There must be... Poem anybody?

[wildsweetone]

actually it's much more than i've said. most of the oriental poetry i've read (and it's not much, granted) is concerned with a moment in time, a scene in time. it's often devoid of personal opinion which is something we western poets enjoy including in our writing.

 

[annaswirls]

Where did I put that paddle...?

Anyway, the lack of musicality and rhythm, could it be because we don't read it in the language it was written in?

I don't know any other languages than my own and my amateur English, and even there, translating a poem and maintining the flow is very hard. And those two languages are quite similar.

Just in case no one has told you, your English is far beyond amateur... beyond most native English writers. I would have never guessed it was not your first language. I am beyond impressed with your ability to pull it off, as well as other writers here.

 

[Angeline]

Do not write poetry. Live poetically. I see.

I don't think you do.

If:

a) you are observant of surroundings, especially natural surroundings, and think about exactly how they affect each of the senses and about exactly what words show what you've observed

and

b) you listen to what people actually say so as to develop an ear for real voices as opposed to imagining what they should say or--worse yet--telling what they said

and

c) you listen to music and think about the rhythms you hear and where and how silence rests between notes (jazz is especially good for this)

and

d) you carry a notebook and pencil or pen

you have a better chance of a) producing poetry that describes what you experience with the senses in ways that will make your reader experience them as if there, too, b) capture real dialogue, and c) write more musically (interesting poetry, like interesting music or speech, is rhythmic). The stuff in d) is for keeping a record of ideas for poems born while doing a), b), and c).

Is that living poetically? Maybe, but I agree with Senna that doing those things are apt to make you produce honest, lively poetry--poetry that shows, not tells or describes.

 

[Senna Jawa]

why not?

Do not write poetry. Live poetically. I see.

And why not both?!

(For a longer answer see the Angeline's response ).

But yes, if one had to chose between living poetry and writing poetry then perhaps living poetry is the more profound choice (since it is hard to imagine doing well the second one without the first one).

Regards,

 

[Senna Jawa]

i think the oriental poems i've been reading are more 'sparse' than our western preferences are used to.

In many recognized Western poems the gas passes for poetry. That's why they are not sparse. That's why, by comparison, the oriental poetry makes the sparse impression. Also skaldic poetry (and some around Baltic--Estonia, Latvia), seems to be sparse.

 

[Sex and Death]

And why not both?!

(For a longer answer see the Angeline's response ).

But yes, if one had to chose between living poetry and writing poetry then perhaps living poetry is the more profound choice (since it is hard to imagine doing well the second one without the first one).

Regards,

Senna Jawa and Angeline.

Apologies.

Yes, both. They are not mutually exclusive. My intention was to place living poetically as the primary posture for writing poetry, not to devalue the writing. Good god, no! Rephrase: If one lives poetically then that will be expressed through the poetry of one's life, and, perhaps, moreso, if one's poetry is poetry.

Cultivation of a poetic heart, poetic eyes, to see the image and metaphor through the literal surface and brittle shell of phenomena, may be the fundamental posture that serves one practicing poetry. As a visual artist I know that drawing is less what one does with one's hands and more how one sees. If a poetic heart is cultivated it will be expressed through hands, words, music, etc..., whatever the skill level of the artist.

Heart before art, or at least simultaneously?

S&D

 

[Sex and Death]

Yes.

I don't think you do.

If:

a) you are observant of surroundings, especially natural surroundings, and think about exactly how they affect each of the senses and about exactly what words show what you've observed

and

b) you listen to what people actually say so as to develop an ear for real voices as opposed to imagining what they should say or--worse yet--telling what they said

and

c) you listen to music and think about the rhythms you hear and where and how silence rests between notes (jazz is especially good for this)

and

d) you carry a notebook and pencil or pen

you have a better chance of a) producing poetry that describes what you experience with the senses in ways that will make your reader experience them as if there, too, b) capture real dialogue, and c) write more musically (interesting poetry, like interesting music or speech, is rhythmic). The stuff in d) is for keeping a record of ideas for poems born while doing a), b), and c).

Is that living poetically? Maybe, but I agree with Senna that doing those things are apt to make you produce honest, lively poetry--poetry that shows, not tells or describes.

.

 

[Senna Jawa]

2. What do you do to the poem? / a. What to write?

2a. What to write?

1. observe
2. select
3. report

"Report" means that you do not add, insert, sneak in any opinions. That's why adjectives are poor half the time, namely when they provide an opinion rather than an observation.

Of course you "observe" with all your senses (not just eyes).

*******

When talking about the Nature and observations I must add that we discuss them in the realm of art. This means that if you are really good you may play the God Almighty, that you may create your own World, and Nature, and then you still do 1-2-3 (only) within the created world.

This cannot be taken lightly. All ad hoc, superficial, shallow creations are junk. There has to be profoundness and consistency to your "world". (It's necessary to have a strong relation with the real World or else the poem cannot be comprehended by humans).

In prose such a creation was done well many times. Somehow it is much easier to do it in prose. In poetry it was done on the grand scale by Bolesław Leśmian.

On a smaller scale creation is common. For instance, we create certain scenes which do not have to be taken from reality, or we may create certain characters. Most often, and it is a good idea, we modify the reality, we combine pieces or characteristic features from different scenes and/or of different persons into one scene and/or person. The important thing is to have the whole in front of you. You have to see it, in its totality, as you see it in the real case. Then once again you do 1-2-3, i.e. observing, selecting, reporting (still no opinions!).

