What makes it poetry?

[Angeline]

schlemiel, perhaps. Or meshugginah. Goyim, at the very least.

My grandmother called traffic jams meshugginah vonsen (crazy cockaroaches). It's a wonderful language.

But we're practicing our New Jerseyese (well eagleyez is; it's my native language), so we're watching The Sopranos and Goodfellas. Conversational New Jersey 101.

Whaddya want?
Nuttin?
Fugeddaboudit.
Aight.

I'll have sweet dreams about getting whacked. Night poets.

 

[Tzara]

Where does the inspiration to write poetry come from? Anomie or Götterfunken?

Ode d'Envoi
music: Beethoven; lyric: cribbed from Schiller

Anomie or Götterfunken?
Such is Pogo's question.
Weird, but he has got me thunkin'
When he talks of poetition.
How we waver, semiquaver,
And we finally burn out.
If we're lucky, someone plucky
Reads us and then says, Oh, wow!

 

[sophieloves]

I like this answer to the question "What makes it poetry?" I've passed it through the brain-sieve, filtered it twice, and this what I get:

A poem is its author's child;
The poet dead, it still runs wild.

Authentic poets write authentic poetry.

So what, besides the discipline to write, makes an authentic poet? Where does the inspiration to write poetry come from? Anomie or Götterfunken? Does the vary by era? Does it vary by location? And how does a poet's perception of the source of his inspiration affect his writing? How do other's perception of the the poet's source of inspiration affect their interpretation of a poem?
Let's talk about the sociology of poetry. Or not.

i'm sorry. i'm not real experienced just offer my opinion and i don't know what Anomie or Gotterfunken is. all i know is that i read a load of rubbish being called poetry, and other pieces move me. they make a contact and stir something inside me. the best move me to tears, whether of sorrow or pure happiness. anyone can write. anyone can type words on a page and call it a poem. just because they call it apoem, doesn't make it one as far as i'm concerned. i think people can learn to write poetry, but the very best come from inside a poet and draw on a poet's own emotions and can connect with the reader's.

 

[Tathagata]

My grandmother called traffic jams meshugginah vonsen (crazy cockaroaches). It's a wonderful language.

not mishugas?


I was watching Goodfellas last night waiting for the game to start
" Oh I like this one... One dog goes one way, the other dog goes the other way, and this guy's sayin', "Whadda ya want from me?"

 

[Tathagata]

i'm sorry. i'm not real experienced just offer my opinion and i don't know what Anomie or Gotterfunken .

Anomie is some kind of japanese sex cartoon
and Gotterfunken sang " Bridge Over Troubled Water"

I have no idea what it has to do with poetry either

 

[sophieloves]

Anomie is some kind of japanese sex cartoon
and Gotterfunken sang " Bridge Over Troubled Water"

I have no idea what it has to do with poetry either

no? and i thought animé was the cartoons and simon and garfunkel sang that. wow. learn something new each day. ty.

 

[Angeline]

Anomie is some kind of japanese sex cartoon
and Gotterfunken sang " Bridge Over Troubled Water"

I have no idea what it has to do with poetry either

Me neither, but I love salt bagels with scallion cream cheese, too. If Tzara tells me his wife likes that combination with tomato slices, it's going to get a little eerie.

 

[Tathagata]

Me neither, but I love salt bagels with scallion cream cheese, too. If Tzara tells me his wife likes that combination with tomato slices, it's going to get a little eerie.

onion bagel, toasted
vit a schmeer
( or is it schmear?)
you use it to mop up the egg yolk

 

[Angeline]

onion bagel, toasted
vit a schmeer
( or is it schmear?)
you use it to mop up the egg yolk

In my house it's a schmear, and keep those lox away from my bagels, even Novi. And you've described ee's perfect bagel. Think it's an Irish thing?

 

[Tathagata]

In my house it's a schmear, and keep those lox away from my bagels, even Novi. And you've described ee's perfect bagel. Think it's an Irish thing?

an Irish thing is when you use it to scoop up the corned beef hash and egg yolk

 

[Picodiribibi]

Anomie is an enduring state of normlessness, one's (negative) reaction to social control (public ethics or morals), a rejection of the status quo;

Götterfunken (indeed, cribbed from Schiller; literally translated, "divine spark") implies a spontaneous celebration of existence, an embracing of the status quo.

I suppose I could have used the words "malaise" or "joy," but I think much meaning would be lost had I done so. I think, for example, that the reaction to formalism in poetry today seems to be born of anomie: perhaps as a reaction to the homogenization of language, poets today are breaking open the line, trying to extract meaning from an act of symbolic destruction, an act that parallels what they perceive (subconsciously, even) to be a universal corruption of language.
I think we've moved away from the poetics of joy in the last 150 years. Maybe that's not a bad thing...

 

[Angeline]

Anomie is an enduring state of normlessness, one's (negative) reaction to social control (public ethics or morals), a rejection of the status quo;

Götterfunken (indeed, cribbed from Schiller; literally translated, "divine spark") implies a spontaneous celebration of existence, an embracing of the status quo.

