How do I help someone appreciate poetry?

[butters]

how does BDSM apply? I see a lot of it in new poems, although I don't appreciate it much.

it's all too focused on paraphenalia for my tastes. plus i don't do pain.

EPFF on the Briggs and Stratton
Extra perverted fooled by fantasy
EPFF's rank high...

*sniggers*

c'mon chip how is this different from the zodiac or any other thing that comes down the business consulate pike?
The Latest Buzz

The process of an education system is to introduce the bees to the business of business, some of the high order drones going on and graduating from B-school.

in other words bullshit, I can hardly wait till the time the West exports this type of non sense to what was formerly third world countries, so that the US and England can regain a sense of parity.

Once was a time, we made shoes, once was a time of Detroit, true you couldn't breathe in Pittsburgh, Birm 'n'ham.
Now all we make is EMT's for fat hearts
dying of shock when the Chinese...
raise their prices
on crap.

i think you need to have this discussion with greenmountaineer, twelvio - he has insider knowledge of it all if i read his other post correctly. but why should a defining of personality traits, their prominence or repression, and how these can help us understand the needs/behaviour/areas of stress of an individual be akin to astrology? quack science? i'm less than convinced. maybe i'm too gullible - and, clearly, online testing is not to be viewed with the same level of seriousness as the qualified, experienced 'tester' evaluating your replies to their questions.

don't get all tight-arsed on me, twelvio - loosen up a little

 

[twelveoone]

it's all too focused on paraphenalia for my tastes. plus i don't do pain.


*sniggers*

i think you need to have this discussion with greenmountaineer, twelvio - he has insider knowledge of it all if i read his other post correctly. but why should a defining of personality traits, their prominence or repression, and how these can help us understand the needs/behaviour/areas of stress of an individual be akin to astrology? quack science? i'm less than convinced. maybe i'm too gullible - and, clearly, online testing is not to be viewed with the same level of seriousness as the qualified, experienced 'tester' evaluating your replies to their questions.

don't get all tight-arsed on me, twelvio - loosen up a little

I'm just starting
's advocate

so what do you do for a living?
I interview people.
For what?
So I can assign them to the proper bin.

 

[bogusagain]

Appreciation for poetry can be learned (at least imo as someone who has taught it), but one does need some desire to try. That may be motivated by things that have nothing to do with poetry (like wanting to pass the class), but sometimes love for poetry is born from it.

I'd go along with that. I was hooked by English teacher reciting Coleridge's Xanadu. I then spent the next couple of my angst ridden teenage years writing emo poetry based on Xanadu, when I came into contact with a book called The Mersey Poets and realised poetry has the equivalent of pop art and I then started to write pop poetry. It took me a hell of a long time to realise you needed to find your own voice but I suppose you need to reject everybody else's style first. I think some formal education in poetry would have saved me a lot of years writing utter and complete crap but then, maybe I would have just ended up writing 'good poetry' rather than my own poetry. One can disappear up one's own semi-colon thinking about these things.

 

[twelveoone]

I'd go along with that. I was hooked by English teacher reciting Coleridge's Xanadu. I then spent the next couple of my angst ridden teenage years writing emo poetry based on Xanadu, when I came into contact with a book called The Mersey Poets and realised poetry has the equivalent of pop art and I then started to write pop poetry. It took me a hell of a long time to realise you needed to find your own voice but I suppose you need to reject everybody else's style first. I think some formal education in poetry would have saved me a lot of years writing utter and complete crap but then, maybe I would have just ended up writing 'good poetry' rather than my own poetry. One can disappear up one's own semi-colon thinking about these things.

in late night TV land, where Alf the sacred alien ran...
me, too, I always loved Oliva Newton John

 

[bogusagain]

I can hardly wait till the time the West exports this type of non sense to what was formerly third world countries, so that the US and England can regain a sense of parity.

Too late. I ended up on the continent because I was told by Thatcher's government mining and engineering was passe and the future for the plebs was opening and closing doors for each other and the future for the equites was gambling in the fiat money industry. I thought if this is the future, I might as well be a wide boy myself and duck and dive. Western politicians no longer have any intellectual backbone and there are too many pseudo-academics. I've actually taught in higher education myself and believe me, if they'll have me with my spiv philosophy, they'll have anyone.

 

[bogusagain]

, I always loved Oliva Newton John

Loved or lusted?

 

[twelveoone]

don't get all tight-arsed on me, twelvio - loosen up a little

well now that I'm done riling up the troops...
I think, I'll go change my AV, or something

 

[twelveoone]

Too late. I ended up on the continent because I was told by Thatcher's government mining and engineering was passe and the future for the plebs was opening and closing doors for each other and the future for the equites was gambling in the fiat money industry. I thought if this is the future, I might as well be a wide boy myself and duck and dive. Western politicians no longer have any intellectual backbone and there are too many pseudo-academics. I've actually taught in higher education myself and believe me, if they'll have me with my spiv philosophy, they'll have anyone.

...and England's dreamin'

 

[twelveoone]

Loved or lusted?

you know most men get the two confused, when it comes young women, why should I, be any different? I haven't thought about her in years. Next time you see her, ask her...

 

[butters]

I'd go along with that. I was hooked by English teacher reciting Coleridge's Xanadu. I then spent the next couple of my angst ridden teenage years writing emo poetry based on Xanadu, when I came into contact with a book called The Mersey Poets and realised poetry has the equivalent of pop art and I then started to write pop poetry. It took me a hell of a long time to realise you needed to find your own voice but I suppose you need to reject everybody else's style first. I think some formal education in poetry would have saved me a lot of years writing utter and complete crap but then, maybe I would have just ended up writing 'good poetry' rather than my own poetry. One can disappear up one's own semi-colon thinking about these things.

i'm not sure how i'd feel about someone else reciting it before i'd read it the first time ... but that poem absolutely blew me away as a teenager. it definitely had a big impact on me wanting to read other poetry. that one and Wordsworth's Influence of natural Objects. these and Shakespeare were my first big 'oh wows!'. and then there was Wilfred Owen...

sigh...

 

[butters]

well now that I'm done riling up the troops...
I think, I'll go change my AV, or something

or go write an anthem to doomed youth? don't forget to mix it up, though, with petrarchan sonnet using an English sonnet's rhyme scheme ...

or then again...

av's aweighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[twelveoone]

or go write an anthem to doomed youth? don't forget to mix it up, though, with petrarchan sonnet using an English sonnet's rhyme scheme ...

or then again...

av's aweighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen2.html

you like Owen? I must be the only American that does.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

 

[butters]

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen2.html

you like Owen? I must be the only American that does.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

yes. his work is striking. just look at that poem you've posted. the sound, the imagery, the life and destroying of it - he swallows me up in that poem, and in others... phrases such as

Men marched asleep

An ecstasy of fumbling

Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;


oh, i might as well post every word he wrote!

perhaps the americans are less fond because they didn't experience the trench warfare as a nation? at least, if they did, i've not seen mention of it. perhaps, also, Owen's critical and unflinching revelation of how the troops really fared in WW1 due to the appalling inability of the commanding officers and regime as a whole smacks them as unpatriotic...

 

[twelveoone]

yes. his work is striking. just look at that poem you've posted. the sound, the imagery, the life and destroying of it - he swallows me up in that poem, and in others... phrases such as

Men marched asleep

An ecstasy of fumbling

Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;


oh, i might as well post every word he wrote!

perhaps the americans are less fond because they didn't experience the trench warfare as a nation? at least, if they did, i've not seen mention of it. perhaps, also, Owen's critical and unflinching revelation of how the troops really fared in WW1 due to the appalling inability of the commanding officers and regime as a whole smacks them as unpatriotic...

I have
and you are probably right
By the time the American's had gotten over, it had become a mobile war.