The problem with many poets and poems is that they make ad hoc images, ad hoc fragmentary descriptions which do not compose into totals because the poets themselves do not see any total scenes or characters. They get high on words, on comparisons--here one! here another! and more! And it gets awful this way. You have to have in front of your eyes the whole image. Only then you have a chance to be consistent, to get a composition, integration.

Let's say that you write about a vehicle, a real one or imaginary. In each case before you write, you need to know the whole thing and its behavior. You shouldn't write this and that and the next thing just for an intelligent and pseudo-poetic effect. See that vehicle, its wheels/wings/..., engine, seats, the texture of the surfaces, the trembling, the dust... -- let it live its own life. Then observe it, select, report.

Disjoint, unpleasant sequences of images happen often when the poet is preoccupied with the metaphor, with the higher meaning. Thus such an author concentrates on presenting precisely that higher level; the concrete images only serve that higher level while not making sense on their own basic level. Such a poem is worthless.

Do not worry about the precision on the higher level. Leave it to the reader. Make sure that the basic level works in a consistent way. Moreover, have nothing but the basic level, and leave the higher level totally to the reader; just attempt to induce it, but without entering the higher level at all, zero. You will not get the reader to perceive the higher level exactly as you intended, but 1.it is impossible anyway; 2.it's NOT a poetic goal; 3.philosophically speaking, the higher level does not exist.

Regards,

senna Jawa​

 

[champagne1982]

2a. What to write?

1. observe
2. select
3. report

"Report" means that you do not add, insert, sneak in any opinions. That's why adjectives are poor half the time, namely when they provide an opinion rather than an observation.

Of course you "observe" with all your senses (not just eyes).

So, the poet is not allowed to write about emotion and impression? Sometimes, the subject chosen to express through this medium cannot be objectively reported upon. Like religion or love, everyone's blanket of emotion is too tightly woven with it, so that opinion and emotion are all one can write about it.

Thanks for your time if you see fit to respond.

 

[Senna Jawa]

So, the poet is not allowed to write about emotion and impression?

Hi Champagne1982,

read Chinese poems and tell me.

Sometimes, the subject chosen to express through this medium cannot be objectively reported upon.

But that's the best way (and in poetry virtually the only way) to write also about love and other emotions, or rather to let readers feel them.

Like religion or love, everyone's blanket of emotion is too tightly woven with it, so that opinion and emotion are all one can write about it.

That's a false and poetically harmful assumption.

Thanks for your time if you see fit to respond.

I'll try to write more later. Let me only say that you have to reconcile yourself with the fact that true poetry is difficult to write, that it requires a true, creative effort, sharp eye, intelligence, good taste, ... Also, for poetry to prosper, it needs readers who have (devoloped) good taste, who will not encourage writing in bad taste, who will laugh at such authors before putting their poems aside.

Poetry has its language, the language of senses. If one communicates by other means than it's not poetry.

BTW, poetry is only "poetically objective", in that it directly appeals exclusively to senses (including rhytm, etc).

 

[Lauren Hynde]

At the risk of always being contrary, I don't like Oriental Poetry. Speaking broadly, I find this style is not musical nor rhythmic although, granted, most Oriental poems written are rich in imagery and symbolism. That doesn't mean they are to my taste.

I guess I'm doomed to be a bad poet.

Spankings for a naughty girl, please.

Let me just add a little something here. The thing is, Carrie, that when we talk of Oriental and Occidental poetry (and art in general) we're talking about two very different beasts. In the western world, as Senna pointed out, critics and art historians often focus more on historical and sociological contexts of the arts than on the arts themselves. That is because the goals of western art are action and intervention - western art and literature are deeply rooted in their own time and society and actively seek an interventionist role. In traditional far-eastern arts, on the other hand, the goals are not action and intervention, but far more contemplative and senses-driven. Contrary to western tradition, it tries position itself in an as intemporal and uncompromised context as possible.

Is it possible to say which of the two approaches is superior? Of course. You'll find people on both sides arguing convincingly. One will say that this is Poetry and that is fart, and another will come and say that this is Art and that is yawn. What they're both really saying, though, is that one likes oranges and the other prefers apples.

 

[Senna Jawa]

When there is a difference of opinions or an intellectual conflict (especially political ) then it is very easy for a bystander to sound wise. S/he will claim that both sides are half-right and half-wrong, or that it is all up to a person, or that we are comparing oranges and apples, etc. Sounds good but buys exactly nothing.

Laurens statement would make a good high school essay, it would get A. However, each of her claims is false.

[...] when we talk of Oriental and Occidental poetry (and art in general) we're talking about two very different beasts.

False. There is a seamless convergence on the highest level. The best Western poems harmonize with the best Oriental poetry. Thus the only problem is that a relatively high percentage of the esteemed Western poems are not truly poetic.

I have the same feeling about the classical music and jazz. For instance, from what I have read, the way Chopin played was very much in the spirit of jazz. There is just one music, and there is just one poetry. In each case we have a great variety inside each domain (music or poetry), while the universal basic laws of art are ever present. They are the same for the East and for the West. There is profound art and there is pseudo-art. It just so happened that the good taste was developed over the time in China, while in the West only the best poets or only relatively fewer poems can claim good taste, can claim to represent true art.

In the western world, as Senna pointed out, critics and art historians often focus more on historical and sociological contexts of the arts than on the arts themselves. That is because the goals of western art are action and intervention - western art and literature are deeply rooted in their own time and society and actively seek an interventionist role. In traditional far-eastern arts, on the other hand, the goals are not action and intervention, but far more contemplative and senses-driven. Contrary to western tradition, it tries position itself in an as intemporal and uncompromised context as possible.

