Tihmmnmmish's Very Laid-Back Summery Poolside Threadcast

[EroticOrogeny]

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."

The evolution vs creationism thing is an ongoing struggle here in Texas. Evolution continues to hold out, but always under attack by religious conservatives. At least in terms of science the Catholics are now modern, but I think a lot of the 2nd Vatican Council changes are gone, at least in spirit.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

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...

Hard to imagine a world without books, but maybe it does mostly go online now. I used to have to go to the library and drag out bound periodicals to photocopy articles of interest. More recently, though I could log into the University's libraries and download as a PDF, keeping colors, if any (which helps maps a hell of a lot) and not get distortion near the edges. Print or simply read online. I still get paper copies of some of my technical magazines, need web for the others. Same may happen, I guess, for textbooks; but there's a lot of money in them, since ofter > $100/book.
I haven't seen a e-book yet, I guess you can take them wherever you take a book (but I heard that 'page' is a different concept there than in traditional books).
Will just have to watch and wait.

 

[bflagsst]

The evolution vs creationism thing is an ongoing struggle here in Texas. Evolution continues to hold out, but always under attack by religious conservatives. At least in terms of science the Catholics are now modern, but I think a lot of the 2nd Vatican Council changes are gone, at least in spirit.

Yeah the catholics aren't really in the conversation anymore, it's the new fundamentalists, american born evangelicalism. Though I don't think the catholics have accepted birth control yet. I think Pennsylvania had to deal with some evolution issues recently, I can't recall New York having much trouble. With different social issues some states are surprising, sadly science based curriculum is a social issue.

You ever see the Creation Museum on TV? I think there are videos of it on youtube, it's painful to watch. My wifey watches those family reality shows on TLC, it seems like all the families take day trips to learn about the 6000 year old earth.

 

[bflagsst]

Hard to imagine a world without books, but maybe it does mostly go online now. I used to have to go to the library and drag out bound periodicals to photocopy articles of interest. More recently, though I could log into the University's libraries and download as a PDF, keeping colors, if any (which helps maps a hell of a lot) and not get distortion near the edges. Print or simply read online. I still get paper copies of some of my technical magazines, need web for the others. Same may happen, I guess, for textbooks; but there's a lot of money in them, since ofter > $100/book.
I haven't seen a e-book yet, I guess you can take them wherever you take a book (but I heard that 'page' is a different concept there than in traditional books).
Will just have to watch and wait.

There are already school districts and various colleges getting rid of traditional textbooks in favor of all electronic. It's not like the oil lobby, macmillan isn't in the pocket of your local school board. They're still probably paying the same companies 80 dollars an electronic copy of a text anyway. One of the sillier reasons is they don't want developing bodies carrying all the weight of the textbooks. Kindle is a good product, I was already used to reading whole books on my computer screen, and Kindle is a lot easier on the eyes. I think they're doing it all laptop, not quite tablet PC world yet.

I used JSTOR when I was in college for everything, still do. All of our texts in college were available in the reading room so in theory you'd never have to buy a text book, but that doesn't really work for 100 people and limited reading hours. The good thing about going all electronic is the worthless price gouging campus bookstores will disappear.

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

Sandy greetings..

The textbook for the class I am currently taking is an ebook. I would prefer a regular textbook, but the ebook was like $60 less than the textbook. So, I'll deal.

I've been thinking about the discussion on the decline of poetry. What do you think is the responsibility of the poet? Do you think something can be done to turn the public onto poetry again? How would poetry, in content or format, have to change?

And, I totally agree with the statements made about poetry currently being written for other poets. Art is a little different. Though artists make up a significant percent of people who come to my art shows, they aren't the ones buying the paintings.

 

[bflagsst]

I don't think it can be handled by a 'we' really, because the academics are the current 'we' and they've more or less buried poetry. To a lesser degree you can say all the same stuff about the novel. It's like Nabokov died and the novel as an art form died. Sure John Updike, Thomas Pynchion, Tom Wolfe wrote solid books after, but it's like a miracle when some mediocre work of fiction comes down the pipeline. I don't think it has that much to do with television and other media either. People ate up Dan Brown and Michael Crichton, and that Horror guy and john grisham. I think it's just a matter of little to no quality story telling/poetry, therefore the interest has gone elsewhere.

