EPMD's Prose Poetry is Over Group

[bflagsst]

Haha, prose poetry is in fact over starting today, for me anyway. I'm surprised more people aren't against prose poetry, it's anti euphony aka musicality of language, the sort of place some of us strive to inhabit when we write as veerose mentioned. I'm all for new movements, specifically ones I can help define without assuming my dear friend's move to Nazism.

What is melodic free verse? I assume it resembles ee cummings, sylvia plath, dylan thomas...

The forms are well and gone, but formulaic elements of poetry are still healthy. Alliteration, internal rhyme, half-rhyme endings etc

 

[bflagsst]

Creeps who talk about a new vision make me sick--and suspicious.

I say screw you to vision; up yours to visionaries; vision sucks.

What a supreme irony that those who proclaim and pursue vision are the least likely to attain it.

Vision is not something you attain by consciously or heroically trying. It's achieved via indirection: the way not to achieve it is to seek it.

In fact, if you're at all superstitious, you should feel it's bad luck to even think about it as you work.

The more you try for it the less likely it is you'll attain it. You can't design vision.

If you're good, you focus on the realities of now and in the potentials in the realities: you acknowledge the potentials of now, with perception--and the limitations of now, with grace. And then in hindsight you might have become visionary.

(...)

"Fame comes to those who are thinking of something else"--Oliver Wendell Holmes. (Although today PR techniques can be effective, temporarily.)

The same thing goes for vision.​

Written by Robert Venturi in 93, about vision in architecture. The same thing goes for poetry, says I. The best you can do is write the best poetry you can, be a poet profoundly of now. If you deal with the now perceptively, you deal with the future automatically. And maybe one day you'll look back at your work and perceive it as visionary. Or is that just a fancy word for trendy?

Without trying to be overly offensive, this poem sounds like a 90's self-help infomercial introduction. I imagine you've read your Rumi. This poem is like a hybrid of Rumi, edwin Markham, and Kevin Trudeau(Weightloss Cures they don't want you to know about(sic))

...Since we're criticising poems this week.

 

[twelveoone]

Haha, prose poetry is in fact over starting today, for me anyway. I'm surprised more people aren't against prose poetry, it's anti euphony aka musicality of language, the sort of place some of us strive to inhabit when we write as veerose mentioned. I'm all for new movements, specifically ones I can help define without assuming my dear friend's move to Nazism.

What is melodic free verse? I assume it resembles ee cummings, sylvia plath, dylan thomas...

The forms are well and gone, but formulaic elements of poetry are still healthy. Alliteration, internal rhyme, half-rhyme endings etc

...well, you do vote, which was my objection to "join the movement, while I sit back attitude"

but can't you guys come up with a better name than melodic free verse?
here's one that already exists (a little pedestrian)
variable foot prosody
I would assume it resembles William Carlos Williams more.

 

[bogusagain]

...well, you do vote, which was my objection to "join the movement, while I sit back attitude"

When it comes to artistic movements, don't the con-artists lead and the foolish follow?

 

[twelveoone]

When it comes to artistic movements, don't the con-artists lead and the foolish follow?

of course
I always said poetry is a big tent:
full of circus animals
pickpockets
geeks
and clowns

but you do have to pick your part

 

[butters]

of course
I always said poetry is a big tent:
full of circus animals
pickpockets
geeks
and clowns

but you do have to pick your part

i'm the poop-collector, sweeper-upper, and tea-trolley dolly

 

[CharleyH]

Sign in here if you'd like to join me in combatting plain prose disguised as poetry. We will work to end the most popular form of poetry in contemporary art. In place of a paragraph story made into lines and stanza we'll seek out those melodic free verse gems to fill the free form void.

Even if prose poetry were the most popular form of poetry in contemporary art, which I seriously doubt, how do you convince people that watching Stargate Universe is more mind-bending and interesting than Glee? You can't. Glee fans won't listen.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Without trying to be overly offensive, this poem sounds like a 90's self-help infomercial introduction. I imagine you've read your Rumi. This poem is like a hybrid of Rumi, edwin Markham, and Kevin Trudeau(Weightloss Cures they don't want you to know about(sic))

...Since we're criticising poems this week.

Er... OK, except that's not a poem. It's part of an essay.

 

[Epmd607]

The problem with comabatting X disguised as Y is that you will first have to, in positivistic terms, define X and Y.

I wish thee luck.

Describing prose and poetry as separate entities is vital for the survival of poetry. Identifying prose as it pollutes poetry isn't so difficult. At what point has musicality left the piece? At the point where it becomes prose. Any popular internet magazine is largely prose mistaken as poetry. For example: http://www.lapetitezine.org/index.htm

 

[Epmd607]

I am constantly amazed, how some in this group
continuously persist on degrading certain forms of poetry.
Unfortunately, Literotica provides but one category
to which all forms of poetry must be submitted.
Leaving us open to beauty with all its thorns!