False and misleading. Most of the Western poetry is NOT "action and intervention". On the other hand a great part of the poetry by the greatest poet ever, Du Fu, is socially alert, involved. A part of Chiniese history was recovered partly thanks to his poems (while his own early poems are mostly lost, how sad).

The reason which Lauren provides for such and not another direction in the Western poetry critique is also false. The majority of the Western critics, who are concerned with the Western poetry, are simply lacking the artistic knowledge, the alertness, the taste, ... They are conditioned to act along different, non-artistic lines. The same goes for the majority of Western poets (European, American...). The situation is extra drastic already at the level just below the very-very top.

On the other hand the Western critics and translators of the Oriental poetry have a much better apparatus to analyze poetry. This situation is not a match between Western and Eastern critics. That match between Eastern and western critics exists only in Lauren imagination, and has no contact with reality.

Is it possible to say which of the two approaches is superior? Of course. You'll find people on both sides arguing convincingly.

False. Serious critics never claim the superiority of the western poetry over the Oriental poetry. They either ignore the Oriental poetry or present Oriental poetry as the example to follow in terms of superior, good taste. Furthermore, when Ezra Pond forms some suggestions ("don'ts"), he's in effect gravitating toward the Oriental view. Possibly he arrived at those formulations influenced by his own studies the Oriental poetry. His suggestions (advices) are to this day adopted around the USA by poets who teach students at colleges. The only problem is that Pond suggestions (often re-phrased and expanded in details by others in their text-books or articles, not necessarily for better) do not come from a global philosophy and understanding. Thus they feel arbitrary and full of exceptions, there is a feel of fuzzy boundaries to them. As useful as they are, they are a trivialization of the two thousand years of the development of the Chinese poetry. Any way we look at it, Lauren's claim is false once and twice and trice.

One will say that this is Poetry and that is fart, and another will come and say that this is Art and that is yawn. What they're both really saying, though, is that one likes oranges and the other prefers apples.

False. We have recently compared on this forum two poems, a characteristic Western poem, and a Chinese poem written circa 100BC. Suddenly that classic Western poem didn't look like much. This was more than an isolated example. It had a symbolic value.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Rephrase: If one lives poetically then that will be expressed through the poetry of one's life, and, perhaps, moreso, if one's poetry is poetry.

Hm, I meant something else. "To live poetry" to me is to be alert and sensitive to poetry around you, in particular in others who live poetically (though they do not necessarily live poetry). Poet her/himslef does not have to live poetically. Their own life can be quite flat. After all, what's so poetic about caring a small notebook and a pencil with you all the time?

Cultivation of a poetic heart, poetic eyes, to see the image and metaphor through the literal surface and brittle shell of phenomena, may be the fundamental posture that serves one practicing poetry. As a visual artist I know that drawing is less what one does with one's hands and more how one sees. If a poetic heart is cultivated it will be expressed through hands, words, music, etc..., whatever the skill level of the artist.

Heart before art, or at least simultaneously?

S&D

From the prose writing of the great poets, or from the glimpses on them away from their poems, or even when observing a couple of the top pre-1997 r.a.p. poets, I enjoyed realizing each time how highly intelligent they were.

When it comes to "heart", I am not sure what exactly you or others mean by "heart"? Some people have both subtle and very strong feelings and emotions when it comes to their own persons, while they are by far not equally sensitive about others--then they lack imagination. Do they still have "heart" or not? Are they still capable of great poetry or not?

I wish the world was that simple, that the success and the heart would be strongly correlated. In a mortal sense they might be, except that then the word "success" is losing its right to exist, when we equal it with someone's moral goodness ("moral goodness would suffice in our dictionary).

Even the ability to observe does not have to go hand in hand with the "goodness of heart".

(Many thoughts chaotically zigzag round around my head; I can't make any clear conclusions so I have to stop).

 

[flyguy69]

When one holds an almost theological perspective on something as subjective as "quality" it is easy, even necessary, to dismiss alternative views with circular arguments.

A priori statements like "There is just one music, and there is just one poetry" serve no purpose in debate because they are simple assertions of your dogma. The immediately occuring exceptions to Jazz and Chopin like Native American drumsong, Appalachian folkmusic, Chicago blues, and Tuvan throat-singers undercut any such assertion.

Arguments like "Serious critics never claim the superiority of the western poetry over the Oriental poetry" are without merit because they are circular: serious critics who might do so (I don't personally know any, but they might well exist) simply cease to be serious critics. The same applies to your dismissal of those critics' "knowledge, alertness and taste"

And your claim that, having shared your thoughts on two poems earlier on this thread, the merit of "Dover Beach" has been unequivocally dismissed is just plain arrogance. While it is not to my taste, many "serious critics" and, more importantly, many readers love that poem and will continue to do so despite your assertion it "doesn't look like much."

You have much to offer this forum, SJ, and I sincerely enjoy studying your poetry. I learn from you. But you really need to get over this perspective that there is but one way to write it.

When there is a difference of opinions or an intellectual conflict (especially political ) then it is very easy for a bystander to sound wise. S/he will claim that both sides are half-right and half-wrong, or that it is all up to a person, or that we are comparing oranges and apples, etc. Sounds good but buys exactly nothing.

Laurens statement would make a good high school essay, it would get A. However, each of her claims is false.

