Tihmmnmmish's Very Laid-Back Summery Poolside Threadcast

[greenmountaineer]

Dante is one of my favorites too. I wrote a few acrostic poems with some of his greatest lines.

I don't know if poetry has mainstream appeal beyond greeting cards and song lyrics. Painting's still a thriving field, probably more interesting in the commodity vs. creativity pull. There are websites where you can donate money to painters and receive art in return, I can't imagine poets getting the same funding.

I think when we talk about who we want to appeal to in poetry we're really just talking about other poets, the literotica user, the academic poet. For me it comes down to wanting people to read my work and enjoy it, read it again and again. The painter can paint for the appreciation of other painters, but it's not anything like how poets write for other poets. I think I'd rather sell paintings that hang in people's living rooms as opposed to books that they might read once or twice then sit in dust on their shelf(the success of the most successful of poets.)

Well said, bflagsst.

To be honest, I prefer Literotica to academic poets with some exceptions. I find the latter for the most part to be too elitist. They confuse me as much as teach me when it comes to the "how" of poetry. As to the "what" and "why" of poetry, they don't put their intellectual pants or skirts on any better than some of the contributors to this site.

From the beginning, I've enjoyed Literotica because of its popular appeal. There are poets here who write good poetry and sometimes don't as well as those who usually do not and sometimes surprise.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Ty, bflaggy! This is a point that I meant to bring up. When I consider whether or not I should try to turn my art or poetry into something with mainstream appeal, I often think about the rulebreakers I love. My favorite book is Dante's Inferno. Talk about your rulebreakers! Then, my beloved van Gogh.. who took some from what was popular, pushed it and pulled it and made it his own.

Music is an excellent example in how this plays out. Selling tons of CD's does not say anything more than the person sure knows how to market themselves to the masses.

An excellent case comes to mind when thinking of some of the great Baroque musicians. Johan Sebastian Bach, who I consider one of the greatest musicians of all times, mostly worked as a church organist in northern Germany, never achieving fame and fortune. At the same time, Handel (no slouch either) was in London and doing quite well with the English royalty. We know little about the musicians who were popular then but whose work offered little to the world that followed.

 

[hmmnmm]

Well as I've said more than once, the winning feature here would definitely be the wide space to do things in. Words, sound, visuals, middle grounds, outskirts, poetry, prose, fiction, nonfiction, good, bad, rough sketch. Make sure if there's sex, the participants are at least 18 and they aren't fucking dogs and ponies; other than that, really, there's no limits.

This unseasonable weather helps the attitude a whole lot. Swear, it's more like mid September right now. Gets things moving. Tea weather. Yeah.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

The first time I saw Space Odyssey when I was a very naive teenager (yes we were far more naive in those days!) it completely lost me, but oh the wonderment of just enjoying the film for what it was and the awesome spine tingling music was enough. Many the times I have read poetry on here and my spine has tingled and haven't left a comment because I couldn't put into words just what it was that stirred me often because sometimes I didn't even understand it.
I love Salvador Dali's paintings for the same reason they draw me in always something new to study and find that I never saw before, I wouldn't want them explained to me I'd rather go to my own place not someone elses imaginings.
I hope you are feeling so much better now I hate the thought of you feeling so lost we all feel lost at some point in our lives so ooba hugs from me

That was quite a movie the first time! College crowd, but pretty quite just about all throughout (was a bit of a murmur in our crowd for HAL 9000, since I saw it in Champaign).

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

Leaving for Myrtle Beach in about an hour. fun.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Leaving for Myrtle Beach in about an hour. fun.

Have a good trip !

 

[UnderYourSpell]

was the "feeling lost" thng related to my meltdown? LOL I reread my post, and I guess someone who is not familiar with PTSD could have easily mistaken my description of my meltdown as anxiety or fear cuz I was separated from my aunt. Kinda cute interpretation.. I picture a two yo starting to cry.

No, dearest Annie. Everyone is a threat to me in my hellish world. Logically, I know that I was not in danger of being raped again in the middle of a grocery store, but I couldn't stop the overwhelming fear and anxiety. See, whenever I go out in public, I have to be with someone.. either my aunt, mom, a friend, or even my case manager will take me to the store and appointments. People serve as a distraction. It keeps me focused on the person I am with instead of being hypervigilant about everyone around me.