Any responsibility lies in k-12 education, if you're not teaching Dylan Thomas to juniors and seniors in high school, then their only idea of poetry is the rigid Bobby Frost, Longfellow, Poe type of old time hits. Who's bigger than Robbie frost mid-century? He was bigger than Nabokov. It's like poetry is taught as a dead art, so who's gonna waste their time on contemporary poetry. As individual folks who write poems, if you want to get people interested in poetry get a teaching degree and head some high school english dept.

 

[bflagsst]

We should have a contest, or maybe not quite a contest, a thread where we try to write the most accessible poem to the non-specialist. A poem that our friends and family could read and really enjoy. Which wouldn't mean it's dumbed down, or simple, because "Fire and Ice" is pretty simple language but wonderfully complex, anyone can think about hate and desire in that way.

The judges would be the non-poet, let people you know read your poem and then report back to see if we can gauge an interest in poetry. I spend a lot of my poetry thinking on what would appeal to my girlfriend, someone who has as little interest in poetry as the average person. Maybe there was a thread like this before, but I think it would be a fruitful endeavor for all us 21st century digital poets, who happen to post some of our work on a porno site.

I'd really like to see how hmmnmm or EO or SapphosSister would approach a task like that. Each for different reasons. I think hmmnmm hit around the subject of appealing to a broader group of readers earlier in this thread. UYS right now probably writes the closest to what I think would appeal to someone who doesn't read poetry. I guess if you're reading this, you're probably someone who writes poems, so think about it and don't just go "I haven't got the time" because it's the sort of thing that might bring us closer to an idea of readership outside of ourselves.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

I have had the marvelous experience of hearing people from around the world reading poetry on Sunday nights, most of these people having not written poetry until they started coming to events. I believe poetry isn't at all dying, but in the early stages of a renaissance, and that the cause is the internet. I agree that it seems to be an essential stage for someone to write poetry in order to appreciate it, but I don't see that as a problem. Why shouldn't everyone write poetry? Why shouldn't poems be accessible on multiple levels?

 

[hmmnmm]

Hm. An intentional attempt to appeal to people who aren't ordinarily into poetry? Could be interesting. Just to see what came out. I've sort of tried that to various degrees on the prose side of the Lit world, but I've learned I might as well just do it like I like. Y'know, I like it all. I just get into the doing, and try to think of all sorts of ways to say one simple thing or all the ways to describe something: sometimes end up with a connection that's way down the line, which, if there's no explanation, will likely cause confusion to the reader; but maybe if they learn to not worry about immediate recognition, just dip a finger in for a taste or something... even so, pick another day and time and mood, and it would come out still different. I've learned that (at least as far as Lit goes) this sort of approach enjoys far more sympathetic reception from the poets, but very little in storyland, and that's not gonna change. No matter what I do. So the language-experimentation range is far wider with the poets. Which, actually, is a small percentage representation of Lit, which is probably a pretty close percentage representation of any given group of people.

 

[hmmnmm]

Ha!
Just had an idea.


You know, thinking about the attempt to make a conscious effort at appealing to certain others who normally don't find much appeal (which seems to be most), I think of someone like Aunt so and so, who is probably representative of a sizable chunk of the population. Then there's my old man. He's told me more than once (even when he's read what I thought was the more conventional stuff) that most people would probably struggle with it, because he did, and he also would represent another sizable percentage chunk of the population. Between those two, my aunt so and so, and my old man, there's a vast majority eaten up; they (and those like them, which would be many) would be the ones who'd send me a few How Tos and a Strunk & White. They'd say I should study those if I wanted to increase the chances of reaching more persons. I'd then say I'm well aware of Strunk & White and I don't care for them, at least not as gospel messengers. Although they are ideal straight men, bad guys, without whom we wouldn't have such clear strictures to playfully, and repeatedly, violate, often with gleeful, purple, abandonment.

So if the majority of the reading populace bears likeness to people like my aunt so and so and my old man, who bear likeness to the majority of society... it begins to make sense.

But the New Idea... yeah... ha!

 

[UnderYourSpell]

The stuff I am writing now is for the Survivor challenge so is forms and rhymes for the most part, not to everybodys taste well not on a poetry forum like this one. I sometimes go to another forum where a lot of it rhymes but I must admit the way they do it isn't to my taste much either!

By the way I googled that Creation Museum thing and am still reeling from someones comment that of course that's the way it happened because The Flintstones is based on fact. I do so hope he was joking but I still have this niggling doubt that he wasn't!

 

[bflagsst]

We would need a series of questions to direct our audience to the answer. We couldn't just ask the non-poet what they would like in poetry, they can't be trusted. We would look for certain reactions to our experimental poems. It's best not to go in with too many assumptions.

However, you have to make some assumptions about what an appealing poem might look like, write said poem, then find a test population. Record the hits and misses then adjust the scheme and schematic for the next poem.

At first blush I assume what makes a quality poem to the specialist lines up with the pleasure zone of the non-specialist. Language that can be understood, easy punctuation, and words that don't have to be looked up. But within that frame I think the divide is: the specialist takes pleasure in the organization of words, while the non-specialist has no interest, solely interested in sound and message.

But maybe it's not even the poems, but the presentation of poems. Books of poems are disjointed, one poem has very little relation to the next or the whole. Books are given wonderful, high-minded titles but usually read like a clusterf*k. Maybe the reader wants a story or stories told in a group of poems, some sort of uniform structure. I've never liked reading one or two poems from someone in a magazine because it tells me nothing of the poet, not enough content...

 

[UnderYourSpell]

When Bijou was around she used to set us a theme and to be completed by date then take all the poems to her bar friends to comment on and score as their favourites

 

[EroticOrogeny]

A 6000 year old earth would put me 'out of business'!
There are geological catastrophes, such as the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 My ago, and the even more severe Devonian die-off, but most earth processes are gradual, often mm/ky is an appropriate rate.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

We should have a contest, or maybe not quite a contest, a thread where we try to write the most accessible poem to the non-specialist. A poem that our friends and family could read and really enjoy. Which wouldn't mean it's dumbed down, or simple, because "Fire and Ice" is pretty simple language but wonderfully complex, anyone can think about hate and desire in that way.

The judges would be the non-poet, let people you know read your poem and then report back to see if we can gauge an interest in poetry. I spend a lot of my poetry thinking on what would appeal to my girlfriend, someone who has as little interest in poetry as the average person. Maybe there was a thread like this before, but I think it would be a fruitful endeavor for all us 21st century digital poets, who happen to post some of our work on a porno site.

I'd really like to see how hmmnmm or EO or SapphosSister would approach a task like that. Each for different reasons. I think hmmnmm hit around the subject of appealing to a broader group of readers earlier in this thread. UYS right now probably writes the closest to what I think would appeal to someone who doesn't read poetry. I guess if you're reading this, you're probably someone who writes poems, so think about it and don't just go "I haven't got the time" because it's the sort of thing that might bring us closer to an idea of readership outside of ourselves.

Thats an interesting idea.
I know that my Birthday Beatitudes poem was quite popular in my group, but that's a different specializied audience.
My wife goes for the erotic/porno ones, but that a special case, and I keep those as private these days.
The geopoems would likewise has a separate audience.

 

[bflagsst]

I wonder how folks on non-erotic poetry sites would handle the question of: How can we make poetry appeal to those who've no current interest?" Maybe they'd say, just make the poems about sex. But we already know that's not quite the ticket, since we love our erotic/sex poems here and don't exactly have the following of some fetish niche that the story side does.

Ezra Pound probably wondered why he wasn't as popular as Wallace Stevens and Frosty Flakes. Anyway, I don't demand answers or poems, just writing these things out helps me in writing my own.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Now I don't know if I am going to get blown out of the water for this but if I was to mention poetry amongst my set it would be the men that would be the least interested. So is poetry now seen as an unmanly pursuit (no offense to present company!!)? Yet the book of 100 favourite poems I have infront of me are written mostly by men.

 

[hmmnmm]

Well, I was interested in a wide array, which I made no bones about, which from then to this day has given as much eagerness to merge into each new day as it has brought doubt and despair and frustration, since after nearly a half century on earth I still don't know what I want to do or be when I grow up, and from what I've seen of the lives of many grownups I'm not sure I want to become one of them. But, I would not and did not express interest in poetic expressions, because, it was, as you say, considered 'unmanly' or not even that... well, it depends on what we mean by manly. If we're talking about being able to provide for a family then no, poetry would be about the least manly thing a man could do. On the other hand, sex is certainly a top interest in many mens heads (at least it always was, and is, in mine), and poetry could be considered a close kin to sex...

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

If you want to do an experiment to discover what qualities of a poem have mass appeal, you might want to include poems that you think most people will hate.. you know, as a control group.

 

[hmmnmm]

We went for a drive out of town yesterday. It was great. It was medicine. Once upon a time I spent far less time staring at a computer screen, because I was out and about more. Yesterday, for the first time in years, I found myself writing in my head. Making myself laugh. Or, if the lines weren't finished, I'd play with them, distill them, expand them, and got this long lost yummy feeling inside. Once upon a time I did it habitually, and felt rich doing it, like being out and about and gathering, hunting... it was good, and is good, and rekindles in the soul what is really important, which creates a stark revelation when set next to what became important, but really isn't.