False. There is a seamless convergence on the highest level. The best Western poems harmonize with the best Oriental poetry. Thus the only problem is that a relatively high percentage of the esteemed Western poems are not truly poetic.

I have the same feeling about the classical music and jazz. For instance, from what I have read, the way Chopin played was very much in the spirit of jazz. There is just one music, and there is just one poetry. In each case we have a great variety inside each domain (music or poetry), while the universal basic laws of art are ever present. They are the same for the East and for the West. There is profound art and there is pseudo-art. It just so happened that the good taste was developed over the time in China, while in the West only the best poets or only relatively fewer poems can claim good taste, can claim to represent true art.

False and misleading. Most of the Western poetry is NOT "action and intervention". On the other hand a great part of the poetry by the greatest poet ever, Du Fu, is socially alert, involved. A part of Chiniese history was recovered partly thanks to his poems (while his own early poems are mostly lost, how sad).

The reason which Lauren provides for such and not another direction in the Western poetry critique is also false. The majority of the Western critics, who are concerned with the Western poetry, are simply lacking the artistic knowledge, the alertness, the taste, ... They are conditioned to act along different, non-artistic lines. The same goes for the majority of Western poets (European, American...). The situation is extra drastic already at the level just below the very-very top.

On the other hand the Western critics and translators of the Oriental poetry have a much better apparatus to analyze poetry. This situation is not a match between Western and Eastern critics. That match between Eastern and western critics exists only in Lauren imagination, and has no contact with reality.

False. Serious critics never claim the superiority of the western poetry over the Oriental poetry. They either ignore the Oriental poetry or present Oriental poetry as the example to follow in terms of superior, good taste. Furthermore, when Ezra Pond forms some suggestions ("don'ts"), he's in effect gravitating toward the Oriental view. Possibly he arrived at those formulations influennced by his own studies the Oriental poetry. His suggestions (advices) are to this day adopted around the USA by poets who teach students at colleges. The only problem is that Pond suggestions (often re-phrased and expanded in details by others in their texgt-books or articles, not necessarily for better) do not come from a global philosophy and understanding. Thus they feel arbitrary and full of exceptions, there is a feel of fuzzy boundaries to them. As useful as they are, they are a trivialization of the two thousand years of the development of the Chinese poetry. Any way we look at it, Lauren's claim is false once and twice and trice.

False. We have recently compared on this forum two poems, a characteristic Western poem, and a Chinese poem written circa 100BC. Suddenly that classic Western poem didn't look like much. This was more than an isolated example. It had a symbolic value.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

When there is a difference of opinions or an intellectual conflict (especially political ) then it is very easy for a bystander to sound wise. S/he will claim that both sides are half-right and half-wrong, or that it is all up to a person, or that we are comparing oranges and apples, etc. Sounds good but buys exactly nothing.

Laurens statement would make a good high school essay, it would get A. However, each of her claims is false.

Senna, Senna. Why did I know you would respond with something like this? Always entertaining, but you're getting predictable.

Let's take a look at sculpture. Michelangelo's David, for example. Technically it is more-than-perfect, to the point of being improbably deformed. It is an excellent piece of work, but ultimately it is a piece of stone that has been reproduced countless times, carved in a technique and style that have been more emulated than either of us could imagine. So, what makes it unique and what makes it Art? Context. As will all significant western art, the one thing that makes it relevant is what the statue meant for the city of Florence at that point in time, what its positioning was, what it did. It is a piece of action, and it stirred the entire city to become the most important centre of Renaissance. Degas' The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, very likely the most important western piece of sculpture of the last 150 years, is basically an ugly-looking, doll-sized, grotesque figure of a girl made of wax. But it's the most important and well-known sculpture of modern times entirely because of context, because of where and how it was presented for the first time, and what that meant for the people that saw it - that lived it. It's a piece of social intervention. Or how about Marcel Duchamp?

Let's try it with painting. There hasn't been a single technique introduced after the Impressionists that couldn't be emulated by a trained monkey. The only things that matters is context, action, and intervention. That is western art.

On the other hand the Western critics and translators of the Oriental poetry have a much better apparatus to analyze poetry. This situation is not a match between Western and Eastern critics. That match between Eastern and western critics exists only in Lauren imagination, and has no contact with reality.

Actually, I never even suggested such an idiotic premise, but it's funny you thought I did.

It's said that the saddest moment in a man's life is when he realises there is nothing left to teach to the young except through his mistakes. I envy you. You won't ever face that problem.

 

[champagne1982]

Aside from any discussion of what I should or should not prefer, I still don't LIKE Oriental poetry as it is translated into English, nor do I LIKE the stuff written in English in that style. So, maybe I was wrong in stepping in with a personal opinion here, but I figured it was okay, since this whole thread is pure personal preferences and ideas.

I don't dismiss SJawa's instructions to those of us who want to learn. He is actually quite a skilled and intelligent poet who has something to teach. I just wanted to say that I, thankfully, have different tastes to those of an older, male mathematician.

Everyone has a right to enjoy whatever they prefer, as long as their enjoyment of whatever doesn't impair the true enjoyment of someone else's whatever... .

I edited this post to say that I'm not averse to eastern poetry as you can all witness by my enjoyment of rumi and several different formulae of poetry. It's just that poetry that is lauded for what is not said more than for what is said, in my opinion, isn't saying anything much at all.

Then again, I like to write for the masses.

 

[Sex and Death]

Hm, I meant something else. "To live poetry" to me is to be alert and sensitive to poetry around you, in particular in others who live poetically (though they do not necessarily live poetry). Poet her/himslef does not have to live poetically. Their own life can be quite flat. After all, what's so poetic about caring a small notebook and a pencil with you all the time?

I met a small woman
scribbling always all ways
in a small notebook book
of notes which held quotes
to play and notes to see and bee
buzzes of sights she'd seen.

Her dull No. 2 was sharp to clue --

"red shoe, buckle, silver, in her hand,
rain ran over small unbuckled ankles,
and men under newspapers ran like
watches, all wound up, behind red shoe,
small feet patting in rain, rain ran red
from floods of light above, silver" --

Silver graphite observations ran
mercurial on her leafs of paper
pages -- rages of pages -- leafing
from branches and raked into small
No. 2 piles under trees for fall jumping,
dumping her poetics hermetically,
gold leafs, on the wet leaden ground.

When I inquired she said to me she knew
she was no poet of note, noting her quotes
and notes and buzzes of bees could not be seen
poetically. She had been told at the edge of the pond,
told by a toad, she told, where her ball had rolled, gold
ball, that poets were such and not much other,
and poems were this and too much bother if they
didn't fit this, that and the other.

And so she wrote her notebook notes
and walked the parks on rainy paths,
note pages raining, staining the walking
paths with silver graphite notes as they ran
from silver pages into sidewalk cracks
where I'd snatch them fast, the last words
running, quicksilver wet, off the tips of my fingers.

From the prose writing of the great poets, or from the glimpses on them away from their poems, or even when observing a couple of the top pre-1997 r.a.p. poets, I enjoyed realizing each time how highly intelligent they were.

When it comes to "heart", I am not sure what exactly you or others mean by "heart"? Some people have both subtle and very strong feelings and emotions when it comes to their own persons, while they are by far not equally sensitive about others--then they lack imagination. Do they still have "heart" or not? Are they still capable of great poetry or not?

Personally, I have a much harder time understanding what is meant by intelligence than heart.

I find your questions interesting, and I also find that they say more about you and your mission to formulate an integral mathematical proof of poetry and present it as a verifiable theorem...some would say dogma...than aout the reality of poetry or the nature of reality. I appreciate your mission and certainly (in my heart) your passion for it, and your enthusiasm for sharing your joy in the formulation of it. Let us also remember that any proof begins with, or can be traced back to, an "unproveable" and abstracted assumption about reality.

As poets, isn't reality, in its ultimatley unknowable mystery, the very elephant we are describing according to our experience (phenomenon + soul = experince) the particular elephant aspects we happen to be blindly groping in any given moment?

Whose life doesn't have great poetry hidden in its center?

What isn't god?

I wish the world was that simple, that the success and the heart would be strongly correlated. In a mortal sense they might be, except that then the word "success" is losing its right to exist, when we equal it with someone's moral goodness ("moral goodness would suffice in our dictionary).

Even the ability to observe does not have to go hand in hand with the "goodness of heart".

More on this later. Time for sleep.

Thanks, SJ.

S&D

Oh, yeah...

(Many thoughts chaotically zigzag round around my head; I can't make any clear conclusions so I have to stop).

I would challenge that such a state for you is no time to stop, but to start.

 

[Sex and Death]

Senna Jawa: I wish the world was that simple, that the success and the heart would be strongly correlated. In a mortal sense they might be, except that then the word "success" is losing its right to exist, when we equal it with someone's moral goodness ("moral goodness would suffice in our dictionary).

Even the ability to observe does not have to go hand in hand with the "goodness of heart".

I dunno...I tend not to equate heart with goodness, but more with courage. And I see the heart as the sensory organ whose function it is to feel connection, union and wholenss, the nexus and crossroads where all communes.

If I can be permitted to play a bit... I can see heart equated with moral goodness if we bend it bacl toward the Platonic idea of virtue, which did not mean simply good or pure, but meant that a person, place or thing was living and acting according to its unique character and calling, its fate, its purpose for being in the world. To have heart, then, could mean to be living one's truest and deepest nature courageously.

If I understand what you are offering about poetry, poets and writing poetry, you may take my offering to be a bit messy and noncomforming to your taxonomy, rather like a platypus, I suppose. Strangely, I rather think the HEART of your anatomy of poetry aims to integrate the act and outcome of poetry into kind of a Grand Unified Theory of poetry. Your intellect is perhaps in the service of your heart, your passion, here, wethe rti knows it or not or likes it or not.

From your paradigm I do see how the ability to observe and goodnes of heart are fully differentiated, even unrelated. From my paradigm, moral goodness and nobility of character have everything to do with being true to one's character and calling, one's nature and essence. If I am congruent with who I am (at heart), if I am living my fate, then I am living morally.

To snatch this cloud from diffusing into abstraction, I suggest that a poem is felt to be more authentic if it is offered by a person whose calling is in some way to be a poet. To what degree a poem is "good" or "bad" and how to judge a poem is another matter.

Note: I do not wish to digress into a discussion about fate in this particular thread, but I do want to note that I do not take fate to mean predetermination. Fate often seems to be a bugaboo for many people. Perhaps a discussion of fate and poetry would be valuable...again, I dunno. I would also suggest that a disccussion of poetry and fate begs a discussion of poetry and soul.

 

[Sex and Death]

Senna, Senna. Why did I know you would respond with something like this? Always entertaining, but you're getting predictable.