My one therapist suggested that I start to try to go out in public alone, but with an MP3 player to distract me. Not sure if that will work. I wish I felt safe in my neighborhood to test that theory. You can't very well feel safe when one of the men who sexually assaulted you lives across the street and stands in his doorway and watches me if I go outside.

Anyway, don't feel bad for not understanding me and the PTSD. That's the reason I started ptsdcentral.com. It's a very misunderstood condition.

I didn't mean it like that oh god I wish I had put it in better words and I know you didn't mean to upset me but I am nearly in tears here not for what you have written but for what I put. I didn't misunderstand I just worded it wrongly.

 

[bflagsst]

Well said, bflagsst.

To be honest, I prefer Literotica to academic poets with some exceptions. I find the latter for the most part to be too elitist. They confuse me as much as teach me when it comes to the "how" of poetry. As to the "what" and "why" of poetry, they don't put their intellectual pants or skirts on any better than some of the contributors to this site.

From the beginning, I've enjoyed Literotica because of its popular appeal. There are poets here who write good poetry and sometimes don't as well as those who usually do not and sometimes surprise.

My favorite poets right now are probably all poetry teachers or in pursuit of a teaching degree for poetry. Which doesn't mean I don't think the whole lot of them are despicable. I can get over prose poetry, and poetry awards, charging money to read, publishing credits and tenure if someone writes something stellar. I think it's appealing that you can't make a living by writing poems no matter how good you are. Who reads the Paris Review anyway, besides for the editors of the Yale Review? Ideally, in twenty years everyone will have forgotten about poetry and I'll still be writing poems all by myself like the Underground Man.

 

[hmmnmm]

Sounds like the topic header of all this would be Motivation, which alone would be thick, book-worthy topic. What you do, and why, what you seek, and why, why the urge to expose or express. I can think of one reason and then think of another that would appear to contradict the first, and then ten more reasons with ten contradictions. I like it all but not all of it all the time. Comes and goes. Sometimes poetry just has that feel that's right like nothing else, and sometimes the lengthier thicker denser poetry gives the good feels but sometimes it's the tighter, lighter, punchier, snack crackers that give it. Comes and goes, comes and goes.

If someone told me I'd been asleep for a month and it was really mid or late September instead of early August, it wouldn't seem at all odd. Need to get out there and record some sensations.

 

[bflagsst]

just hangin out in the poets hangout, hmmnmm and bflagsst are just hangin out in the hangout.

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

I didn't mean it like that oh god I wish I had put it in better words and I know you didn't mean to upset me but I am nearly in tears here not for what you have written but for what I put. I didn't misunderstand I just worded it wrongly.

No need to be upset. I certainly wasn't.

I made it to Myrtle beach. The room is decent. It's a 2-story beachfront room. It is nice to be able to sit here at my laptop and look out the window at the white foam rhytmically unfolding on the sand.

But, I have some articles to write for now.

 

[hmmnmm]

just hangin out in the poets hangout, hmmnmm and bflagsst are just hangin out in the hangout.

yyyyep

 

[hmmnmm]

No need to be upset. I certainly wasn't.

I made it to Myrtle beach. The room is decent. It's a 2-story beachfront room. It is nice to be able to sit here at my laptop and look out the window at the white foam rhytmically unfolding on the sand.

But, I have some articles to write for now.

Myrtle Beach
Ain't you somethin
you're on the beach and writing articles?


Oh and you were right about some stuff you said before.
Have fun!

We have new snow on the mountains.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

My favorite poets right now are probably all poetry teachers or in pursuit of a teaching degree for poetry. Which doesn't mean I don't think the whole lot of them are despicable. I can get over prose poetry, and poetry awards, charging money to read, publishing credits and tenure if someone writes something stellar. I think it's appealing that you can't make a living by writing poems no matter how good you are. Who reads the Paris Review anyway, besides for the editors of the Yale Review? Ideally, in twenty years everyone will have forgotten about poetry and I'll still be writing poems all by myself like the Underground Man.

Poetry is 1000's of years old, so I'd bet it'll be around in another 20

 

[bflagsst]

Poetry is 1000's of years old, so I'd bet it'll be around in another 20

As is all art, poetry is actively changing, and it appears it is also dying too. To say, 'poetry will be around in twenty years' is a given, but to say it'll be around and still be as popular as it is now is where the question lie. Poetry isn't popular now, has it ever had a period where it was less popular?

