do they know what poetry is?

[annaswirls]

canned version: If you are going to write Haiku, write fucking haiku not something else and try to pass it off as the true form. Label it as what it is Americanized pop culture vomit.

Amen Sister!
Just call it what it is.



<grumble & rant, I am going back to bed now.>

can I come along?

​

 

[WickedEve]

Eve is a strong girl,
I do not think she needs
her friends
to defend her
by insulting someone
who spoke their mind.
And we don't need to go here:
"Yes she spoke her mind
I spoke my mind what is the
difference?"

Peace.

this
is not
a poem
it is a post
with line
breaks​

Sure I do. Let them defend me if they choose to. She spoke her mind about me and it was shitty. You spoke your mind but it wasn't a personal attack. So, what if they insult her? She insulted me, and I don't see you telling her that she doesn't need to insult me. Right? Besides, I was hoping all this crap was over and we were going to celebrate with Pat. I'm not wearing green, Pat.

 

[Tzara]

Hmmm. I wander off to watch some basketball and this thread morphs from an interesting discussion about the nature of poetry and its audience (or lack of one) into an episode of the Jerry Springer Show. Someone must have stepped on the remote.

The poem that Eve originally cited is actually closer to a lune than a haiku. The lune is a form invented by Robert Kelly that consists of three lines of 5, 3, and 5 syllables. It does not have the thematic requirements and restrictions of classical haiku.

The original question, though, was not about the poem as such but, I think, about the audience for poetry and what it expects and accepts as a poem. This is an important question as I presume everyone here is either a producer or consumer of poems, or both.

One of the problems I sometimes have with poems is being confused as to what they are about. I have read poems with very vivid images and well-sounding language but when I get to the end, I have no idea what the poem says. I suspect that many people have this problem reading poetry. That would perhaps account for an appreciation of a straightforward prosaic style. The reader doesn't feel intimidated by the writer.

Oh, and it's too early for a glass of stout. Just a dab of Irish whisky in my tea, thanks.

 

[flyguy69]

WTF?

Thanks, Tzara, for securing the remote. Maybe we should put a V chip in this thing. Or a B chip.

This touches on a subject may prominent poets have written of: the hautiness of so much poetry. When readers feel humiliated by poetry they employ a very powerful tool-- they quit reading it.

Good poetry has to hold the front door open, to invite readers in with accessible imagery and meaningful messages. That is not at all the same thing as simple and bland. But poetry that promises to make readers feel stupid, either for attempting to follow linguistic shell games or for wasting time on text that offers no substance, hurt the art.

 

[TheRainMan]

I was hoping all this crap was over and we were going to celebrate with Pat. I'm not wearing green, Pat.

you can wear anything you like, sweet Virginia . . . as much or as little, any style, any color.

 

[Sabina_Tolchovsky]

can I come along?

​

oh Anna...you're such a tease

<I love it>

 

[Tzara]

Good poetry has to hold the front door open, to invite readers in with accessible imagery and meaningful messages. That is not at all the same thing as simple and bland. But poetry that promises to make readers feel stupid, either for attempting to follow linguistic shell games or for wasting time on text that offers no substance, hurt the art.

Well, perhaps.

I think that is overstatement. I would call much of it different art, appealing to a different audience.

Joe Sixpack is not going to sit down and read Pound's Cantos. I very much doubt that anybody is going to just sit down and read the Cantos. Too much personal imagery and obscure referents. But it is something that I think is well worth working through, albeit armed with a couple of interpretive texts to help me understand what the hell old dotty Ezra is talking about.

Accessibility is a matter of style. I find Ted Kooser and Kim (sigh) Addonizio both very straightforward and easy to understand. (Even my autonomic nervous system understands Kim.) Pound and Eliot, or Kenneth Koch for that matter, are poets whose writing I find more obscure. But I still enjoy reading their poetry. It's just more work.

If I want to use a metaphor that most people won't understand (say, piezoelectricity), then I've probably limited my audience significantly. So long as I understand that, I don't see it as a problem.

 

[oggbashan]

A non-poet's definitions...

1. Poetry on Literotica is either any piece of writing that is shorter than 750 words or a piece of writing that the author SAYS is poetry.

2. A successful poem should present a different view of the world, if only of a fleeting impression, that is unique and meaningful. The poet is an artist that takes something and says 'Look at this!".

3. Form, metre, rhyme are not essential parts of a poem but if the poem is stated to be in a classical form then the rules should be followed e.g. a limerick cannot have eight lines.

4. Literotica is not a place for dedicated for professional poets and authors. It is a place where poets, prose authors and others play at their art. If any of us learn new techniques and skills in the process that is a bonus.

5. My poetry isn't, except by definition 1 above.

Threadjack over.

Og

 

[minsue]

My poetry isn't, except by definition 1 above.

I beg to differ.

 

[oggbashan]

I beg to differ.