Let's take a look at sculpture. Michelangelo's David, for example. Technically it is more-than-perfect, to the point of being improbably deformed. It is an excellent piece of work, but ultimately it is a piece of stone that has been reproduced countless times, carved in a technique and style that have been more emulated than either of us could imagine. So, what makes it unique and what makes it Art? Context. As will all significant western art, the one thing that makes it relevant is what the statue meant for the city of Florence at that point in time, what its positioning was, what it did. It is a piece of action, and it stirred the entire city to become the most important centre of Renaissance. Degas' The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, very likely the most important western piece of sculpture of the last 150 years, is basically an ugly-looking, doll-sized, grotesque figure of a girl made of wax. But it's the most important and well-known sculpture of modern times entirely because of context, because of where and how it was presented for the first time, and what that meant for the people that saw it - that lived it. It's a piece of social intervention. Or how about Marcel Duchamp?

Let's try it with painting. There hasn't been a single technique introduced after the Impressionists that couldn't be emulated by a trained monkey. The only things that matters is context, action, and intervention. That is western art.

Lauren and Flyguy (Flyguy, my direct comment for you is in red),

Intriguing dialogue! Hope there's more room in the water.

I think context is at the core of the conflict between you and SJ in this particular disgareement. Your context is "context." His context is "universailty." I see the disagreement as the old saw of subjectivity versus objectivity. You are denying the forest for the trees and he is denying the trees for the forest. This makes your perspective as predictable as SJ's, so if predictability is a sin for you, then that may be worth considering.

I also happen to think that such a dualistic perspective is particularly western, and particlularly not eastern, which jives with your distinction between eastern and western focii of argument here.

Two party systems of politics or thought have conflict at their core. It isn't a bad thing, as it is a creative process whose true aim is transendence and the birth of the new, but to stay in the oppositional phase of the process of conflict doesn't serve very well, in my judgement. (Incidentally, I find it fascinating that the creation of something new requires the destruction of the primacy of one or more old ideas or positions). The way I understand it, there is a wonderful energy, an electric charge, that is generated when positions dance in polarity. The aim of conflict is to transcend the oppositional nature of separate forces and to allow something new and whole to emerge that includes both forces yet is greater than the sum of the parts. A couple dancing becomes art when the two become one whole that includes both yet transcends both, and the dance then becomes the primary focus.

I agree with you that the context of a piece of art is important, but I disagree that context is what makes a piece unique or defines it as art or "not art." A great piece of art may or may not capture the zeitgeist of the culture or the moment, but, either way, that is not the determining factor. I see context as an external factor for description and discussion of a piece, but not as a valuable factor in judging the quality of a piece, or wether it is art or not.

I still hold to Beauty as the primary quality and aim of art. Aesthetics is the logos of beauty. I like the word "aesthetic." It comes from the Greek, "aesthou," which essentially means "to gasp." We know beauty when we gasp or sigh or swoon or when a connection to something greater than ourselves is revealed through engagment with the piece. Good art pitches us out of our mundane and profane pattern of living that allows us to live the lie of things being essentially separate from each other and times and places being separate from one another. Good art helps the boundary separating us from what is greater than ourselves to be broken through, dissolve, fall away. Good art transports us outside ourselves in some way and connects us with something greater, or something other. (Flyguy, in that sense I feel art is theological, but I do not feel that theological equals dogmatic. And I think you are saying that SJ is being dogmatic more than theological, but I could be wrong.)

Lauren, all the pieces you mentioned certainly do reflect many levels of cultural context, but judging them based on cultural context is fashion, not art (the vast majority of art today is meant to be fashion, not art, because so much contmeporary art is aimed at social commentray and could care less about Beauty). Those pieces may or may not be the height of fashion, but that is a separtae issue from how they signify as art. The lens of perception through which Michaelangelo's culture connected with something greater than itself was the ideal of perfection. The lens of perception through which Degas' culture connected to something greater than itself was the dawning revelation of the unity of energy and matter as expressed through light. The lens of perception through which Duchamp's culture connected to somehting greater than itself was the postmodern iconoclasm and decosntruction of social dogmatism to the point of finding Beauty in the most mundane and absurd representations and objects taken outside of their mundae context. All these perspectives of the cultural zeit giest may be arguable, but my point is that they are different and particlar, regardlss of their interpretation.

Wether or not you find the pieces you mentioned to be grotesque or ugly, you are focusing on their fashion and not their art, their literal congruence with the social context and not their Beauty (which cannot be judged by personal preference, as beauty is neither in the eye of the beholder nor is in the formal structure of the subject...beauty is a perspective inherent in the world separate from humans that can be accepted or denied, cultivated or neglected, valeud or devalued).

I am of the position that the primary style of judging art is through its Beauty, which can be discerned by asking to what degree a given piece of art invites an aesthetic response. I also feel that the qualities by which we are asked to judge the beauty of a piece are neither externally and formally structured, as SJ suggests (i.e...., The Pritchard Scale), nor subjectively preferenced from the context of individual or society, as you suggest (fashion). Beauty is neither a formal structure nor a personal prefernece, it is a way or style of seeing and experiencing.

I feel we are asked to judge the aesthetic value of a piece based on the inherent criteria within the piece itself. With each piece of art comes its particular pair of glasses through which to view it and discern its beauty. I would not judge a Picasso by the same criteria as a Michaelangelo, and I would not judge two Picasso's or Michaelnagelos' the same way. I would witness my aesthetic repsonse to the piece and then ask the particular style in which it wants me to connect to whatever is greater than myself through it as a vehicle.