Print magazines won't be around in twenty years, so it's safe to say poetry will have to change with print magazines. Will books be around in twenty years? Those are all simple questions with little bearing on poetry, since poetry is mostly presented in web based magazines now.

Poetry as something studied will be around in twenty years. But my feeling is, poetry as something actively pursued, as a living art, displayed as something new(featured in poetry magazines or what have you) may not be around in twenty years. The thought, "New Poetry" won't enter into people's minds, because it's something from the past, something to be studied, there can't possibly be 'new poetry'. To think Billy Collins may be considered the Last Poet. What a way to go out...

 

[bflagsst]

To continue a thought this morning.

There's this type of wood art, or leather art, I can't remember which, maybe both, that my friend's grandmother did. It's like pressing or carving in some very specific way that creates these scenes/images, and no one's doing it now. It can be considered a dead art, because it was really popular earlier last century and as far as we know no one still does it. It would be nice if I could be more specific, but I'll have to ask him the actual name of the process.

Anyway, poetry isn't a dead art to us because we pursue it just about every day, whether writing new poems or commenting on new poems. But to the wider world, probably your friends and family, poetry is something from the past, dead already. For how many thousands of years it was spoken word performance, something in the week to week lives of people, for a few thousand years after that it made the transition to be written and read. We know that it was basically the television of the literate since the Renaissance, then with the advent of television it began to die slowly, but there were all those hot poets of the 50's and 60's to keep it going, then the 80's and 90's just buried it.

Changing technology isn't what killed poetry either, because people have more access to poetry now than in the 50's, 80's. If anything it's easier for poetry to be in the day to day lives of people like a song is, playing in your ear on your way to work or exercising, blah blah woof woof. I think it's just a matter of not having any hot poets since the 50's. When you don't have good poetry for decades, interest wanes. The 50's is even pushing it, because Jack Kerouac wrote stories, his poems are forgettable. No one even read the Beat poets(aside from K and AGinsberg) or charles bukowski until the 80's and 90's when all things sixties became sexy, as something to be studied. Now you have nothings like Lenore Kandel and Peter Orlovsky considered significant poets of the period.

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

Myrtle Beach
Ain't you somethin
you're on the beach and writing articles?


Oh and you were right about some stuff you said before.
Have fun!

We have new snow on the mountains.

Well, I woke up to an email from my client telling me not to worry about this week's deadline and to take the week off. I think that's probably a good idea in light of my recent anxiety meltdowns.

I'm thinking that I will chill out in the room most of the time. It is a decent room. Maybe the scenery will inspire a summer Lit story. I have some schoolwork to do. This week is when we start our proposals and work on our final projects. No big deal, though. I don't think I could consider working on art as "work."

 

[UnderYourSpell]

When you think about it poetry probably had it's greatest hayday when the majority of the population couldn't read and specific people would arrive in the village with marvelous stories to tell or sing.

One footnote and something that I have wondered about on and off. I started school at 5 years old and I could already read so who taught me? Certainly not my mother or father who had very basic skills themselves having left school at 14, to 'go into service' which was working for the gentry (girls inside the house boys usually outside).

 

[bflagsst]

When you think about it poetry probably had it's greatest hayday when the majority of the population couldn't read and specific people would arrive in the village with marvelous stories to tell or sing.

One footnote and something that I have wondered about on and off. I started school at 5 years old and I could already read so who taught me? Certainly not my mother or father who had very basic skills themselves having left school at 14, to 'go into service' which was working for the gentry (girls inside the house boys usually outside).

You're talking about poetry as community art, Homer grew up in that lifestyle, but he became the first superstar when his name was attached to a community/regional group of stories. After that it's about individual contributions, ala Dante, Milton, Shakey. I think the heyday for the superstars was probably the 19th century, that was the first century in the English speaking world where there was an explosion of literacy do to elementary education. People read for pleasure, before Jane Austen I don't know that the average middle-class man or woman was reading anything but the Bible, Le Morte, and the Latin Classics. Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Keats were rock stars for a century, Pushkine and an assortment of French too.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

As a matter of interest how do schools 'treat' poetry these days? I remember being given huge poems to learn by heart, all very well for someone like me who adored anything to do with books and read anything and everything, but I grew up in a farming community where the boys expected to work on the land and the girls were expected to marry them and raise loads of their children! It's why I was bullied so much .... nobody likes a smart ass!

