The New Poems List

[Suzi]

My Two Cents

If I may please offer....

"And thank you _Land for your continues activity."

I think continuous would fit best here...because it covers past, present and future.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Re: Well Fishie....

Senna Jawa has a PM waiting for him......and I let my feelings be known.

I've read it . Suzi, you want to eat your cake and have it too. Oh, well, I'll let you. Let Pegasus be gentle with you

Regards,

 

[Senna Jawa]

Re: My Two Cents

If I may please offer....

"And thank you _Land for your continues activity."

I think continuous would fit best here...because it covers past, present and future.

Indeed, my decades of exposure to the differential and integral calculus, and to topology, tell me that this is so.

Talking about decades, I was once invited to a very straight New Year party, except that the host was a homosexual. In the door to his apartment, and this was the very first time we had ever met, he greets me with "Happy New Year!". It was 1979/1980, so I responded with "Happy Decade", except that I unintentionally mispronounced "decade" as "decay(d)". He had risen his brow high in surprise. Things like this happen to me.

Regards,

 

[Suzi]

Re: Re: My Two Cents

Indeed, my decades of exposure to the differential and integral calculus, and to topology, tell me that this is so.

Talking about decades, I was once invited to a veryu straight New Year party, except that the host was a homosexual. In the door to his apartment, and this is the first time we have met, he greets me with "Happy New Year!". But it was 1989/1990, so I responded with "Happy Decade", except that I unintentionally mispronounced "decade" as "decay(d)". He had risen his brow high in surprise. Things like this happen to me.

Regards,

and I am just falling back on my English class grammar and common sense! I do have some, even if I am just a lowly common amateur.....(sarcasm intended)

 

[Senna Jawa]

Re: Re: Re: My Two Cents

and I am just falling back on my English class grammar and common sense! I do have some, even if I am just a lowly common amateur.....(sarcasm intended)

My gosh! I thought that it was me in this and only in this only lonely case who was sarcastic. Suzi, you cut me into slices, and slices into pieces, and you turn pieces into powder, poof! I am gone!

 

[Suzi]

My Two Cents

My gosh! I thought that it was me in this and only in this only lonely case who was sarcastic. Suzi, you cut me into slices, and slices into pieces, and you turn pieces into powder, poof! I am gone!

Senna...I may be a witch...but I do not make people disappear...lol

 

[Senna Jawa]

Re: SJ thank you for you compliment

you know I think one of the best things you have done for this board is introduce us to obscure poets that you love. You feel about some of them, I think, the way I feel about Lester Young: that the more I listen, the more I find in the music.

Indeed, Du Fu (=Tu Fu) is, East of Pacific and West of Atlantic, a very obscure poet. He is recognized as the greatest Chinese poet ever (the Chinese history of his time was restored with the help of his poems), and the Chinese poetry of his time is the strongest of all, anywhere and at any time, but he sure is obscure, the poor thing. Joseph Brodsky (USA, but originally from the USSR) was the leading (while "underground") poet of the Evil Empire, where he was called by the authorities a parasite, and send to a concentration labor camp (gulag). He was awarded a Nobel Prize for his poetry, the poor obscure thing. The other Nobel Prizes for poetry in the past quarter of 20' century went to Czeslaw Milosz (USA, but from Poland), Jaroslav Seifert (Czechoslovakia) and Wislawa Szymborska (Poland). Zbigniew Herbert by many, including myself, is considered a still greater poet than Milosz and Szymborska, but the poor, obscured thing was never awarded a Nobel, he only won several other, prestigous, international poetry awards. Boleslaw Lesmian is recognized as one of the greatest Polish poets ever, still greater than Herbert and the two Nobel winners together; by those who understand poetry, Lesmian is considerd the greatest Polish poet. In fact, in his wonderful way, he is unique in the whole world literature. BTW, as a young man Lesmian wrote a few poems in Russian. Those poems are in every serious Russian antology (Russian poetry is powerful: Pushkin, Tutchev, Lermontov, Yesenin, Mandelstam, Blok--pronounced Bwok, Achmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mayakovski, Pasternak, Brodsky...).

Well, I don't pay much attention to the parapherbnalia like Nobels, Literotica votes, etc. Some of the poets which I admire are famous, some are virtually unknown. Szymanowicz, McNeilly, Imaoka, Polonika... belong to the later category. It doesn't affect my reading of their poems. And the other side of the coin: for instance Bukowski is these days famous but he was a jerk toward women, he was often drunk and crude, and it has affected his poetry adversely. Or Frost is famous for his defense of rhymes while his own rhymes are generally very poor. Frost's "The death of the Hired Man" was great(!) but otherwise he plays a peasant philosopher without much depth. He was a phony farmer, and his poems like the famous "Mending Wall" are grossly overrated. It's funny how fortunes go. Many of the other standard "great poets" are awfully overrated too.

