"To keep the review thread clean..."

[Epmd607]

...

Nonetheless, there will be a lot of ways to read something. Even a single line can be read in multiple ways — give it to an actor, watch him go crazy with it. As for "the well read can access such information almost immediately"? There are people here who (as far as I can tell) are well read and who don't know what metre is.

...

If I remove the line breaks from a poem, does it stop being a poem? If I fill my prose story with alliterations, and internal rhymes, and break lines to make it look like verse, does it begin being a poem?

While I like both Three Tanka for Yosano Akiko and The Coin, I feel that the first is much closer to being prose, despite what you've said, about there being "studied technique" in it. Three Tanka is much more about the imagery it conjures than about a connection between writer and reader. The coin, on the other hand, presents a framework which requires some deeper engagement from the reader, giving only this hint: "We who live our lives within the outer margin, with sad Humanity we face our equivocal fate." You could "read it in 30 seconds, and feel like it says something", but then you'd be missing on actually connecting to its meaning.

I've read and written music since I was a kid. There are many factors that aren't included in typical notation that the musician has to interpret and inject their own creativity. It's more precise an art than interpreting Wallace Stevens, but perhaps almost as precise as a number of English language poets of the Romantic period:

Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets' food is love and fame:
If in this wide world of care
Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they,
Would they ever change their hue
As the light chameleons do,
Suiting it to every ray
Twenty times a day?

If you read this twice through and spoke it as you believe the author intended and 10 other poets did the same how different would each interpretation sound?

Line breaks aren't what make poems poems. ClearDayNow's poem without enjambment changes nothing:

We who live our lives within the outer margin,
with sad Humanity we face our equivocal fate.
For living is seeing a double sided coin
Spin eternally, never knowing the image that Is repeated there.
We hang suspended in our Unbelief, ever hoping, never knowing.
Protecting the hurt by saying we believe In disbelief.
Ever reeling, ever dealing, never seeing We are the thing we seek.

The internal, gerund heavy rhymes are still present. There might be a half-rhyme or two, the alliteration; it qualifies on both borders of poetry and prose. There never has been a line in the sand, while there certainly are poems that aren't prose and prose that isn't poetry. Which would be the point of protecting poetic traditions in the face of the movement toward making poetry closely resemble prose so much that it might not be worth considering it as poetry or possibly forgetting poetry altogether and let it be a dead art.

Anyway, no one's saying this couldn't be a poem and also prose. That wasn't my main criticism of The Coin, by the way, the point was that there's nothing to connect with in the poem during my thirty second read and re-read. My main criticism of Three Tanaka would be that while it fits within criteria for Tanaka, it says very little about the author as poet. It's like judging Ernest Hemingway as author based on the six words attributed to him about baby shoes for sale. There are forms such as Tanaka, Haiku, Triolet where a poet can exercise within the limited parameters quite well, OpenField is fairly successful.

 

[twelveoone]

It's my position, and seemingly the view of every poet who isn't 1201, that the spoken and written english language do have the elements of prosody that make metrical feet legible to the author of beowulf same as the authors on new poems page at literotica.

The reason poetry exists is probably because it's easier remembering language with rhythm ordered by stress patterns. It only takes a moderate study of poetry to see how well English grammar translates to the page to the reader. There are openings for interpretation when reading, but it's not some uncanny valley that 1201 and possibly Derrida would have you believe. Every grammar favors certain stress patterns in spoken language which can be manipulated on the page through simple act of being well read one can access such information almost immediately.

To respond to Tsotha in brief: half, internal, full rhyme, assonance, alliteration etc. There's a number of tools besides syllable and stress patterns that make poetry something different than prose. By neglecting the poetic tools and techniques we lose special traditions over time that we ought to preserve and expand on through our own creativity and care.

Emp, I really suggest a careful reading of what I have said, you will see in certain areas I agree with you, in others I point out the that there are inherent inadequacies and disagreements to even the lastest ways if looking at your god damn holy metre.
Yes, your god damn holy metre. Wasn't it you and your friend that sort of declared a holy war against a mild manner newspaper reported such as I?
Let us examine this statement:
The reason poetry exists is probably because it's easier remembering language with rhythm ordered by stress patterns
Can metre be a mnemonic device (tool for memory) I may have pointed that out and its possible use as a cueing system.
Does poetry exist is countries that do not have stress based patterns?
Why yes, as a matter of fact your god damn holy metre was such an importation and adaptation wasn't it?
Is English stress based language, why yes, and one dirty little secret is that of any 10 syllable utterance a percentage will be pentameter. And depending on how it is scanned, the percentage could increase.
Now seriously this deserves a thread of its own, but due to Moderator A's purge of non poetry, non discussion threads (hello?) and since I been getting as apathetic as Moderator B, I am less inclined to kick your ass as I done in the past.