There is a great book
The Great War and Modern Memory
yes, that Paul Fussell
Did you read?

 

[twelveoone]

perhaps the americans are less fond because they didn't experience the trench warfare as a nation? at least, if they did, i've not seen mention of it. perhaps, also, Owen's critical and unflinching revelation of how the troops really fared in WW1 due to the appalling inability of the commanding officers and regime as a whole smacks them as unpatriotic...

adding

and a rather eerie ironic note
the book is dedicated to Technical Sergeant Edward Keith Hudson, "killed beside me in France, March 15, 1945."

Owen was killed a week before Armistice?

 

[bronzeage]

yes. his work is striking. just look at that poem you've posted. the sound, the imagery, the life and destroying of it - he swallows me up in that poem, and in others... phrases such as

Men marched asleep

An ecstasy of fumbling

Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;


oh, i might as well post every word he wrote!

perhaps the americans are less fond because they didn't experience the trench warfare as a nation? at least, if they did, i've not seen mention of it. perhaps, also, Owen's critical and unflinching revelation of how the troops really fared in WW1 due to the appalling inability of the commanding officers and regime as a whole smacks them as unpatriotic...

Americans did experience trench warfare as a nation during our War Between the States, 1860-1864. The final year came down to a series of sieges. It was the dwindling resources of the South and the willingness of the North to sustain huge casualties which brought it to an end. There were over 600,000 men killed, which is a greater number than all US dead, from the Revolution, through the War in Viet Nam. This was still in living memory in 1914 and played a large part in US unwillingness to get involved.

There is a large amount of poetry from men who fought in the Civil War. "Grape shot" is an early version of the cluster bomb. It was a cannon charge of several dozen 1 inch iron balls and was fired at advancing artillery.

LITTLE GIFFEN
by Francis Orray Tickner

Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire,
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!)
Spectre! such as you seldom see,
Little Giffen, of Tennessee

"Take him - and welcome!" the surgeons said;
"Little the doctor can help the dead!"
So we took him and brought him where
The balm was sweet in the summer air;
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed -
Utter Lazarus, heel to head!

And we watched the war with abated breath -
Skeleton boy against skeleton death.
Months of torture, how many such!
Weary weeks of the stick and crutch;
And still a glint of the steel-blue eye
Told of a spirit that wouldn't die,

And didn't. Nay, more! in death's despite
The crippled skeleton learned to write.
"Dear Mother," at first, of course; and then
"Dear Captain," inquiring about the men.
Captain's answer: "Of eighty and five,
Giffen and I are left alive."

Word of gloom from the war, one day;
"Johnston pressed at the front, they say."
Little Giffen was up and away;
A tear - his first - as he bade good-by,
Dimmed the glint of his steel-blue eye.
"I'll write, if spared!" There was news of the fight;
But none of Giffen. He did not write.

I sometimes fancy that, were I king
Of the princely knights of the Golden Ring,
With the song of the minstrel in mine ear,
And the tender legend that trembles here,
I'd give the best on his bended knee,
The whitest soul of my chivalry,
For Little Giffen, of Tennessee.

 

[butters]

I have
and you are probably right
By the time the American's had gotten over, it had become a mobile war.

There is a great book
The Great War and Modern Memory
yes, that Paul Fussell
Did you read?

not read it yet - maybe will find the time one day. but just read through your next link - the interview:

Fussell: They have experienced secretly and privately their natural human impulse toward sadism and brutality. As I say in this new book of mine, not merely did I learn to kill with a noose of piano wire put around somebody's neck from behind, but I learned to enjoy the prospect of killing that way. It's those things that you learn about yourself that you never forget. You learn that you have much wider dimensions than you had imagined before you had to fight a war. That's salutary. It's well to know exactly who you are so you can conduct the rest of your life properly.

this hits home.

it's prompting a write but i think right now that'd be a facile undertaking. i don't have the experience or depth of understanding...



right. gotta get off here for now. no3 wants to use the pc.