 

[hmmnmm]

Well, I'm learning that every role is valuable. Or I knew so but I'm getting confirmation of it, because sometimes I do doubt what I know is really true.

On the one hand, someone has to fuck with the standards but we have to have standards to fuck with. Someone has to play the straight part. You must not freak when the one playing the straight part waves their manuals at you, because that's what their role calls for. They generally have authoritarian tomes to back them up; but it's a mistake to think we should really obey them. Creates the necessary friction. So laughter and learning happen at the same time.

Another incredibly beautiful day out here.

And interesting stuff being said here. Carry on.

Thanks.

 

[bflagsst]

I was in high school and college at the turn of the century, so maybe it's changed a little since then. Generally, there's a book for English/Literature class that each year uses. It contains mostly short stories, sections of novels, and a few poems, mostly Robert Frost from what I remember. In New York there are special tests at the end of tenth grade, can't remember, which you study for, for two or three years in High School. Poetry is Shakespeare, Robert Frost, and bits of Americans like Langston Hughes for Black History Month. Edgar Poe is second to Shakey every year, but his poems usually don't make the cut past "The Raven". There's no memorization and recitation. I remember having to memorize a poem in elementary school, don't remember any poetry from Middle School. Longfellow and Emerson might get a mention, but that devil Whitman usually gets left out.

I think the books are called "The Language of Literature" there's one for each year, just bits of stories and very little poetry. They're terrible.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

As a matter of interest how do schools 'treat' poetry these days? I remember being given huge poems to learn by heart, all very well for someone like me who adored anything to do with books and read anything and everything, but I grew up in a farming community where the boys expected to work on the land and the girls were expected to marry them and raise loads of their children! It's why I was bullied so much .... nobody likes a smart ass!

We had some memorization in grade school (thru 7th - was in England for what would have been 8th grade - love those forms which what to know about that graduation, which I lack - only those beyond: HS, BS, MS, PhD). High school was more fiction than poetry, and no memorization anymore, which I was glad of. I switched from chemistry to physics since less memorization - just know how to use the formulae. In college a lot of poetry since I got to choose my electives (almost got BA in English as well). I read a lot when I was a kid, but hated memorization then (and now).

 

[EroticOrogeny]

I was in high school and college at the turn of the century, so maybe it's changed a little since then. Generally, there's a book for English/Literature class that each year uses. It contains mostly short stories, sections of novels, and a few poems, mostly Robert Frost from what I remember. In New York there are special tests at the end of tenth grade, can't remember, which you study for, for two or three years in High School. Poetry is Shakespeare, Robert Frost, and bits of Americans like Langston Hughes for Black History Month. Edgar Poe is second to Shakey every year, but his poems usually don't make the cut past "The Raven". There's no memorization and recitation. I remember having to memorize a poem in elementary school, don't remember any poetry from Middle School. Longfellow and Emerson might get a mention, but that devil Whitman usually gets left out.

I think the books are called "The Language of Literature" there's one for each year, just bits of stories and very little poetry. They're terrible.

My son had books like that. We had individual books for each novel, as I recall, in high school. My son here in Texas also had those kind of tests which the teachers focus on. For me, each course had its own tests, but no widespread standardized tests (other than SAT and ACT for college entrance).

 

[bflagsst]

My son had books like that. We had individual books for each novel, as I recall, in high school. My son here in Texas also had those kind of tests which the teachers focus on. For me, each course had its own tests, but no widespread standardized tests (other than SAT and ACT for college entrance).

Each state seems to be different on their standards. In New York its been this rigid state-wide curriculum for years. California has done the same thing off and on, having this thing called "regents" tests. They have it for all the subjects, it's basically like ACTs and SATII but for sophmores. It really mimics the advance placement program, so someone studying for the high school chemistry regents test will understand what it will be like to take college level chemistry/bio/physics/calculus/english/history their junior and senior year. The one good thing about it is that some school district in the middle of nowhere Upstate can't say "Oh, we've decided we're teaching Creation Science in freshman biology next to that fictional fantasy theory called Darwinianism."