 

[bogusagain]

It's my position, and seemingly the view of every poet who isn't 1201, that the spoken and written english language do have the elements of prosody that make metrical feet legible to the author of beowulf same as the authors on new poems page at literotica.

Not that I know much but the English or Anglo-Saxon of Beowulf has more in common with modern day Friese or even Dutch (I will insult Friesians by saying Friese is more a dialect of Dutch than a different language), than modern English. Friese is the closest living language to Anglo-Saxon. After all, while English still has a Germanic grammar at its foundation, 70% of its words are from the Latin, which has also had an affect on the grammar. Now Dutch is a far less flexible language than English. My Dutch ex used to say English is a more malleable, plastic and sing-song language than Dutch, which is why the modern Dutch import many English expressions.

Getting to the point in hand, the language of Beowulf had far more prosody than modern English and should you listen to modern Dutch (Flemish in this case) you get and idea. Hugo Claus - De Moeder , then compare it to Anglo-Saxon, then consider modern English, modern English has lost much of its orignal prosody compared to the Germanic languages it developed from.

Now after writing that, I'm not sure what my original point was, other than less bastardised modern Germanic languages have far more prosody than modern English. In fact, one of the reasons modern English is so successful as a language to sing in for many none English speakers, is its elasticity, not is prosody.

 

[pelegrino]

It's my position, and seemingly the view of every poet who isn't 1201, that the spoken and written english language do have the elements of prosody that make metrical feet legible to the author of beowulf same as the authors on new poems page at literotica.

The reason poetry exists is probably because it's easier remembering language with rhythm ordered by stress patterns. It only takes a moderate study of poetry to see how well English grammar translates to the page to the reader. There are openings for interpretation when reading, but it's not some uncanny valley that 1201 and possibly Derrida would have you believe. Every grammar favors certain stress patterns in spoken language which can be manipulated on the page through simple act of being well read one can access such information almost immediately.

To respond to Tsotha in brief: half, internal, full rhyme, assonance, alliteration etc. There's a number of tools besides syllable and stress patterns that make poetry something different than prose. By neglecting the poetic tools and techniques we lose special traditions over time that we ought to preserve and expand on through our own creativity and care.

Sorry,Epmd607. I did not realize in the first place that you were quoting 1201.
You find me in accordance with the views you expressed on prosody and with your brief response to Tsotha.

 

[pelegrino]

Thanks to demure 101 and to Cleardaynow for comments on my Poem "Canella".
Cleardaynow, Thanks for taking the time to mention those details and for your fair criticism.
Points taken on board.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Thanks to Cleardaynow, Angeline, and todski for their comments on "Finding Love in the Arthur Kill." Detailed comments with constructive criticism like those provided make this site a good cyber workshop that can't help but make a poet write better.

 

[twelveoone]

It's my position, and seemingly the view of every poet who isn't 1201, that the spoken and written english language do have the elements of prosody that make metrical feet legible to the author of beowulf same as the authors on new poems page at literotica.

The reason poetry exists is probably because it's easier remembering language with rhythm ordered by stress patterns. It only takes a moderate study of poetry to see how well English grammar translates to the page to the reader. There are openings for interpretation when reading, but it's not some uncanny valley that 1201 and possibly Derrida would have you believe. Every grammar favors certain stress patterns in spoken language which can be manipulated on the page through simple act of being well read one can access such information almost immediately.

To respond to Tsotha in brief: half, internal, full rhyme, assonance, alliteration etc. There's a number of tools besides syllable and stress patterns that make poetry something different than prose. By neglecting the poetic tools and techniques we lose special traditions over time that we ought to preserve and expand on through our own creativity and care.

Hello Emp, outside of pointing out that Derrida was French...which is nation that hasn't bought into the great metre scam er, scansion, that the English fell prey to when THEY decided to emulate the Roman Empire and adopt the Holy Metre, without...ah never mind, I lost interest...and as far as that goes, those traitorous bastards (the so-called Americans) who left the great mothership during a time when our beloved King, who couldn't even speak English, then have been more inclined to Free Verse. Free Verse and no Tea Tax, I believe those heathen savages proclaimed.
I digress.
Monty Python Rules.
And they are Engrish.
Rearry.
Btw I have passed beyond the uncanny valley into the plains of hyperreality and moved up to the mountains of hyperunreality. It is a lovely view. Of Text and Signs and Shit. i.e. it is the degree of concentrated psychological manipulation that largely separates poetry from prose.
Your beefs may be valid, but red beefs cause a colon cancer of the mind, which would be a great title, except for the fact someone would accuse me of stealin it from Ferlinghetti (who was Free Verser also)
Or as Wittgenstein might have said, but probably didn't:
You can't get shit from a rose
But you can grow better roses with shit than without.
so there!
LONG LIVE MARK!
groucho and harpo and chico and zeppo (gummo booked before the big time)
hidden because I don't want to upset litmoda or litmodb