It is interesting to compare the critical works about the Western (Occidental ) and Oriental poetry. It is like comparing the journalistic notes from the booklets attached to CDs about the jazz and the classical music. In the earlier ones you read about the music. In the latter ones about anything but music. The same with these critical works.

I have become popular as a poet in a short time, yes.

Congratulations, Angeline!

[...] I am often very umcomfortable with the attention.

Fortunately, you are not terribly umcomfortable with all that. And don't you dare to edit that "m" in your post!!!

[...] we are all learning. Me, you, Suzi, _Land, all of us here.

Yeah, sure, Literotica here is a place to learn all kind of (bad)habits, (wrong) ideas, and feel great about it .

Be well mr. sj

Opinions are divided on this issue. According to one of the sources (_Land on Literotica), I am she or ms . Everybody is entitled to her/his opinion on Literotica.

Best regards,

 

[Senna Jawa]

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

[...] Pushkin, Tutchev, Lermontov, Yesenin, Mandelstam, Blok--pronounced Bwok, Achmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mayakovski, Pasternak, Brodsky...

Pasternak was awarded Nobel prize too, already in 1958, mainly for his prose, but for poetry too. Soviets forced him though to relinquish the prize. Pasternak's health was weak, which in the combination with the persecution, had contributed to his premature death.

Some of you perhaps saw movie "Doctor Zhivago" based on the Pasternak's Nobel winning novel.

-------------

Regards,

 

[Angeline]

Bad Habits

There are bad habits to be learned everywhere. If I never came here I might know no better than to sit around reading poems like "The Mending Wall" and think it was great poetry.

Instead I come here and learn that Frost is trite (which, I agree, he mostly is) and that I need to watch what I discuss in some of my poems, in order not to limit their scope or audience appeal.

So far, so good.

Now what do you make of this poem: can it be saved? I was really angry when I wrote it.

Blues for Mister Charlie

put on the jazz
play me a riff
where you be soul
sweet sem sistas?

we need to take care
of this mista

he needs to get our drift

Live from Lit town
we in whitey honk's
bad news thread
he must be some
scared mofo lily

he must live in
some shit dread

and speak snake
voice of reason

he been hurt so bad
only wants others
to help him be mad

get back baby man

i'm gon' shitcan your
hateful ass with some
feminist jews oops i
mean blues sometimes

honey the air in here's
a little thin and rare
gets me confused

maybe it's still 1942
you know that baby
that time you think
ain't real tell everyone
lead them to reason

call on their jesus
he hates your kind
use aryan treason
lie out your mouth
both sides and you
keep you filthy hands
on your eyes

not to see
not to see

in your hyporacistcrit
fuck you unreality

little girls dead in a
church strange fruit
6 million and you
wanna come here
and spew your
vomitous brew on
this site?

Take your right and
go and go let me
be the first to help
you out into the night.

Go read demographics
go see what the light
of the future holds
for you white bread.

the world is changing
kaddish kaddish
dead dead
back under your
rock.

kaddish

dead


[Kaddish is the Jewish prayer for the dead]

 

[Senna Jawa]

Re: Bad Habits

Now what do you make of this poem: can it be saved? I was really angry when I wrote it.

Blues for Mister Charlie

Nope. Take a step back. Remember that you are NOT writing for that moron, to get even. You are a poet and you want to write something that transcendents the lousy occasion.

The occasion, for better or worse, has moved you (in a frustrating, negative way), so use it as a PRETEXT, not as a reason, to write your poem. Use the energy which it has released. Just remember that the reason for which you want to write that piece is that you are a poet, that you want to write poetry. (Thus don't preach, don't shout, don't judge, don't complain, don't explain... do what the poets do, and only then your poem will be effective).

Be weary about such LOUD references as 6M victims (BTW, there were more--6m does not include the Jews killed on the Soviet territory). You may have them perhaps only under special circumstances, when you assume the voice of a newspaper or of a character (possibly involved into a polemics) or similar. Basically, poetry has its own dramatic sounds, its own priorities and its own main voice. Of course I am talking about the main road and the highest orbits of poetry. There is room in art for most everything, weird and loud and repulsive and whatever (then go for it, be extremal ).

