Poetic Forms

[twelveoone]

I love Kenneth Koch! Apart from being surreal, he's a great teacher. His books are excellent. I'm actually thinking of buying the one he wrote on teaching poetry to primary school kids and donating to my son's school (poor school, limited resources and lots of kids with literacy issues; not my son though. He read at 18 months.).

well that does put you in with good company, Tzara one of the most studious people here loves him. I really don't know his work.

I gave him an extra point for the "mind of Wallace Stevens" whom I really don't understand. And good ole Wally is a Modernist I believe.

 

[Tzara]

I stand corrected, by myself

He found the rodent pair a short time later
And gave them food and water and a lift
To Thebes, where they could buy a carburetor
In fact, he gave one to them as a gift,
And wished them luck, then, Senatorial satyr,
Cruised factory workers getting off their shift
At OEDI-PANS, the kitchen factory Thebans
Kept busier than the mind of Wallace Stevens

p.123 - The Duplicatons - Kenneth Koch

A massive missive that is oddly profound according to the book jacket, that dares to ask the question
"Walt Disney dead! And Salvador Dali Lives!"
actually it is more of an implied question
not a Triolet

Of course it ain't a triolet. It's ottava rima, twelvie. Same form Georgie Byron used in Don Juan.

Requires waay too much commitment to a single theme for me. Though The Duplications is pretty funny, as is Ko; or A Season on Earth.

For that matter, Don Juan is pretty funny. In a Romantic kind of way.

 

[Tzara]

I love Kenneth Koch! Apart from being surreal, he's a great teacher.

He is. I'm re-reading Making Your Own Days, which is a super book.

 

[Tzara]

Poetic Meter & Poetic Form by Paul Fussell has to be one of the best books that covers this topic, giving examples and possible drawbacks to using certain forms. I would be greatly surprised if my esteamed colleague and former sparring partner Tzara hasn't read it.

"Esteamed?" That makes me sound like an aluminum tray of limp vegetables suspended over a weak Sterno flame.

Which may, of course, be quite accurate.

Except for the flame part.

very, very sensible and probably the best, most reasoned argument for scansion I've ever seen

Well, no, I haven't read it, but now I will. Soon.

 

[vrosej10]

He is. I'm re-reading Making Your Own Days, which is a super book.

It tis a cracker ain't it. I love that book too.

 

[mikesaysno]

removed

 

[twelveoone]

Of course it ain't a triolet. It's ottava rima, twelvie. Same form Georgie Byron used in Don Juan.

that be
Lord Byron
as it be
Lord twelveoone



What I don't understand is the neoformalist drift from someone with such a Dadaist name.

If I cry out:

Ideal, ideal, ideal,
# Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge,
# Boomboom, boomboom, boomboom,

I have given a pretty faithful version of progress, law, morality and all other fine qualities that various highly intelligent men have discussed...

Boomboom, sound and fury and all that jazz

 

[Tzara]

What I don't understand is the neoformalist drift from someone with such a Dadaist name.

Those who do not understand Forms are condemned to repeat them.

 

[bogusagain]

Surely everyman understands 36-22-36?

Hmm My dealer prefers 42 chest but he would being a teapot.

 

[twelveoone]

Surely everyman understands 36-22-36?

Hmm My dealer prefers 42 chest but he would being a teapot.

could you translate that to metric

 

[bogusagain]

could you translate that to metric

107.5 I suppose but that sounds like a radio station which isn't good form, considering he'd have other things on his mind.

 

[Tzara]

107.5 I suppose but that sounds like a radio station which isn't good form, considering he'd have other things on his mind.

Apparently he prefers the high end of the band.

 

[twelveoone]

Apparently he prefers the high end of the band.

yeh, he always liked you better, and who could blame him?

 

[twelveoone]

What I don't understand is the neoformalist drift from someone with such a Dadaist name.

If I cry out:

Ideal, ideal, ideal,
# Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge,
# Boomboom, boomboom, boomboom,

I have given a pretty faithful version of progress, law, morality and all other fine qualities that various highly intelligent men have discussed...