 

[Tsotha]

Hello Emp, outside of pointing out that Derrida was French...which is nation that hasn't bought into the great metre scam er, scansion, that the English fell prey to when THEY decided to emulate the Roman Empire and adopt the Holy Metre, without...ah never mind, I lost interest...and as far as that goes, those traitorous bastards (the so-called Americans) who left the great mothership during a time when our beloved King, who couldn't even speak English, then have been more inclined to Free Verse. Free Verse and no Tea Tax, I believe those heathen savages proclaimed.
I digress.
Monty Python Rules.
And they are Engrish.
Rearry.
Btw I have passed beyond the uncanny valley into the plains of hyperreality and moved up to the mountains of hyperunreality. It is a lovely view. Of Text and Signs and Shit. i.e. it is the degree of concentrated psychological manipulation that largely separates poetry from prose.
Your beefs may be valid, but red beefs cause a colon cancer of the mind, which would be a great title, except for the fact someone would accuse me of stealin it from Ferlinghetti (who was Free Verser also)
Or as Wittgenstein might have said, but probably didn't:
You can't get shit from a rose
But you can grow better roses with shit than without.
so there!
LONG LIVE MARK!
groucho and harpo and chico and zeppo (gummo booked before the big time)
hidden because I don't want to upset litmoda or litmodb

Oh, wow. That was beautiful.

However, you should stop at the mountains. Don't wander into Carcosa.

If you read this twice through and spoke it as you believe the author intended and 10 other poets did the same how different would each interpretation sound?

A little different. But then, that is a very well behaved group of words.

There never has been a line in the sand, while there certainly are poems that aren't prose and prose that isn't poetry. Which would be the point of protecting poetic traditions in the face of the movement toward making poetry closely resemble prose so much that it might not be worth considering it as poetry or possibly forgetting poetry altogether and let it be a dead art.

All I see are words. Sometimes they inform, sometimes they have rhythm, sometimes they are put in a form (a pyramid, a block, paragraphs), sometimes they flow free, sometimes rhyme. Sometimes they create an emotional connection, sometimes they push me away into complete apathy. Sometimes I can see intent, sometimes I see thoughtlessness.

I created a thread so that the people here who are far more wise and knowledgeable than me could explain to me the difference between poetry and prose, and they came up with a lot of different answers. Apparently, it's not so easy to define poetry. Well, except for Senna Jawa, who thinks the question is stupid. But Senna Jawa is an idiot.

So, poetic traditions. Another answer — thank you.

Anyway, no one's saying this couldn't be a poem and also prose. That wasn't my main criticism of The Coin, by the way, the point was that there's nothing to connect with in the poem during my thirty second read and re-read. My main criticism of Three Tanaka would be that while it fits within criteria for Tanaka, it says very little about the author as poet. It's like judging Ernest Hemingway as author based on the six words attributed to him about baby shoes for sale. There are forms such as Tanaka, Haiku, Triolet where a poet can exercise within the limited parameters quite well, OpenField is fairly successful.

Well, I connected to The Coin.

 

[Epmd607]

...

All I see are words. Sometimes they inform, sometimes they have rhythm, sometimes they are put in a form (a pyramid, a block, paragraphs), sometimes they flow free, sometimes rhyme. Sometimes they create an emotional connection, sometimes they push me away into complete apathy. Sometimes I can see intent, sometimes I see thoughtlessness.

I created a thread so that the people here who are far more wise and knowledgeable than me could explain to me the difference between poetry and prose, and they came up with a lot of different answers. Apparently, it's not so easy to define poetry. Well, except for Senna Jawa, who thinks the question is stupid. But Senna Jawa is an idiot.

So, poetic traditions. Another answer — thank you.



Well, I connected to The Coin.

1.) A good poem should find itself conjuring a variety of images, feelings, personal memories from a dedicated reader. There's not much of a crowd that would favor such a thing as an objective aesthetics ie 'I find this piece pleasurable, it made me think of my long dead dog companion from childhood and everyone else should take pleasure in the same way as me.' However, what can be criticized about a poem and not a short story?

2.) Does the author utilize any of the traditional structures, meter, forms of poetry?
Take a look at Tzara's thread of forms if your curious in what traditional structures might look like.

3.) Is there stanza, how are the lines organized? This is where the prosaic 'poets' often sneak by. Poetry is interested in how lines look, is there aesthetic symmetry, does the author utilize line breaks in place of periods, semicolon or commas? A prosaic poet who isn't interested in poetic beauty, will order their run-on and fragment sentences under a vague license appealing to aesthetics.