(You have some portions of the text, and you have temperament and energy in some parts of your poem, which might be used again. Incorporate them into your eventual new poem if and only as the need arises, but without any a priori initention of doing so).

Good luck, Angeline,

 

[_Land]

Red is a striking color, it raises your adrealin and your heart beat (for obvious, survival reason--red means blood, means--be ready). But I want to downplay it, I want to play it softly (like in music), I want to keep this sunset peaceful, to keep a quiet mood, a bit on the dark side. Also, literally-visually you are already getting an ascii preview of what the next lines say. "sun" is like a jewel in the crown (without saying anything like this).

Looking back at a good poem, it is unbelievable how much (brain) intensity goes into it, how many improbable occurences contribute harmoniously to its impact (locally & globally), it's quite miraculous. And scary.Numbers stand for the age. E.g. "I 16" stands for "I, who was 16 years old"). This was one of a very few of my poems which in the past got a grand praise.Now, that's an admirable poem that everybody must love, and for good reasons . It is obvious that my poems will never be liked as widely as Angeline's.

____________________________________________________

Thanks for the explanation SJ, and for continuing to post your poems. Regards _Land

 

[_Land]

Re: Re: SJ thank you for you compliment

[ .Opinions are divided on this issue. According to one of the sources (_Land on Literotica), I am she or ms . Everybody is entitled to her/his opinion on Literotica.

Best regards, [/B]

Are wounds like a fine wine that taste better with age, SJ?



I will no longer offer apologies for my rant. You pissed me off.....and I responded poorly. Some days, I swear you look for conflict. I have made peace with you even if it only in my own mind. I will even go so far as to say I repect you. I will also take a short line to remind you, that most of us dont have the education or background that you have, so our frail attempt at self expression may seem shallow, but never the less, should be encouraged. I doubt the first poem you wrote was worthy of much consideration...... You have had many years to develop your style and taste, I am just in the begginning.........as are several ohters....please allow for begginers to learn and find something encouraging to say. You have admitted that some of my poetry is getting better..............I am growing. So are others. That is why I am here. It is also why I am glad that you are here. Your comments while sometimes very harsh to have valid points. The way you present them is what is hard for me to swallow. Your comments on certain poetry can be very instructive. Sometimes you have to break what you are saying down to rudimentary ideas so the unskilled can swallow it easier.


Thanks for giving to my growth as a aspiring poet. i do appreciate your continued participation in our comunity.

 

[_Land]

It is spoof day on the new poems list, picka poem and do a spoof on it..................have fun and be polite now



Regards _Land

 

[_Land]

Thats my story and shes sticking to it

Herstory
by Angeline ©
They smote
you at the job already
but they took vote and
felt that there was need
for facial growth, for change
is good, inevitable. and they
loathe and disrespect the hours
of hard work and dedication
indeed, they need to let you
know that they will take whatever
they can take to show the
heartfelt deep sincere
deppreciation of the service you surrendered.
not rendering the balance owed
nothing tendered. after all a
job's a job and so they took a
vote while you waited in your
office sitting at your desk.
deciding you needed facial growth
to remain a part of the company.
ever undefeated smiling always
dignified because whether they’re
confused or even if they lied
what else is there to do? They
took a vote and fair is fair and
equity is us they did it right
they told the truth so no one
hurts they took a vote and it was
fair and you will bear up just
fine they took a vote you
were unneeded it wasn’t you.
your not a man

 

[Senna Jawa]

Re: Re: Re: SJ thank you for you compliment

Are wounds like a fine wine that taste better with age, SJ?

What wounds?!

_Land, c'mon, don't worry about it, it was funny.

Regards,

 

[_Land]

Re: Re: Re: Re: SJ thank you for you compliment

OK, I still have a hard time catching your humor

What wounds?!

_Land, c'mon, don't worry about it, it was funny.

Regards,

 

[Senna Jawa]

Re: Re: Re: SJ thank you for you compliment

Some days, I swear you look for conflict.

But I don't, I never do. Unless I am dragged into a personal exchange I stick strictly to poetry, to the issues.

I doubt the first poem you wrote was worthy of much consideration...... You have had many years to develop your style and taste

Strange, but my very first poem was very good. Then my batting average was low for a long time, and went up very slowly. Some of my early poems make me proud today, but majority was poor. This was the result of my conflicting impressions of what poetry is about. I could feel in a few cases that I did well, while reading most of those poems after years made me blush from embarassment. Mercifully, I lost almost all of them (while I wish bad a few more of them survived).

On one hand I had my own deep feeling about poeticity, on the other I tried to understand, learn, absorb, adjust to what I read and saw around me. Of this I did a poor job. It was confusing like this until I discovered the oriental poetry. Then finally I felt a relief and I was able to sort things out.

I had no natural ability. I bothered people around me as much as I could. I was fortunate to always find people around me who had ear for poetry. If two of them, independently, pointed to the same flaw in my piece then I knew that it was something objective. It was not easy to get feedback in the preInternet times. (Hm, Internet is a mixed blessing, you've got to be selective, use your judgement,...).

Clock kicks in (perhaps the biological clock). In the past I was not able to write poems like I do today or recently, while today I cannot write poems as in the past, I cannot recreate my best old poems, I cannot write poems in the style of those from the past.

It is extremely important to have the ability to be deeply ashamed of what you write. When you make a "booboo", you should feel frustrated, you should feel a burning pain.

Whenever you meet a true challange, larger than yourself, you need two wings to overcome it. One wing is confidence. The other wing is FEAR. You cannot fly without the two wings being equally powerful. Imagine that you are writing a computer program guiding a cosmic rocket. If you mess up, your family inside the rocket will never come back, will freeze out out there. One tiny bug bug anywhere in your program is enough to sentence them to death, to kill them. So, be intensive, be confident in your intensity, but have that constant fear in you all the time, the fear which keeps ypu honest. Only then you have a chance for a happy end. And there are no excuses.

The same with a poem. Let FEAR be your companion, let it be the companion of your confidence. Be on guard all the time during the writing process or else you will be happy but your child-poem will be dead.

My reactions to grave blunders in poetry are adequate. It is all within the world of art. It is not about the real life or about people who happened to write those poems. It's only about them as the authors of the particular piece under the consideration. And no more.

For each muscle there should be an opposite muscle of equal strength. Thus, for instance, you should be able both to admire and to be critical. Etc.

I am just in the begginning.........as are several ohters....please allow for begginers to learn and find something encouraging to say. You have admitted that some of my poetry is getting better..............I am growing. So are others.

Yes, _Land, I was happy to see in several of your poems that you've got poetic talent. But if an author treats deadly errors, which nullify their writting effort as just a minor nothing of importance, if an author feels satisfied because here and there is something interesting in his/her poem, then such an author has no chance to get anywhere. You've got to be sharp. Confident but alert to dangers.

Your comments while sometimes very harsh to have valid points.

In those cases you (and others) have a choice. You can be angry at me or... at yourself. (There is also that ostrich way too ).

Best regards,

 

[Senna Jawa]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: SJ thank you for you compliment

OK, I still have a hard time catching your humor

No problem, _Land, just tell me how many "" should I append to my jokes .

Regards,

 

[Rybka]

Senna Jawa, This is the most enlightened post of yours that I have read!

...Strange, but my very first poem was very good. Then my batting average was low for a long time, and went up very slowly. Some of my early poems make me proud today, but majority was poor. This was the result of my conflicting impressions of what poetry is about. I could feel in a few cases that I did well, while reading most of those poems after years made me blush from embarassment...

On one hand I had my own deep feeling about poeticity, on the other I tried to understand, learn, absorb, adjust to what I read and saw around me...

I had no natural ability. I bothered people around me as much as I could. I was fortunate to always find people around me who had ear for poetry. If two of them, independently, pointed to the same flaw in my piece then I knew that it was something objective. It was not easy to get feedback in the preInternet times. (Hm, Internet is a mixed blessing, you've got to be selective, use your judgement,...).

Clock kicks in (perhaps the biological clock). In the past I was not able to write poems like I do today or recently, while today I cannot write poems as in the past, I cannot recreate my best old poems, I cannot write poems in the style of those from the past.

It is extremely important to have the ability to be deeply ashamed of what you write. When you make a "booboo", you should feel frustrated, you should feel a burning pain.

Whenever you meet a true challange, larger than yourself, you need two wings to overcome it. One wing is confidence. The other wing is FEAR. You cannot fly without the two wings being equally powerful. Imagine that you are writing a computer program guiding a cosmic rocket. If you mess up, your family inside the rocket will never come back, will freeze out out there. One tiny bug bug anywhere in your program is enough to sentence them to death, to kill them. So, be intensive, be confident in your intensity, but have that constant fear in you all the time, the fear which keeps ypu honest. Only then you have a chance for a happy end. And there are no excuses.