S&D

 

[Lauren Hynde]

S&D, I just want to say that I agree with practically everything you said. I never intended to position myself on the opposite spectrum of SJ's theory. I'm not a defender of the western tradition of art/fashion - I merely called it as I see it. Its interventionist and context-driven character has positives and negatives, and I don't think it is better or worse than any other art school. The world is too rich to be entirely dismissed in favour of only one way of writing and producing art. Even if my favourite artist and role-model in my particular area is Japanese, I will never forget the influences of my other favourites - Finnish, Portuguese, Italian.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Your context is "context." His context is "universailty." I see the disagreement as the old saw of subjectivity versus objectivity. You are denying the forest for the trees and he is denying the trees for the forest.

I am denying no such thing. You are trying to say there is some kind of equal merit and the lack of it to the two opinions. That's not the case. Actually, Lauren has added more of her so illogical nonsens that I don't even feel like discussing it. Anyway, try to find out what I am saying instead of going for a ficticious counterbalance of the opinions. Also, please, don't distort my views. Ask instead of misrepresenting me.

I would witness my aesthetic repsonse to the piece and then ask the particular style in which it wants me to connect to whatever is greater than myself through it as a vehicle.

S&D

For years (more than once--on r.a.p., on pl.hum.poezja, ...), I stated that, when judging a poem, first of all we have to recognize the rules of the game played by that text. Each poem in principle defines its own game. Once we recognize the game then we judge two things: 1. how profound the game is? 2. How good is the execution (implementation)? (i.e. how well the author was playing her/his own game).

Regards,

Senna Jawa
​

PS. Your poem in this thread shows that you have skills and ability. I thought: add to this combination of skill & ability a bit of profoundness and it'll be something. This positive impression is reinforced by your contributions to "the perfect ten" thread. Thus I went on to read your Literotica page with your poems, alas, I was disappointed.

If you got real insight into poetry your writing would gain a lot. It's up to you.

 

[twelveoone]

First I am impressed by this rare outbreak of verdure exhibited by most in this thread, standing quite out from the brown seas.

I stated that, when judging a ___, first of all we have to recognize the rules of the game played by that text. Each ___ in principle defines its own game. Once we recognize the game then we judge two things: 1. how profound the game is? 2. How good is the execution (implementation)? (i.e. how well the author was playing her/his own game).


If you got real insight into poetry your writing would gain a lot. It's up to you.

One assumes from this text that you have the ability to recognise the rules of each game....let's play with that.

Or how about Marcel Duchamp?


... most important and well-known sculpture of modern times entirely because of context, because of where and how it was presented for the first time, and what that meant for the people that saw it - that lived it. It's a piece of social intervention.

Oh damn, me bad. I took Lauren's statement and rearranged it My apologies. I do because it is about the context of the rules and the game.

It is my understanding that Marcel Duchamp's urinal was not an off the wall (excuse the play here) urinal, but rather a non-funtional representation that he created. This adds another layer to the understanding of. Another playing with . Who sees this?

Now:

Studying poetry may have different goals. Then by all means, study whatever you get your hands on. But if you aim at being a strong poet then study:

1. Chinese poetry
2. Chinese poetry
3. Chinese poetry

Read the poems, read what critics have to say; see hard references.

Now I advocate this, but was said

Aside from any discussion of what I should or should not prefer, I still don't LIKE Oriental poetry as it is translated into English, nor do I LIKE the stuff written in English in that style. So, maybe I was wrong in stepping in with a personal opinion here...

is right. Why? Different rules, different game, perhaps? Perhaps a mistake in the intepretation? This view of "sparse" ? Because of the language difference, most should I say tools cannot apply across the two language's poetry. The stucture of tones in a monosyllabic language. Maa? The richness of the rules of the game quite lost. Again, who sees this? Trying to play baseball on a chess board.

Q. Senna do you read/speak chinese?

And correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Pound's ideogrammatic ideology based on a fundamental flaw of understanding?
Touched upon here as elsewhere?

Don't misunderstand me, he did quite well with it, but it became a different game, different rules.

This path:
1. observe
2. select
3. report
by nature is subjective, especially #2 , is it not? The opinion is in the game. (This was said above, I merely restate) This is supposed to lead to a profound game? Haven't we seen enough dollar store profundities?

I say this with the great fear, it will be used as an EXCUSE, and a drumbeat of and for the dumb. But...

Of the 10,000 things what do you have a grasp on?
Grab it, it is changed.

Still I thank you, Lauren, others, for this outbreak of something worth reading.
Well thought out, pardon my questions, observations.

 

[Liar]

I think I've talked about this in similar threads long gone. But it can't hurt to raise the question again.

Is all we're doing here an attempt to populate the noun "poetry" with our preferred definition? If a stringent process of 'observe/select/report' and a strict philosophy of 'add nothing' is the only way that poetry is reached, a lot of what is considered poetry falls out of the frame.

What is slam poetry, what are clerihews, what are the graphc experiments of Cummings and the prosodic musicality of someone like Denise Levertov, for instance? There are a whole bunch of poems here on Lit alone that holds very tanglible qualities, but maybe not in the area of stringent and precise semantic observation and reporting. What are they? Crap? No. They use purposeful tools and communicate in intentional and effective ways with many readers. Those are artistic expression through the medium of written non-prosaic language just as much as more stringent writers' poems are.

But maybe those pieces of linguistic art shouldn't file in under the label 'poetry'? Fine by me. I don't really care if what I write is labelled 'poetry' or 'parlance play' or whatever.