Here is where prosaic poets most often come up short:

4.) Does the author utilize assonance, internal rhyme, end rhyme, slant rhyme, alliteration, consonance, the tongue twister...? The list is a long one and there is great detail and variation to each category which the practiced poet studies and refines creating their own individual technique. James Joyce, who began professional life as a polished poet, often utilized poetic techniques in his stories. Would you take a few sentences out of a paragraph from Stephen Hero and call that bit poetry and the surrounding bit prose?

Such ordered stanza as blank verse exist where point 4 is largely ignored.

Most poems written this year would generally fall under the strictures of free verse. Free verse can't possibly include all of prose and a good chunk of poetry, right? Free verse removes itself for the most part from point 2 but adopts points 3, 4 as gospel. It's the longest of conversations, why do the free verse poets still use poetic techniques from point 4 and even some semblance of meter, syllable counting etc. and not just write a little story under the guise of point 3? Since poetry is such a thing that is so undefinable as to have every modern poem transmogrifying with every story and also news article and technical manual, text message...

The only point at which prose and poetry meet would be point 1. Maybe it's boring, that we're so anti-form that we'd enjoy every poem consisting of 12-20 lines of alliteration, internal rhyme and each stanza ending on a half rhyme(resembling most modern rap songs, not coincidentally).

 

[Cleardaynow]

1.) A good poem should find itself conjuring a variety of images, feelings, personal memories from a dedicated reader. There's not much of a crowd that would favor such a thing as an objective aesthetics ie 'I find this piece pleasurable, it made me think of my long dead dog companion from childhood and everyone else should take pleasure in the same way as me.' However, what can be criticized about a poem and not a short story?

2.) Does the author utilize any of the traditional structures, meter, forms of poetry?
Take a look at Tzara's thread of forms if your curious in what traditional structures might look like.

3.) Is there stanza, how are the lines organized? This is where the prosaic 'poets' often sneak by. Poetry is interested in how lines look, is there aesthetic symmetry, does the author utilize line breaks in place of periods, semicolon or commas? A prosaic poet who isn't interested in poetic beauty, will order their run-on and fragment sentences under a vague license appealing to aesthetics.

Here is where prosaic poets most often come up short:

4.) Does the author utilize assonance, internal rhyme, end rhyme, slant rhyme, alliteration, consonance, the tongue twister...? The list is a long one and there is great detail and variation to each category which the practiced poet studies and refines creating their own individual technique. James Joyce, who began professional life as a polished poet, often utilized poetic techniques in his stories. Would you take a few sentences out of a paragraph from Stephen Hero and call that bit poetry and the surrounding bit prose?

Such ordered stanza as blank verse exist where point 4 is largely ignored.

Most poems written this year would generally fall under the strictures of free verse. Free verse can't possibly include all of prose and a good chunk of poetry, right? Free verse removes itself for the most part from point 2 but adopts points 3, 4 as gospel. It's the longest of conversations, why do the free verse poets still use poetic techniques from point 4 and even some semblance of meter, syllable counting etc. and not just write a little story under the guise of point 3? Since poetry is such a thing that is so undefinable as to have every modern poem transmogrifying with every story and also news article and technical manual, text message...

The only point at which prose and poetry meet would be point 1. Maybe it's boring, that we're so anti-form that we'd enjoy every poem consisting of 12-20 lines of alliteration, internal rhyme and each stanza ending on a half rhyme(resembling most modern rap songs, not coincidentally).

For the last few days I have felt a bit like a cadaver must feel while the professor carves it up and explains the bits to the assembled medical students.

I am not going to talk about ‘The Coin’ except to say that my take in the poem is contained in a comment I left on the poem itself and that I do think removing the enjambment does change the poem. Not in terms of gerunds – amazingly they are still there – but because change of line ending alters pause and stress.

One thing that does interest me is the nature and meaning of poetry. I apologise that I am only half way through reading everything on the ‘What is a poem?’ thread – I want to absorb not just skim through – but I wanted to write this before this discussion drifted into the usual oblivion. So please excuse me if some of what I say is covered in the thread or I am teaching my grandmother to suck eggs.

I think there is much I agree with & a certain amount I disagree with on the entries relating to these two poems.

I suppose in essence I would say that any definitions of what poetry is (or is not) or dividing ‘poems’ into poetry, prose poems, prose etc are pragmatic categorisations for useful convenience only (a tautology but useful for emphasis). It really does not matter whether a piece falls into a category. What does matter is whether or not it is ‘good’.