But t'weren't me, t'was jeanne_d_artois, vastly influenced by Shakespeare...

Og

 

[minsue]

But t'weren't me, t'was jeanne_d_artois, vastly influenced by Shakespeare...

Og

I loved jeanne. You broke my heart when I found out she was but a figment. *le sigh*

 

[oggbashan]

I loved jeanne. You broke my heart when I found out she was but a figment. *le sigh*

The trollop is still rather more than a figment. She is the embodiment of one of my muses with a (dirty) mind of her own. Not quite as dirty as Fag-Ash_Lil but sufficiently obscene.

Og

 

[minsue]

The trollop is still rather more than a figment. She is the embodiment of one of my muses with a (dirty) mind of her own. Not quite as dirty as Fag-Ash_Lil but sufficiently obscene.

Og

Your mind is an interesting place, Og.

 

[flyguy69]

I'll defend the statement, though I don't think you are refuting it

Arrogance is not the same thing as complexity, and Pound's work proves to be richly rewarding for those that make the effort. It passes my second test, that of offering substance.

But your personal example is a tougher nut. Yes, you (and anyone else for that matter) can write about anything you wish. But if the bulk of published poetry requires that readers be knowledgable in esoteric fields of study, all poets pay the price.

Well, perhaps.

I think that is overstatement. I would call much of it different art, appealing to a different audience.

Joe Sixpack is not going to sit down and read Pound's Cantos. I very much doubt that anybody is going to just sit down and read the Cantos. Too much personal imagery and obscure referents. But it is something that I think is well worth working through, albeit armed with a couple of interpretive texts to help me understand what the hell old dotty Ezra is talking about.

Accessibility is a matter of style. I find Ted Kooser and Kim (sigh) Addonizio both very straightforward and easy to understand. (Even my autonomic nervous system understands Kim.) Pound and Eliot, or Kenneth Koch for that matter, are poets whose writing I find more obscure. But I still enjoy reading their poetry. It's just more work.

If I want to use a metaphor that most people won't understand (say, piezoelectricity), then I've probably limited my audience significantly. So long as I understand that, I don't see it as a problem.

 

[Sabina_Tolchovsky]

Well, perhaps.



If I want to use a metaphor that most people won't understand (say, piezoelectricity), then I've probably limited my audience significantly. So long as I understand that, I don't see it as a problem.

does that mean you think your poetry is crystal clear?

<hehehe...snicker>


ps. I think Pound's use of imagery is metaphoric to the reader, it can mean what you want it to...kind of like music, you can listen to a song and have your own images and meaning but it might not coincide with what the writer had in mind at the time. Poetry is about feeling sometimes not always about understanding.

 

[Tzara]

does that mean you think your poetry is crystal clear?

<hehehe...snicker>

I hope at least they resonate with my audience.

 

[Sabina_Tolchovsky]

I hope at least they resonate with my audience.

they resonate for me...

 

[bluerains]

well

1. Poetry on Literotica is either any piece of writing that is shorter than 750 words or a piece of writing that the author SAYS is poetry.

2. A successful poem should present a different view of the world, if only of a fleeting impression, that is unique and meaningful. The poet is an artist that takes something and says 'Look at this!".

3. Form, metre, rhyme are not essential parts of a poem but if the poem is stated to be in a classical form then the rules should be followed e.g. a limerick cannot have eight lines.

4. Literotica is not a place for dedicated for professional poets and authors. It is a place where poets, prose authors and others play at their art. If any of us learn new techniques and skills in the process that is a bonus.

5. My poetry isn't, except by definition 1 above.

Threadjack over.



Og

all righty then..*****

 

[Tzara]

But your personal example is a tougher nut. Yes, you (and anyone else for that matter) can write about anything you wish. But if the bulk of published poetry requires that readers be knowledgable in esoteric fields of study, all poets pay the price.

That, I think, reduces the problem to one of editors' tastes, not necessarily the taste of the reading public, and I would suspect that editors have a tolerance for obscurity (or if I want to phrase it nicely, complexity of image) that exceeds that of the general reading public.

Happen to know if the Journal of Micromechanical Systems takes poems?

 

[annaswirls]

oh Anna...you're such a tease

<I love it>

I never tease.
Make room. I'll be over.

 

[annaswirls]

they resonate for me...

sometime sparks fly

 

[Tzara]

they resonate for me...

Gosh, I think my tachycardia's back.

 

[Sabina_Tolchovsky]

I never tease.
Make room. I'll be over.

baby, you can warm my sheets anytime...

 

[Sabina_Tolchovsky]

Gosh, I think my tachycardia's back.

maybe you should just sit this one out and watch...

<though I don't think it would really help>

 

[My Erotic Trail]

I found this while posting on another thread. I like Billy <grin


Originally Posted by Angeline
Lauren's gonna smack me for posting this again, but your post made me think of it so wtf.

Introduction To Poetry


I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins