesura and create three stanza from two. Commit loosely to prosody and rhyme, until the point one commits fully to prosody and rhyme. Then bust the order up with a floating stanza to end on a barely there rhyme.

Folktale
by bflagsst

There will be hyacinths in your garden,
where you've planted your bulbs for spring,
and you know that

The ash from your hearth won't harden,
as the peasants will have kept it clean;

But the tubers in your tilled earth
will have been bitten,
by those same dirty children
and soiled women.
...
Peasant faces reflecting,
the sacring bell shook, sabots flying
and the Right-To-Work.

 

[butters]

Quit slouching, Dances With Words.

*sits up straight* sowwy

fucking pink fucking pink (also dual purpose)
reader supplies variance as to whether revisiting or remembrance via inflection (sound), similar to foehn's tactic with his sets of threes.
Here is the really sad part, if 1/10 of what was said would be considered by the denizens of this dump, they would be better writers, and outside of butters (who is subtle*) I doubt anyone is paying attention.

*see above

i don't when the discourse is civil, despite some of the discussion being a little complex, people read and the cogs turn. this site, specifically this poetry forum, harbours a wealth of knowledge in the likes of yourself, bflagsst, angelina, and others - it can be such a valuable resource for poets at all stages of development. when discussions are both amicable and pertinent AND challenging, what a treat for us reading them!

bflagsst, the whole sound concept - i think it's something i was attempting to get at when i wrote this, albeit not very well

each key stroked resonates
small dark-bright notes
punctuate the white expanse
sounds
in shapes
2D music
symbols of noise

can i make writing
music to your ears?

 

[butters]

Here is a typical atypical bflagsst poem. Take an 8 line two stanza poem, throw in an atypical caesura and create three stanza from two. Commit loosely to prosody and rhyme, until the point one commits fully to prosody and rhyme. Then bust the order up with a floating stanza to end on a barely there rhyme.

Folktale
by bflagsst

There will be hyacinths in your garden,
where you've planted your bulbs for spring,
and you know that

The ash from your hearth won't harden,
as the peasants will have kept it clean;

But the tubers in your tilled earth
will have been bitten,
by those same dirty children
and soiled women.
...
Peasant faces reflecting,
the sacring bell shook, sabots flying
and the Right-To-Work.

so much going in in this - all the stuff off to the side, the allusions, the sly directions to 'look at what else is all happening beyond the actual words you're reading'. for me, poetry like this has the pointers but it'll depend on the reader how much they'll bring to the piece so see it at its full potential. sometimes i read things and feel quite pleased with myself for having got the feel of a write, only to see others have read it in a far more complex and complete way, having knowledge and understanding in areas i've not accessed.

in your piece, the lines that leap out at me above and beyond the overall 'painting' you have me looking at are these:

The ash from your hearth won't harden
we're meant to see the other phrase of 'your heart won't harden' - it's important to the 'feel' of the poem that we see what's implicit yet not directly stated, and i love how the mind fills it in as some sort of echo... no, wait, echo's not te right word..... it's kind of like two sounds happening almost simulataneously, or two separate transparencies, not entirely overlapping but for the greater part, that render a far more complete image than either on its own. if that makes any sense at all.


But the tubers in your tilled earth
will have been bitten,
now this, for me, feels important for its directness, it's sharpness, its awful bleakness.

there's a balancing of subliminal and obvious; just 2 of the tools being employed.

 

[twelveoone]

Here is a typical atypical bflagsst poem. Take an 8 line two stanza poem, throw in an atypical caesura and create three stanza from two. Commit loosely to prosody and rhyme, until the point one commits fully to prosody and rhyme. Then bust the order up with a floating stanza to end on a barely there rhyme.

Folktale
by bflagsst

There will be hyacinths in your garden,
where you've planted your bulbs for spring,
and you know that

The ash from your hearth won't harden,
as the peasants will have kept it clean;

But the tubers in your tilled earth
will have been bitten,
by those same dirty children
and soiled women.
...
Peasant faces reflecting,
the sacring bell shook, sabots flying
and the Right-To-Work.

30 second pass, what I have bolded tells me right away this poem has value.
Now I have to read it, reconstruct it on my mind, I am not going to duplicate what you just said bflagsst, merely note EOL words are very good choice in stanza beginning with
But the tubers in your tilled earth
will have been bitten,...
these two lines evoke (by sound association) a cold bitterness, I think that follows the intent of the poem.
Line 2
where you've planted your bulbs for spring,
there is an extra emphasis on bulbs (all stresses are NOT equal) by sound framing.
Bulbs is reprised in the key lines somewhat by tubers
and I could go on.
Without delving into meaning, the placement of words in regards to a sound (no pun intended) structure, tells me the person knows what he is doing.
My guess, even sj might begrudge a compliment. Except now that I said it, he won't.
FWIW the things I mentioned would be close to how I would have written it.

 

[twelveoone]

looks like butters and I keyed on the same thing, must be something to that.

 

[twelveoone]

There will be hyacinths in your garden,
where you've planted your bulbs for spring,
and you know that

The ash from your...
.....................
btw. clever; L3 is ambiguous in placement
will be read as referring to the first two lines
however grammatically it is
and you know that The ash from your hearth won't harden,

Empson
bflaggsst pulls a little deception tactic with the stanza break.

and you know that would generally be a toss away phrase but gains strength by placement.

10,000 tricks, todski, I wasn't joking. How many have I shown? And I am dogged by assholes?

 

[twelveoone]

*sits up straight* sowwy

i don't when the discourse is civil, despite some of the discussion being a little complex, people read and the cogs turn. this site, specifically this poetry forum, harbours a wealth of knowledge in the likes of yourself, bflagsst, angelina, and others - it can be such a valuable resource for poets at all stages of development. when discussions are both amicable and pertinent AND challenging, what a treat for us reading them!

bflagsst, the whole sound concept - i think it's something i was attempting to get at when i wrote this, albeit not very well

each key stroked resonates
small dark-bright notes
punctuate the white expanse
sounds
in shapes
2D music
symbols of noise

can i make writing
music to your ears?

key stroked resonates
will be read wrong, be aware; probably not a good lead line in that respect, derailment
on the first track?

 

[twelveoone]

Line 2
where you've planted your bulbs for spring,

bulbs is one syllable, however it is either three or four mora
google it, there are technical terms for this shit, i.e. plosive, but why bore the shit out of everybody?
after all this is a poetry bored.

 

[bflagsst]

Thanks for commenting, Butters and 1201.

At the time I was trying to compose pastoral poems, but couldn't quite get the theme right. The sounds were always interesting, but the information was either too specific and referential or completely uninteresting. This poem happened to take a bite of all the combing-thru I was doing researching for previous pastoral poems. What does it look like to write a pastoral, what resources did successful writers rely on...

Early Greek novels, TS Eliot and his use of James Frazer, Taft-Hartley legislative insanity post-crisis, forgotten Shakes plays, sacring bell/sabots I don't remember exactly what bit of history or maybe it was a play that paired them. But the story of peasants outside disturbing mass reminded me of a protest I stumbled upon in Utica, NY a year or two earlier. And I share this information because I don't think it reveals anything about the poem itself.

Now the sounds. I let the sounds lead always then try to reveal purpose. I've always operated as a technician from the first poem I attempted to write, after making it a point to study poetry. That poem was written as if I was a New Formalist, had I known what neo-formalism was at the time I might have stayed over there instead of day by day trying to grow into free verse.

And this shouldn't color what I've said earlier about sound boot-strapping or bootlegging meaning. I think that all of these men and women who came before had to take a similar paths through the act of internalizing technique in forms because of the importance of sound as construction that carries an inkling of the work we habitually place squarely on the shoulders of metaphor.

 

[butters]

key stroked resonates
will be read wrong, be aware; probably not a good lead line in that respect, derailment
on the first track?

i quite agree

hopefully i've improved a bit since i wrote that