Which, of course, is just moving the problem along. What is good poetry? Again in short, I would say it is good if it moves people – i.e. in its impact. Which then brings us to the nature and possibly quality of that ‘moving’. For example, I would have great difficulty in thinking a poem (or prose) that extolled ‘Diana, you are the people’s princess and will always be queen in our hearts’ good poetry (or prose) even though lots of people would be moved to tears. I am itching to expand and qualify the above but will keep it to just that for now.

I believe it is extremely helpful to look at the other ‘arts’ and see what they tell us – particularly music and visual arts (painting). All the arts apart from literature have gone through radical transformations over the past hundred years or so, through dialectic processes relating to non European cultures. I think that it is worth stressing that ‘synthesis’ is a radical process – mixing oxygen and hydrogen together is not synthesis but applying a match does result in synthesis (please do not try this at home). So painting and poetry, principally through the influence of Japanese poetry and art, have been deconstructed so every single rule about what art must or should be has been questioned and effectively removed. The haiku was not just another structure, another ‘-ameter’ it threw out most of the then poetry rules and Japanese art showed you could have great beauty, specifically without perspective – both leading to all rules being questioned.

British/American/European Music had been an uneasy balance between ‘classical’ (i.e. rich people’s) music and poor people’s music. Synthesis between that and Afro-American music led to our current situation.

It is interesting that there is now no divide into rich people’s and poor people’s music but in painting you get very rich people paying silly money for ‘designer label’ art. Possibly as a consequence music is in a very healthy state (I assert) but ‘art’ is not. Artists seem to be obsessed with what is or is not art & in Britain you get the annual Turner Prize. This utterly ludicrous event is culturally on a par with the Eurovision Song Contest. Each year the Turner committee strives to find the weirdest thing to award the prize to. Both contests have a fascination for us in seeing just how awful the winner will be, how underhand the scoring will be and the vain hope that at least one entry will actually be any good. The biggest difference is that two hundred million Europeans do not think that the Turner Prize matters. Basically, the ‘art’ world has disappeared up its own arsehole. There is a massive gulf between the ‘art’ establishment’s view of art and the public’s.

Music is far healthier (I submit). When I was a lad, there was a complete gulf between ‘classical’ music and popular music. Then anyone who played or listened to classical music had no time or respect for popular music. Jazz held an uneasy position between the two – possibly combining the worst of both worlds culturally. Whether or not you like or rate the Beatles, Stones etc., their explosion changed the music world. Now we have a situation where classical musicians back rock stars, most younger classical players will be steeped in and like popular music and many rock singers/musicians will have a considerable knowledge and liking for Bach, Beethoven & Mozart. Many or most of us will like, love and listen to a cross section of music. The real issue for any piece of music we listen to is how much we like or love it – how good it is. Some people will mainly or solely like narrow genres – which is OK by the rest of us. Much of the best music in the early days of this change was written and performed by people with little or no formal training or knowledge of musical theory and technique.

The music genres have moved subtly to being defined by what is good or best within them. Thus classical music is effectively now defined by its centre of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, etc rather than by a set of rules defining the nature of classical music. Rock music is defined by the greats while the rest fade away. Thus when the Beetles and Stones broke America, Hermans Hermits were actually more popular there but now they are (thankfully) forgotten.

What determines that a particular piece of classical or rock music is good? Fuck knows. In the centuries following Bach, Beethoven, Mozart lots of composers and critics had a far deeper knowledge of the musical structures, techniques etc than those three themselves did – yet could these people produce music that was as good – despite knowing all the ‘rules’ or techniques used? No. It is argued that that was because music had moved on. That is crap. If any of those three had lived longer healthily (particularly Mozart who died very young) they would have produced more great music recognisably in their style but separate. Yet no one, even as an exercise, can produce a ‘Bach, Beethoven or Mozart’ piece that we would want to listen to. Similarly, no one can produce an early Dylan song (including Dylan sadly).

So, looking at something that claims to be a poem – or a piece of music. The first thing is does it move you? In some way? This is fundamentally the only thing that matters.

I would say that secondly, having decided whether it moves you, you can look at three things to help understand why:
• What does it convey or try to convey (mainly but not solely the logical content – thus ‘the hammer, hammer, hammer on the hard dry road’ conveys the sense of riding a horse on a road – rather well). Is it subtle and deep or banal (Di, queen of our hearts)? I am reasonably certain that this is the most important thing for any poem
• Flow, simply does it sound good and support the message
• What is its logical and physical structure

Only then is it thirdly helpful to see, particularly for the flow, whether it is using specific poetic techniques.

As to what sub genre of poetry or prose it belongs to, who gives a fuck.

Just my current thoughts – in a bit of a rush.

 

[pelegrino]

Keeping the review thread clean!
Let's keep this discussion somewhere else too. In another thread, perhaps.
As I don't have always access to the net I'm copying all these post to read them at home later and make up my mind whether I want to reply to anyone.