Watching tree leaves glitter in a sunny breeze is important. It's rich. I didn't take a camera. Regretted that. Because each tree and each small scene offered about ten thousand photo ops. Next time. But there's the mind. I recorded visuals. They're in the vaults. They may or may not come back out. If they do, and they are made into written words, they would suffer immediate dilution if exposed in any internet venue. So I am going to try and rearrange the priorities. Connecting with the natural world, and fucking, and music, and tactile visuals, and spinning out lines as miniature word worlds... all that and more, and all that for its own sake, their moments and all, should go on the top of the what's important list. Internet activity of any kind should be at the bottom, the least important. It will be challenging. No doubt about that. The fact that I write on an internet venue that I should put internet activity on the bottom of what's important is a disturbing symptom of allowing internet activity to take a too-prominent position of what's important.

Try again tomorrow.

For now, I will go and contemplate whether the virtues of growing up are not really vastly overrated. I think so. Just knowing that, would solve a lot of problems. Or remove them. Yeah. Remove them.

Ciao.

 

[bflagsst]

Hmmnmm, you've bound yourself to this thread, you might feel bad if you disappear and people are on your thread looking for your guidance. Bijou has abandoned the folks on her thread, sometimes I hear their cries bleeding thru...

 

[bflagsst]

Once upon a time I did it habitually, and felt rich doing it, like being out and about and gathering, hunting... it was good, and is good, and rekindles in the soul what is really important, which creates a stark revelation when set next to what became important, but really isn't.

Ciao.

Right here is a very clear expression, it resembles a poem. It's why I'm interested in how you'd go about writing a poem that appeals to someone who doesn't write poems.

 

[bflagsst]

If you want to do an experiment to discover what qualities of a poem have mass appeal, you might want to include poems that you think most people will hate.. you know, as a control group.

that's interesting, I don't know that difficult poems can be a control though. A control group would have to be a selection of poems from the past that we already know people have liked. We have to see if people still like the same thing they liked fifty and a hundred years ago. but having the bad with what we presume the good might make it clearer why the good is good and ee cummings is ee cummings. ee is our friend, but hated by those we presume to target.

 

[Epmd607]

that's interesting, I don't know that difficult poems can be a control though. A control group would have to be a selection of poems from the past that we already know people have liked. We have to see if people still like the same thing they liked fifty and a hundred years ago. but having the bad with what we presume the good might make it clearer why the good is good and ee cummings is ee cummings. ee is our friend, but hated by those we presume to target.

Let the professors and students debate and do the scholarship on why poetry is pretty much dead. Poetry is as it is because it doesn't tell a story, songs don't tell stories either, but they conjure up the feelings poetry once did. Jordan would read your poems if they resembled the Notebook. But that's the fallacy of prose poetry. Prose poetry wants to tell a story in 28 lines, but you can't do anything in 28 lines, and poems over 14 lines are boring, just ask Edgar A. Poe in his "On Poetry" or whatever it was called.

The only purpose of poetry a zillion years ago was as a structure for memorizing stories. In the 18th and 19th century we get the modern age of poetry, short verses meant to illicit feelings of love, hate, just feelings and brief thoughts about things. The sonnets were all in groups or garlands way back when shakespeare and all them were writing short poems. Those groupings were all about one theme and story, not the hodgepodge of Keats to the contemporary books. We say the West bastardized the Haiku, but the Romantics bastardized the Sonnet too.

When I used AIM in high school everyone had lyrics in their profile, when people moved to myspace every other person posted their own little poem along with lyrics to some contemporary pop hit. Verses still speak to people, everyone with a web log has probably posted one of their poems. But the poetry we inherited from the Beats and Sylvia Plath and all that is just unappealing because it only speaks to other poets. I'm talking about the generations that read the Beats and Sylvia Plath, they're writing for Sylvia and for Bukowski, not for the people Bukowski was writing for. I don't know who anyone was writing for back then, I just know now everyone's writing for their teachers and the masters students who run poetry magazines, the profs who oversee publishing awards.

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

yes, technically the control would be the one's people are generally known to appreciate. The "difficult" ones could be a second experimental group. It just seems to me if you think that the public can't appreciate technical or difficult poetry, why not test that too?