Bulltlr, weren't you the provost who promoted themselves as Most Influential Lit Poet over and over? That is, 'til someone caught wind of your scheme and shut your program down.

 

[Epmd607]

riffing for you.
a little dissin for Epmd,
least he can do is vote some these suckas down( like journal dumpers, which I handed out a 50 to, I lost patience); better yet vote some of the good stuff up
If he pulls your trinket box over he could have commented.

I'm interested in new quality poems on Literotica. But the point of the thread was in recognizing what prose has done to poetry. Lazy writers write poems all the time out of a paragraph.

Which is prose and which is a poem disguised as prose?

Against the gamut of soft girl sounds and the embrace of a crooked bough, I reform my memory in its thickets—to dapple your intricate passage through. To wind you home, 'til no cricket lie—along the path from your bough to apple.

To note, the brilliant trees weren't worth noting. The clouds were purple and such a bore in comparison to a walk home with you. Your shorts always seem so restricting—I don't know how you do it, but I could help you out with them...

If we ever got home I didn't want to go to sleep and have a new day diminish the last. Maybe a spaceship might take us away and suspend us in our sleep. Maybe I might die anonymously, which wouldn't be so terrible had you sent me off in the evening.

 

[Epmd607]

Wadded Red Lace
byPoetGuy©

It was not the way she handed him
the damp undergarment, nor
her slitted eyes, her half-smile,
her snake tongue flicking at the air for scent.
It was that the lace was wet. And why.


This submission is prose, unless someone can make an argument for poetic elements. It could be the first three sentences for a story PoetGuy is working on. Three excellent introductory sentences. The fact that it's not a poem doesn't take away from the quality of the image. The tell for me is that the line breaks are irrelevant, they could be in a number of places and we'd still easily read the sentences and get the image.

It was not the way she handed him the damp undergarment,
nor her slitted eyes, her half smile, her snake tongue
flicking at the air for scent.
It was that the lace was wet.
And why.

It was not the way
she handed him the damp undergarment, nor
her slitted eyes, her half smile, her snake tongue flicking
at the air for scent. It was that the lace was wet.
And why.

It was not the way she handed him the damp undergarment, nor her slitted eyes, her half smile, her snake tongue flicking at the air for scent. It was that the lace was wet. And why.

What could have made this into a poem? An attention to iambs, accentual-syllabic verse? Obviously, line breaks do not make for poetry. Do we want prose and poetry to be separate? Does it matter?

 

[twelveoone]

I'm interested in new quality poems on Literotica. But the point of the thread was in recognizing what prose has done to poetry. Lazy writers write poems all the time out of a paragraph.

Lazy thinkers...
What is the point? Did you vote either way, comment on these lazy SOB's. Noooooooooooooooo....................................................................................
Besides, I've seen many poems written that way, a lot of them good.
Sangria Bloodshed
byjd4george©

Wineskin drippings
plastered across the front page,
spitting words I do not understand.
Americans curse in letters
three inches high
as photojournalists wait
for the proper light
to snap Pulitzer Prize winning stuff.

The blizzard drifts
from jungle sweat to banks
of powdered snow for the junkies
on Wall Street,
the New York cartels…
money and hype
and bullshit.

The cat knocks my arm,
spilling my wine and soaking
the page in sangrian ooze,
wiping out some sidebar story
about the families
and the victims.

Note to self: Next time,
be more careful with the wine.




Report Story
byjd4george©

As far as I'm concerned, one of the best writers to ever come though this place.

 

[Epmd607]

It's already a task getting people to recognize the distinction between prose disguised as poetry and prose-poetry(which exists under the banner of poetry)

 

[twelveoone]

It's already a task getting people to recognize the distinction between prose disguised as poetry and prose-poetry(which exists under the banner of poetry)

hit' em where it hurts
now about jd4george?

 

[Epmd607]

hit' em where it hurts
now about jd4george?

Oni Buchanan was one of my favorite writers a few years ago. She's a prose poet. http://www.onibuchanan.com/poetry_samples.html

The simple or silly story made into a poem has become overwhelmingly popular. Darkmaas was sort of borderline, but he's not around anymore to defend his prose/poetry. We'll stay current, people that can defend their work on Lit, if they wish.

 

[twelveoone]

Wadded Red Lace
byPoetGuy©

It was not the way she handed him
the damp undergarment, nor
her slitted eyes, her half-smile,
her snake tongue flicking at the air for scent.
It was that the lace was wet. And why.


This submission is prose, unless someone can make an argument for poetic elements. It could be the first three sentences for a story PoetGuy is working on. Three excellent introductory sentences. The fact that it's not a poem doesn't take away from the quality of the image. The tell for me is that the line breaks are irrelevant, they could be in a number of places and we'd still easily read the sentences and get the image.