 

[pelegrino]

Many thanks to tweedy41 for favoring my poem "By The By".

 

[pelegrino]

The music genres have moved subtly to being defined by what is good or best within them. Thus classical music is effectively now defined by its centre of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, etc rather than by a set of rules defining the nature of classical music. Rock music is defined by the greats while the rest fade away. Thus when the Beetles and Stones broke America, Hermans Hermits were actually more popular there but now they are (thankfully) forgotten.

What determines that a particular piece of classical or rock music is good? Fuck knows. In the centuries following Bach, Beethoven, Mozart lots of composers and critics had a far deeper knowledge of the musical structures, techniques etc than those three themselves did – yet could these people produce music that was as good – despite knowing all the ‘rules’ or techniques used? No. It is argued that that was because music had moved on. That is crap. If any of those three had lived longer healthily (particularly Mozart who died very young) they would have produced more great music recognisably in their style but separate. Yet no one, even as an exercise, can produce a ‘Bach, Beethoven or Mozart’ piece that we would want to listen to. Similarly, no one can produce an early Dylan song (including Dylan sadly).

Just some quick thoughts.

1. Let music genres define themselves, they do it quite well. Just look for those definitions.
2. Classical music is still defined by sets of rules (very strict at times) and not by three big names. Actually Bach belongs to the baroque and not the classical era, but even him, great as he may be, cannot alone define baroque music. Therefore, I disagree with you here.
3. As no.2 above, rock music is not defined by its "greats" but by rules also. I am a Beatles and Stones fanatic, but I don't find anything wrong with Hermans Hermits, because "something tells me I'm into something good" even there (as far as rock is concerned).
4. "Fuck" does not really know all that much about music. Musicians and academics usually do. Quite well some times!
5. Bach, Mozart and Beethoven knew whatever was worth knowing about music up to their respective dates ie. 1685-1750, 1756-1791 & 1770-1827. That includes melody construction, (the first two were natural melodists and Beethoven a hard worker), Harmony, counterpoint, fugue techniques, orchestration and the major and minor forms of their times, ie. binary and ternary sonata forms, rondos, concerto, ouverture, symphony, various dance forms, etc. etc.
The way you put it you would have us believe that they knew nothing.
Later composers and scholars had more accumulated historical and technical knowledge, but they did not know anything more in depth really about baroque and classicism than the three composers mentioned.
These later composers (and up to this date) have also produced equally great music.
If people remember Bach and ignore Bela Bartok it is neither here nor there. Bartok is equally great.
6. It is not crap that music has moved on. It really has moved on! Where would we be if it had not?
7. It is not a requirement (aesthetic or otherwise) for our times and for present day main stream composers to produce pieces in baroque or classical style. Is it? This 2014.
Tonality is dead since c.1900. Some reactionary bastards have invented minimalism and new simplicity and god knows what, but there are also some more positive signs of tonal music coming back from 1980 onwards.
8. Reproducing the styles of baroque and classical eras is standard curriculum exercise in all conservatories and musical academies. Study in depth is taking place. Aesthetic results are quite successful. What more should we ask from students? It would be silly to expect them to write like Bach etc. They study him so they are able someday to write like themselves.
Why anyone nowadays would want to write an early Dylan song? (including Dylan, gladly).

 

[Ashesh9]

Thank you Clearday for kind comments & Harry for Favouritin' my poem " but Dinos did'nt have Souls .....?"

 

[twelveoone]

Thank you Clearday for kind comments & Harry for Favouritin' my poem " but Dinos did'nt have Souls .....?"

now, now, ash

have you never heard of T. Rex?

 

[twelveoone]

1.) A good poem should find itself conjuring a variety of images, feelings, personal memories from a dedicated reader. There's not much of a crowd that would favor such a thing as an objective aesthetics ie 'I find this piece pleasurable, it made me think of my long dead dog companion from childhood and everyone else should take pleasure in the same way as me.' However, what can be criticized about a poem and not a short story?

2.) Does the author utilize any of the traditional structures, meter, forms of poetry?
Take a look at Tzara's thread of forms if your curious in what traditional structures might look like.

3.) Is there stanza, how are the lines organized? This is where the prosaic 'poets' often sneak by. Poetry is interested in how lines look, is there aesthetic symmetry, does the author utilize line breaks in place of periods, semicolon or commas? A prosaic poet who isn't interested in poetic beauty, will order their run-on and fragment sentences under a vague license appealing to aesthetics.

Here is where prosaic poets most often come up short:

4.) Does the author utilize assonance, internal rhyme, end rhyme, slant rhyme, alliteration, consonance, the tongue twister...? The list is a long one and there is great detail and variation to each category which the practiced poet studies and refines creating their own individual technique. James Joyce, who began professional life as a polished poet, often utilized poetic techniques in his stories. Would you take a few sentences out of a paragraph from Stephen Hero and call that bit poetry and the surrounding bit prose?