The same with a poem. Let FEAR be your companion, let it be the companion of your confidence. Be on guard all the time during the writing process or else you will be happy but your child-poem will be dead.

My reactions to grave blunders in poetry are adequate. It is all within the world of art. It is not about the real life or about people who happened to write those poems. It's only about them as the authors of the particular piece under the consideration. And no more.

For each muscle there should be an opposite muscle of equal strength. Thus, for instance, you should be able both to admire and to be critical. Etc.

...if an author treats deadly errors, which nullify their writting effort as just a minor nothing of importance, if an author feels satisfied because here and there is something interesting in his/her poem, then such an author has no chance to get anywhere. You've got to be sharp. Confident but alert to dangers.In those cases you (and others) have a choice. You can be angry at me or... at yourself. (There is also that ostrich way too ).

Best regards,

S.J. That is some marvelous insight and advice! I would only caution that creative writing (prose as well as poetry) is not computer programming, all analogies fail at some point. As, in reference, O.K. Bowsma said, "Listen for the 'queerness' to ring."

There is, or should be, a spontaneity/creativeness to what a poet writes. If there is not, and every word is logical and precise, then it might as well be computer generated or written by monkeys pounding on keyboards (Is there a difference?). Can Vulcans write poetry? Mr. Spock could not write Dr. Spock's books! (O.K. randomly generated, he or the monkeys could. - But you should get my point. )

You are extremely talented and intelligent, but at times you seem to lack compassion and humanity. This post of yours did not.

Best regards,                 Rybka

 

[Suzi]

Re: Re: SJ thank you for you compliment

Yeah, sure, Literotica here is a place to learn all kind of (bad)habits, (wrong) ideas, and feel great about it .Opinions are divided on this issue. According to one of the sources (_Land on Literotica), I am she or ms . Everybody is entitled to her/his opinion on Literotica.

Best regards,

Why you pompous, self-absorbed S.O.B.!!! One can learn positive things no matter where they go....you just choose to think the worst of the poetry written by the people that come here. If you hate it so much...LEAVE.

 

[phatcat]

Full of Questions

Senna Jawa: You seem well aquainted with Poetry written in other languages. How many languages do you know?
Specifically, Chinese? Japanese? I'm curious because you write whole disertations on poetry written in those languages. Do you read the originals or the translations? And if they are translations, how can you judge the original against the talent of the translator?

Also, if I asked you how old you are, maturity wise, what age would you attribute to yourself? (not necessarily your real age).

... the story about the New Year's party cracked me up (with the AIDS epidemic on the rise and all, but I guess your friend wasn't aware of that yet).


Rybka: Could/would you explain your SKY poem?

[Somewhere along the line I made an mistake and made this post into a seperate thread. D'oH! Hope this eliminates the confusion.]

 

[WickedEve]

When I'm not around for a couple of days, I miss so much. Senna you fascinate me the way a spider with a fly does. You have such an attitude that I find myself extremely aroused by your presence here. Will you be my boyfriend?

"Yeah, sure, Literotica here is a place to learn all kind of (bad)habits, (wrong) ideas, and feel great about it."

Actually, I think many of us are learning here on the lit poetry board, though we all need more in addition to this board to grow properly as poets.

Now about you being my boyfriend...

 

[Rybka]

RE: Phatcat

Rybka: Could/would you explain your SKY poem?

My Father's Sky

Yes, I could, but I am still hoping for comments/criticism from the likes of WickedEve, Lauen.Hynde, Angeline, SmithPeter, and of course, Senna Jawa. Plus anyone else who wishes to venture an opinion. - At present, only _Land knows the truth!

Regards,                 Rybka

 

[OT]

you, WickedEve, are a wicked wicked woman!

O.T.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Re: Senna Jawa, This is the most enlightened post of yours that I have read!

I would only caution that creative writing (prose as well as poetry) is not computer programming

Rybka, I do not know a single person who needs this "cautioning". Do you? I don't believe there is any.

There is, or should be, a spontaneity/creativeness to what a poet writes.

This is like saying that poets should have a balanced diet and should spent some time outdoors and exercising. All of them are useful advices.

If there is not, and every word is logical and precise

One short statement and two huge errors in it. (i)There is no contradiction between spontaneity and logic just as there is no contradiction between spontaneity and high artistic level. (ii)One should not confuse boolean logic and poetic logic. Poetry has its own logic just as paintings have their own geometry.

Regards,