Or maybe that last step, the 'report' bit, gives a writer a great deal of leeway as to how to report it than I've interpreted (or possibly misinterpreted) from Senna's posts?

Just musing and asking. Most of this conversation is way over my head anyway.

 

[champagne1982]

If it came right down to it, I want to be remembered for my parlance play. That way, I'd never be confused for someone who takes their poems so seriously that room for discussion and play can't be made.

I appreciate the poets and self-styled parlance players in this forum for having those qualities of humour and enjoyment in spades (If by golly you don't, Lord love ya -- someone will come along and poke the fun right at you.)

Thanks to Liar for reminding me of this idea. I've always said that if my writing becomes less love and more chore (read: a matter of slogging through stacks of haiku in the need to study) then I hope to find something way more entertaining to do.

I'm not averse to work, mind you, just loathe to have no enjoyment in it.

 

[Sex and Death]

I am denying no such thing. You are trying to say there is some kind of equal merit and the lack of it to the two opinions. That's not the case. Actually, Lauren has added more of her so illogical nonsens that I don't even feel like discussing it. Anyway, try to find out what I am saying instead of going for a ficticious counterbalance of the opinions. Also, please, don't distort my views. Ask instead of misrepresenting me.

For years (more than once--on r.a.p., on pl.hum.poezja, ...), I stated that, when judging a poem, first of all we have to recognize the rules of the game played by that text. Each poem in principle defines its own game. Once we recognize the game then we judge two things: 1. how profound the game is? 2. How good is the execution (implementation)? (i.e. how well the author was playing her/his own game).

Nope. Not saying anything of the sort. No tinterested in equal merit, compromise or adolescent fairness of any kind. Redemption, reconciliation, re-visioning? Yes. But I don't care if both sides of the equation balance. I was simply making a common dialectical move by comparing and contrasting the predominant arguments in polemic dualism with the intention of differentiating, reconciling and redeeming. Also, I wasn't distorting or misrepresenting your views, I was judging and interpreting them.

You call Lauren's offering here illogical nonsense. Is logical sense, then a quality of primary value for you in defining and judging poetry? What is profundity? If poetry were a person, what would his or her mission be in the world, according to you? What would poetry want? Is your intention to improve poetry, poems and poets?

Your passion for distilling truth through poetry is so evident in your tone and the sheer overwhelming force of your ideas and structure, yet you seem to present your anatomy of poetry as a kind of logic instead of a perspective of heart, a passion, a way of seeing. It is as if you are attempting a proof of poetry, and, inclusive in that proof is the theorem of the "rules of the game," which at first glance seems to suggest a deep consideration of the poem in question but actually suggests a reductive process involving "figuring out" the poem as if it were a problem to be solved, a code to be deciphered. I sense that others feel that the schema you are offering here is in some way a procrustean bed, perhaps not inherently, but in application, at any rate.

Criticism is valid and valuable. It is, at heart, an expression of the love of the critic for the work in progress. It is hard not bring one's ego or expectations into one's judgement of art. I think it is more important to know one's biases, the lenses of perception we continue returning to again and again, than to attempt to transcend or override those biases by standardizing a scale of critical observation.

I advocate seeing and feeling into a poem and a poet, which feels qualitatively different, and not just semantically different, from "learning the rules of the game" of a given poem. Lauren's poetry has such a deeply beautiful sense of body, of place, of flesh and blood, even in her most abstract and coneptual language and imagery. I feel her sense of "context" as a quality of place, or of body, a very sensate and sensual use of imagery, langauge and form. I can feel her poems in my mouth, my throat, my belly, my body when I read them. They are about living and participating in a beautiful sensual mystery, a worldly and sensual moment, and not about rationality of any sort, per se. Her posture with you here in this thread feels no different to me than the posture of her poetry. She will correct me if I am inaccurate, diminishing or unclear.

When I see and feel into your poetry, I feel a passion for the fractal patterns of structure and schema that underly the sensory image sand experiences of the world. I see and feel a passion for the truth behind the veil of illusion. The poem of mine in this thread that you mentioned as having promisie is more like your poetry than it is characteristic of mine, which was my intention. It was an attempt on my part to feel your heart, and I may have failed, but it is a start at redemption, reconcilaition, connection.

If you truly practice "learning the rules of the game" of a given poem or poet, then you must not judge by your standard of rationality and logic, but by the criteria, ethic and aesthetic of the poem and/or poet. Yet, despite your offering, your attempt to know the game of the poet and/or poem and to judge profundity and quality based on that particular game, I still feel your center of gravity is some covert standard external to the poem. With respect, something feels irreconcilable to me between your words and your intention.

PS. Your poem in this thread shows that you have skills and ability. I thought: add to this combination of skill & ability a bit of profoundness and it'll be something. This positive impression is reinforced by your contributions to "the perfect ten" thread. Thus I went on to read your Literotica page with your poems, alas, I was disappointed.

If you got real insight into poetry your writing would gain a lot. It's up to you.

I very sincerely appreciate your feedback. Thank you for the compliment of promise. I have learned a lot from your teaching and poetry, even in this short time and limited dialogue, but if you have feedback for me I would ask you to PM me with it or offer it in an appropriate thread "forum." I felt this was a manipulative way to attempt to dismember my argument by judging my poetry out of the appropriate context. It is disheartening and demoralizing to be told by an elder, in one paragraph, that I show promise and yet am disappointing. It could have thrown me off my square if I wasn't aware of that particular blind spot I have.

Dare I ask what is "real insight" into poetry and how I might get it?

S&D