How original are you?

[Angeline]

What a dirty X-rated porno poem! Oh, it's Literotica! Dylan, welcome, you came to the right place, Thomas.

He just rolled over in his grave, SJ. Maybe he laughed.

 

[Liar]

I would add a fifth, I'm not even sure you realize you do it. Your poetry has a tendency to "sing" . I'm sorry I don't have a better word for it.

A good (either intellectual or instictive) grasp of prosody?

That's what I'd call it.

 

[twelveoone]

monosyllabism.


Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines by Dylan Thomas


Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts[/B] smell in the rain;
When logics die,
The secret of the soil grow through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.


. . . a quick tally. 207 words. 191 of them have one syllable

= music.

Oh, I don't think so, laughs, must be more than that -
for starters
Where no repeated four times? Here he does use repeated words often - standard trick (techique) Something Angeline does very well. Note: resolution in of where thoughts. Four Where's with negation resolved with a positive (abstract)

I don't disagree with Liar, nor you.

and I know you'll don't like me much when I call 'em tricks of the trade

 

[twelveoone]

Yes, one beat per word allows the reader to create the iambs and trochees with minimal guidance by the poet with punctuation and line breaks. I strive toward this.

Interesting
considering
you laughed when I removed all punctuation
for the effect

 

[twelveoone]

Yin & yang.

Isolated "me" pieces may be ok. But I am looking at our forum from the perspective of over five years. The atmosphere of "when I have a writer's block..." and "my inspiration..." and "in my experience poems..." is detrimental to the artistic level of the participants of this forum. And so is wasting time on praising poor poems which are not even any pieces of art, which are just half-cooked failed exercises. Wrong attitude prevents participants from working on their art.

In art you have to be infinitely confident, but at the same time you have to be infinitely modest--you should not be conscious of your own existing. Brain is a flexible thing. It learns everything. When exposed to the good stuff and to the good habits, its learning is its great advantage. But threads "me this, me that" damage the brain of the participants. You can't have it both ways. Art requires discipline. And an important part of the discipline is to say NO to any junk. It's fun to goof, etc. but certain kinds of goofing seriously harm your artistic potential.

We had a bunch of threads where participants where talking about poetry and poetic experiences and "poetic life" like everybody was Nobel prize winner, giving a press interview. And time was going by, and no good poems were discussed. Thus it was more than a waste of time. It was harmful. And talking about oneself in negative, critical and "objective" terms, or putting oneself down for jokes, is still immodest and unhealthy. Sure, John Kennedy was good at it. And it looked modest. But was it? Certainly not. But yes, he was good . Whenever we talk about ourselves, it's not modest, period. It doesn't matter that we are oh-so-self-critical. It's immodest all the same.



Posting en mass, with shallow comments only, without getting into the artistic issues, is meaningless. And not seeing dramatic differences between poems, praising poor and strong poems alike, is harmful. Indeed, it tells authors that everything goes, that nothing really matters except for social graces.

This statement was uncalled for (and it's not even remotely connected to the originality theme or any meritorious discussion).

Indeed, only moderators have the power of "telling". Otherwise there is no such thing here as deciding for others.

Or crisp fragments. And the understanding should be that others may show the piece or the presented element is unoriginal, or artistically poor after all. It should always be risk and a 2-way street.

I've initiated "show off yourself" threads over the years on several forums, including this one (possibly more than once). The offerings were requested to be specific. The exact strength of a phrase, or a well defined aspect of the poem was supposed to be stated. The assumption of those threads was always, that what the author presents as an achievement can be possibly shown as a weakness, even as a glaring weakness. This has happened on one of the forums. It took a fourfold iteration back and force before author finally agreed that what he considered to be a strong point was bad. Since then he made true progress.

In this kind of show offs one should strive at crisp, convincing raisins and pearls only .

Best regards,

ROFL
Ecco homo

tr: Behold Man

 

[TheRainMan]

Oh, I don't think so, laughs, must be more than that -
for starters
Where no repeated four times? Here he does use repeated words often - standard trick (techique) Something Angeline does very well. Note: resolution in of where thoughts. Four Where's with negation resolved with a positive (abstract)

I don't disagree with Liar, nor you.

and I know you'll don't like me much when I call 'em tricks of the trade

i agree -- the alliteration, the repetition, both have a hand in the musicality. not nearly as big a hand as the monosyllabism, though.

i don't mind calling them tricks of the trade, as long as the connotation of 'cheap and easy' doesn't come along with it, as if anyone can make a poem music. we all know very few can do it well.

 

[twelveoone]

i agree -- the alliteration, the repetition, both have a hand in the musicality. not nearly as big a hand as the monosyllabism, though.

i don't mind calling them tricks of the trade, as long as the connotation of 'cheap and easy' doesn't come along with it, as if anyone can make a poem music. we all know very few can do it well.

the real trick is making it look easy
and I am the master of making it look cheap also

you do the musicality well, Patrick, wish you much success in the coming year(s)

 

[LoneliestPoet]

Nuclear Holocaust!

The fires are seen across the chasm,
as the fog lifts into the sky. No more
will the people sing and dance, no more
the birds will fly.

Man has made his worthless bed, that
sinks into this pit. He strives to make things
better, but now must lie in it.

~ LoneliestPoet

 

[TheRainMan]

the real trick is making it look easy
and I am the master of making it look cheap also

you do the musicality well, Patrick, wish you much success in the coming year(s)

cheap? -- shit, you write the most original poetry at Lit, year in and year out. it looks fuckin' expensive to me.

and thank you much for the well-wishes. you too, number man.

.

 

[twelveoone]

cheap? -- shit, you write the most original poetry at Lit, year in and year out. it looks fuckin' expensive to me.

and thank you much for the well-wishes. you too, number man.

.

that may be, I was going to answer this thread seriously but the more I discover the less orginal I see myself as original in the context of what is out there
(I have yet to find cross-over text used, like I have, word or phase that can be assigned to two different voices that will have two different meanings).

What do expect form a guy who owes more to MST3K http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000
than Keats.

I am the most reckless. Senna comes in a distant second. And I have more fun.

 

[bogusbrig]

Ok, so what's my question to you, fellow poets?

Simply this: How original are you?

People just don't get my most original work so I don't post it.

And I'm not very good at derivative work so I cringe on occasions I've been foolish enough to post that.

I'm trying to find a compromise between the two but hell, it looks like a compromise.

 

[twelveoone]

People just don't get my most original work so I don't post it.

And I'm not very good at derivative work so I cringe on occasions I've been foolish enough to post that.

I'm trying to find a compromise between the two but hell, it looks like a compromise.

ROFL,
why do I get the feeling...that a compromise from you would be original in and of itself.
There is nothing new under the sun, unless of course it's another sun, another colour please.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

How original arm I?

You tell me.



Please.

 

[eagleyez]

You tell me.



Please.

You are AN original.

 

[twelveoone]

You tell me.



Please.

on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Hallmark imitations, 9 being e.e. cummings, a six or a seven, the sweet spots