Such ordered stanza as blank verse exist where point 4 is largely ignored.

Most poems written this year would generally fall under the strictures of free verse. Free verse can't possibly include all of prose and a good chunk of poetry, right? Free verse removes itself for the most part from point 2 but adopts points 3, 4 as gospel. It's the longest of conversations, why do the free verse poets still use poetic techniques from point 4 and even some semblance of meter, syllable counting etc. and not just write a little story under the guise of point 3? Since poetry is such a thing that is so undefinable as to have every modern poem transmogrifying with every story and also news article and technical manual, text message...

The only point at which prose and poetry meet would be point 1. Maybe it's boring, that we're so anti-form that we'd enjoy every poem consisting of 12-20 lines of alliteration, internal rhyme and each stanza ending on a half rhyme(resembling most modern rap songs, not coincidentally).

yo, dipodic ballad stucture
I've heard, but WTF do I know?

And you know goddanm well I could shred everyone of your points, but the cyan terror is a much more kinder gentle person

 

[Cleardaynow]

Just some quick thoughts.

1. Let music genres define themselves, they do it quite well. Just look for those definitions.
2. Classical music is still defined by sets of rules (very strict at times) and not by three big names. Actually Bach belongs to the baroque and not the classical era, but even him, great as he may be, cannot alone define baroque music. Therefore, I disagree with you here.
3. As no.2 above, rock music is not defined by its "greats" but by rules also. I am a Beatles and Stones fanatic, but I don't find anything wrong with Hermans Hermits, because "something tells me I'm into something good" even there (as far as rock is concerned).
4. "Fuck" does not really know all that much about music. Musicians and academics usually do. Quite well some times!
5. Bach, Mozart and Beethoven knew whatever was worth knowing about music up to their respective dates ie. 1685-1750, 1756-1791 & 1770-1827. That includes melody construction, (the first two were natural melodists and Beethoven a hard worker), Harmony, counterpoint, fugue techniques, orchestration and the major and minor forms of their times, ie. binary and ternary sonata forms, rondos, concerto, ouverture, symphony, various dance forms, etc. etc.
The way you put it you would have us believe that they knew nothing.
Later composers and scholars had more accumulated historical and technical knowledge, but they did not know anything more in depth really about baroque and classicism than the three composers mentioned.
These later composers (and up to this date) have also produced equally great music.
If people remember Bach and ignore Bela Bartok it is neither here nor there. Bartok is equally great.
6. It is not crap that music has moved on. It really has moved on! Where would we be if it had not?
7. It is not a requirement (aesthetic or otherwise) for our times and for present day main stream composers to produce pieces in baroque or classical style. Is it? This 2014.
Tonality is dead since c.1900. Some reactionary bastards have invented minimalism and new simplicity and god knows what, but there are also some more positive signs of tonal music coming back from 1980 onwards.
8. Reproducing the styles of baroque and classical eras is standard curriculum exercise in all conservatories and musical academies. Study in depth is taking place. Aesthetic results are quite successful. What more should we ask from students? It would be silly to expect them to write like Bach etc. They study him so they are able someday to write like themselves.
Why anyone nowadays would want to write an early Dylan song? (including Dylan, gladly).

Thank you Pelegrino for your really interesting response based on what clearly is a deep knowledge of music.

I do want to respond to this in some detail because I think that by analogy it touches on two key questions. Firstly, through asking what ‘good’ poetry is, we are asking what we can aspire and strive towards. Secondly, there is the question of the extent and way our understanding various aspects of poetry can actually help us in practice to write better poetry.

I did express myself poorly in at least one place if I gave the impression that I thought Bach et al had poor theoretical knowledge of music when they wrote. That was not the point I was trying to make.

I want to first read and think about the ‘What is a poem?’ thread before responding as it is the analogy with poetry that drives me rather than just academic discussion of music. I will probably respond on that thread. I may be some time.

If anyone knows any other threads I should read on this, do please let me know – as obviously people will have been going round and round this one over the past ten years.

 

[Tsotha]

This thread, which was bumped by Todski, seems to be in the same vein as the "What is a poem?" thread. Interesting read (I'm only halfway through it).

EDIT: and another... Tod is pretty good at finding things in the forum.

 

[pelegrino]

Thanks, Cleardaynow, for your kind comments on my poem "By The By".

 

[pelegrino]

Thanks, Tsotha, for taking the time to think and to comment on "by The By".
Exact circumstances do not really matter. You are reading the double feeling very close.
It is a juxtaposition of the recent Easter time to that of my "Easter Time Ballade" of two years ago, of which I have submitted a few pieces recently.
On one hand the fear and uncertainty of confusion and on the other the greater fear of clarity on the loss of emotional security as in "Easter Time Ballade", and finally a request to remain human.