It was not the way she handed him the damp undergarment,
nor her slitted eyes, her half smile, her snake tongue
flicking at the air for scent.
It was that the lace was wet.
And why.

It was not the way
she handed him the damp undergarment, nor
her slitted eyes, her half smile, her snake tongue flicking
at the air for scent. It was that the lace was wet.
And why.

It was not the way she handed him the damp undergarment, nor her slitted eyes, her half smile, her snake tongue flicking at the air for scent. It was that the lace was wet. And why.

What could have made this into a poem? An attention to iambs, accentual-syllabic verse? Obviously, line breaks do not make for poetry. Do we want prose and poetry to be separate? Does it matter?

there is a rhythm there
at least he got the 1,2,3 and 4 down right
where's the rest?
Rhymes
WTF do you want? Blank verse?

 

[twelveoone]

http://www.literotica.com/p/so-what-is-it

here this looks like a bunch of sentences, go for it. I would be careful. It does have one rhyme

 

[Epmd607]

there is a rhythm there
at least he got the 1,2,3 and 4 down right
where's the rest?
Rhymes
WTF do you want? Blank verse?

One half-rhyme, one measured rhythm(under my re-write) is enough to qualify this work as a poem?

undo ki
bytwelveoone©

the sight of you in kimono
undone - i've become

engaged
with doing

what is left undone


There's a half-rhyme and a refrain, necessary enjambment to create poetic elements...such as

un/done - I've be/come - engaged - with do/ing

 

[twelveoone]

One half-rhyme, one measured rhythm(under my re-write) is enough to qualify this work as a poem?

undo ki
bytwelveoone©

the sight of you in kimono
undone - i've become

engaged
with doing

what is left undone


There's a half-rhyme and a refrain, necessary enjambment to create poetic elements...such as

un/done - I've be/come - engaged - with do/ing

I'll check the comments, which if you did, you would have seen exactly what it was, nothing more.

 

[Liar]

Describing prose and poetry as separate entities is vital for the survival of poetry. Identifying prose as it pollutes poetry isn't so difficult. At what point has musicality left the piece? At the point where it becomes prose. Any popular internet magazine is largely prose mistaken as poetry. For example: http://www.lapetitezine.org/index.htm

See, there's the problem. You're homing in on a definition of poetry that I'm not buying. Or you seem to be.

Musicality is but one poetic device (or rather a combination of different ones) out of many. A poet chooses the devices that are effective for communicating the message and apt for the poetry genre of his choice. That may or may not include audible devices as meter and rhyme. If a poet cling to certain decives out of a skewed notion that poems must contain them, said poet is crippling himself.

Bullet list please, what must a poem contain to not be, in your words, "prose disguised as poetry"? You're looking for flowery elocution? Meter structure? Depth of metaphor (what has zilch to do with musicality)?

 

[Epmd607]

So, what is it
left unsaid?
Undone?

un/un

How could you have known
how much I'd miss your words.
I who said too little,
perhaps then, I
say too much.

blank verse

And that I,
king of ice floes,
could be touched,
by the warmth of your words,
broken, and fear.

blank verse

In a picture you painted, I was drawn in,
and my eyes would close in a red haze, to that ember,
and in dreams of a verdant grove where the green
light from the leaves shown radiant
you on a limb of a apple tree.

grove/green light/leaves, green/leaves

I carried that ember,
for, still, it is a human heart;
till that emberous flame fizzled,
dimmed in the damp;
out to the cold.

flame/fizzled, dimmed/damp, we have a pattern now

Damn verbiage.
Cursed form.
Monster,

that I am, return
to the waste places
of which I love,
and with love
returned.

blank verse with refrain

Content
with my descent
over the fallen stone.
To build my pyre,
my substitute.

possible full rhyme

And sing
in guttural
throes.


The poem is mostly blank verse, prose poetry with some strong poetic elements in the middle, even some rhythm and rhyme. I actually read this when you submitted it, but I didn't comment. I still don't really have much to say about it, besides for better defining its poetic elements compared to prosaic elements. Of course, blank verse isn't naturally prose. But that's a much harder discussion.

 

[twelveoone]

Spheres play a discordant tune.
quoting my self

 

[Liar]

Even if prose poetry were the most popular form of poetry in contemporary art, which I seriously doubt, how do you convince people that watching Stargate Universe is more mind-bending and interesting than Glee? You can't. Glee fans won't listen.

Hey, I watch both.

 

[twelveoone]

And sing
in guttural
throes.

Shit, if I saw a line like that, I would have given it a 6, in context a 7.
Consider it, you're missing too much.
doesn't look too musical though