Boomboom, sound and fury and all that jazz

by the way that was Tristan...Willie and some movie title, lest someone accuse me of stealing, which I do, do, do

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
Love me do

 

[Tzara]

by the way that was Tristan...Willie and some movie title, lest someone accuse me of stealing, which I do, do, do

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah
Love me do

Well, perhaps, but you've left out the One True power chord:

Which kind of leaves even Tony Iommi with a fried and smoking SG and most of western Europe burnt over with bitonalism.

Or, maybe, Marshall stack back flash.

Talk about "Love me do," hah!

 

[twelveoone]

Well, perhaps, but you've left out the One True power chord:

Which kind of leaves even Tony Iommi with a fried and smoking SG and most of western Europe burnt over with bitonalism.

Or, maybe, Marshall stack back flash.

Talk about "Love me do," hah!

personally I prefer the devil's tritone,
don't need no stinkin Marshall stack

SG?
I had you figured for a Strat.

 

[twelveoone]

I sometimes wonder why a poet chooses a particular form. Sometimes I think I know. For example, Robert Frost, who among his many honors was Vermont's poet laureate, had an uncanny ability to make blank verse sound like poetry and common speech. (I swear that some of my neighbors up here in northern New England talk in unrhymed iambic pentameter most of the time. LOL)

Do you have a particular liking for a poetic form? Please note: I'm not asking for preference of one over others, so talk about several forms if you're so inclined. What are your reasons for writing in a particular form? By the same token, if you don't like form poetry at all, what do you like about free verse as opposed to forms?

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=531707

Thought you might be interested, since I saw your comment the other day. Fussel had some interesting things to say about the sonnet; I don't know if you caught my drift in another thread.
The why gives clue to the use.
So to answer your question,
I like ee cummings, he wrote sonnets, he used white space

and despite Herr Jawa thinking I write drivel, I do go back to the why and perform failure analysis tests in writing what I do; and wonder of wonder what most people believe about poetry are based on sets of false assumptions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_scansion
case in point all these rely on a common accent, and are used for metrical verse
but stress changes considerably due to other factors, like context, particularly when alliteration is used, otherwise how do you explain the old accentual rules. Hopkins, complete mystery known only to god.
And none of these systems take into account what we be called in music as tempo changes. Only the line length school does that, a line is one breath.

Now a flippant, rhetorical question, do you like Chinese poetry?
Forget it, there is a history...
But the point is about half of the Chinese will never hear it, it was written in and for a different language.
A rather wordy rant, but go back to when [whatever you want to do started, find the why, it shows you the uses, possibilities and the limitations.
Good writing BTW, if you had turned on the scoring thing all 100's. I don't know if you saw what I wrote in the voice thread, it may be of interest, but I also think you would be a hell of a free verse writer. I hear tempo changes.

 

[greenmountaineer]

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=531707

Thought you might be interested, since I saw your comment the other day. Fussel had some interesting things to say about the sonnet; I don't know if you caught my drift in another thread.
The why gives clue to the use.
So to answer your question,
I like ee cummings, he wrote sonnets, he used white space

and despite Herr Jawa thinking I write drivel, I do go back to the why and perform failure analysis tests in writing what I do; and wonder of wonder what most people believe about poetry are based on sets of false assumptions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_scansion
case in point all these rely on a common accent, and are used for metrical verse
but stress changes considerably due to other factors, like context, particularly when alliteration is used, otherwise how do you explain the old accentual rules. Hopkins, complete mystery known only to god.
And none of these systems take into account what we be called in music as tempo changes. Only the line length school does that, a line is one breath.

Now a flippant, rhetorical question, do you like Chinese poetry?
Forget it, there is a history...
But the point is about half of the Chinese will never hear it, it was written in and for a different language.
A rather wordy rant, but go back to when [whatever you want to do started, find the why, it shows you the uses, possibilities and the limitations.
Good writing BTW, if you had turned on the scoring thing all 100's. I don't know if you saw what I wrote in the voice thread, it may be of interest, but I also think you would be a hell of a free verse writer. I hear tempo changes.

Thanks. I'll follow the links when I have some extra time. I learn more when I take the time to do it. As to form poetry v. vers libre, I lean (just a little) in the direction of the former, although I have enough rebel in me that I'll bastardize the form if I like the sound of it. I've done free verse, but even there the rebel re-appears in some fashion.