 

[Epmd607]

Cleardaynow, we make our categories and order are departments because we're trying to get at what makes a poem good vs. what makes a poem passable vs. what makes a poem completely uninteresting. The tedium and banter over prose vs. poem is just one road to discovery.

1201, if you had points to make, I'm sure you'd make them. As we're on a message board and not 1201's journal and criticism is what keeps this ship from sinking. Someone constantly harbinging on reciprocal criticism should have figured that out by now. You aren't criticizing my statements only to prove to me how wonderful you are, correct? The riddles and ill sourced references have worn out their welcome with me. I'll reply to your points or queries if they actually refer to the discussion taking place.

 

[twelveoone]

Cleardaynow, we make our categories and order are departments because we're trying to get at what makes a poem good vs. what makes a poem passable vs. what makes a poem completely uninteresting. The tedium and banter over prose vs. poem is just one road to discovery.

1201, if you had points to make, I'm sure you'd make them. As we're on a message board and not 1201's journal and criticism is what keeps this ship from sinking. Someone constantly harbinging on reciprocal criticism should have figured that out by now. You aren't criticizing my statements only to prove to me how wonderful you are, correct? The riddles and ill sourced references have worn out their welcome with me. I'll reply to your points or queries if they actually refer to the discussion taking place.

Now Emp, if you were observant you might have noticed, that we are NOT that far apart, I probably have posted more concerning poetry including Formalist than the next three people here. I believe I have did more actual parsing than anyone else. I also believe I have stated that I could be wrong about half the time, and people should be skeptical. I have also left more comments than you, this ONE poem that I wrote that you liked, I did not see a comment, nor have I seen much in regarding to the specifics of a poem from you. Nor references come to think of it.

I don't like dogmatism from any quarter and you seem to be a bit dogmatic, inconsistent, and not much fun.
What fucking scares you is that I just may be right the other half of the time. Get over your fear. Generative metrics and cognitive poetry (and other things) just may be on to something. You can google the terms and decide for yourself.
Grafting a system designed for one thing on another will lead to problems, poets themselves recognized it for something like 500 years.
What you (and others) try to do is take a limited knowledge and use it to set up a hierarchy, and anyone that questions it is a blasphemer . 1.) the knowledge itself is flawed and 2.) because someone is agnostic doesn't mean that the knowledge they have is less than that of a believer.
In other words, what makes a poem interesting to you, may not be the same as what makes a poem interesting to me. The standard rhyme and metre have fallen out of favour as best as I can tell, why? What replaces it? A large amount of junk. However, when the standard poetry rules ruled the roost, what was generated? A large amount of junk.

I don't follow, nor do I lead, you can perceive that as an enigma.

And 5,000+ posts is NOT an inordinate number for ten years.

 

[twelveoone]

Line breaks aren't what make poems poems. ClearDayNow's poem without enjambment changes nothing:

Anyway, no one's saying this couldn't be a poem and also prose. That wasn't my main criticism of The Coin, by the way, the point was that there's nothing to connect with in the poem during my thirty second read and re-read. My main criticism of Three Tanaka would be that while it fits within criteria for Tanaka, it says very little about the author as poet. It's like judging Ernest Hemingway as author based on the six words attributed to him about baby shoes for sale. There are forms such as Tanaka, Haiku, Triolet where a poet can exercise within the limited parameters quite well, OpenField is fairly successful.

Enjambment has an impact, it is primarily visual, the text is visual. There is debate as to, whether it has an auditory effect.

Now why should a poem say anything about the Author, what are we judging here? It is not that I totally buy the Death of the Author bullshit, but I'd be less inclined to buy your line of reasoning.

The writer wrote a three tanaka's, if the writer writers three more, and then three more, if would be a safe assumption the writer is probably a tanaka writer, what more do you need to know, her shoe size? What is behind this, confessionalism creeping in?

 

[todski28]

thanks again

Tsotha, I will pm you at a later date with some answers to your questions and some words on your comments, I must say your insights have given me more fuel for thinking on, I appreciate the time you have taken and the comments made.

 

[bogusagain]

Now why should a poem say anything about the Author, what are we judging here?

I've got to agree here. It is all artifice.

I've often wondered why so many people seem to expect poetry to be somehow autobiographical and essentially factual. It's as though they see poetry as some sort of prayer that only has power if it is being truthful to god. But why? We are all the creator of our own delusions which are all fictions. Whether god and/or truth exists or not is rather irrelevant because we'll never know. Certainly not this side of the grave. We create our own realites, we create our own truths and we lie all the time. It's all artifice.

Just my humble opinion.