I suppose I could have used the words "malaise" or "joy," but I think much meaning would be lost had I done so. I think, for example, that the reaction to formalism in poetry today seems to be born of anomie: perhaps as a reaction to the homogenization of language, poets today are breaking open the line, trying to extract meaning from an act of symbolic destruction, an act that parallels what they perceive (subconsciously, even) to be a universal corruption of language.
I think we've moved away from the poetics of joy in the last 150 years. Maybe that's not a bad thing...

I still write sonnets and sestinas and villanelles and ghazals, etc. But I know what you're saying. I sometimes think the Beat Movement, or maybe earlier actually--the poetry of the lost generation after World War I--killed the poetics of joy. Or knocked it into a coma. Most people are focused on their navel and write about their alienation now, either directly or indirectly. You don't see much poetry expressing the beauty of flowers--like much of Wordsworth's poetry, for example. That probably is a very good thing, imo.

 

[Picodiribibi]

I still write sonnets and sestinas and villanelles and ghazals, etc. But I know what you're saying. I sometimes think the Beat Movement, or maybe earlier actually--the poetry of the lost generation after World War I--killed the poetics of joy. Or knocked it into a coma. Most people are focused on their navel and write about their alienation now, either directly or indirectly. You don't see much poetry expressing the beauty of flowers--like much of Wordsworth's poetry, for example. That probably is a very good thing, imo.

It's all Walt Whitman's fault. Old uncle Killjoy.

 

[Angeline]

It's all Walt Whitman's fault. Old uncle Killjoy.

That's what happens when you see multitudes in yourself instead of looking at the flowers around you.

 

[Tathagata]

Götterfunken (indeed, cribbed from Schiller; literally translated, "divine spark") implies a spontaneous celebration of existence, an embracing of the status quo.

I see a lot of Divine Spark in poetry in general.
It's not always a celebratory piece.

I think 150 years ago people had time to sit and ponder flowers.
They worked more with nature, hell there was more " nature" to be seen.
Today you have to go to a wildlife refuge to see a pond and oak trees,
or to hear frogs and crickets.

I write about nature and sometimes in a celebratory way, but many times it's from memory of childhood when things really did feel interconnected.


Just my saturday ramble

 

[Angeline]

I see a lot of Divine Spark in poetry in general.
It's not always a celebratory piece.

I think 150 years ago people had time to sit and ponder flowers.
They worked more with nature, hell there was more " nature" to be seen.
Today you have to go to a wildlife refuge to see a pond and oak trees,
or to hear frogs and crickets.

I write about nature and sometimes in a celebratory way, but many times it's from memory of childhood when things really did feel interconnected.


Just my saturday ramble

I write about nature a lot too, as you know. But the difference now is that most poems are not just observation, sort of a word painting of what one sees, but a statement about alienation that is maybe related to childhood memories (in both our cases). Not that those kind of poems weren't being written a hundred (or more) years ago, but there seems a preponderance of them now. Aliention is the norm, not the exception.

And I guess that's because we have more leisure time to be alienated now. A luxury our ancestors didn't have.

My Saturday ramble, too. Saturday waking-up ramble.

 

[twelveoone]

This was both: my personal view and the definition of poetry, except that in a drastically abbreviated form. At the same time, personal or not, it is based on the history of poetry and the development of the views that go back more than twenty five centuries, starting with the ancient Chinese, via skalds and Japanese, all the way to Boleslaw Lesmian. (I am so sorry for you, guys, that you cannot read Lesmian, or even just poems for children by Julian Tuwim and Boleslaw Lesmian; all those Eliots and Frosts are pitiful weak amateurs when compared to Lesmian).

"Should" is irrelevant. And if you were serious about thinking then you'd see the answer.

Would you say the same about music, sculpture and other arts? And why the fact that there is a definition makes poetry lose its "essence". It's just the opposite. Once you realize what poetry is you're less likely to pass junk for poetry. This only enhances the meaning of poetry.

It is off both on account of the images and of feelings. You are proposing something ad hoc, without an ear for the concepts, while I have presented a harmonious system. As I said, it is premature to start a discussion. The first (necessary!) step would be to ask questions in order to get a gist, or rather first glimpses, of the presented definition. Since you are not interested, your thread will end up in chaotic noise. Let me just say that it is the duty of the author to provide images (via words), and it is the duty of the reader to recreate those images. All this is still within the text of the poem, and it is not the goal of poetry. Say, in the case of a car, it is important, even necessary, that it sticks to the road, but it is not the goal. The goal is to get far.

When it comes to feelings, yes, it is a part of the poetic goal. However, it is enough to write that a dear family member suffered horribly from cancer to induce some feelings in most of the readers. But such a text is not necessarily a poem. Without the whole system, the isolated claims about poetry have a very limited value, they will often mislead or even do more harm than good. You have to balance the "foundation" against the "goal", and it has to be controlled by the artistic "ethics".


Yes, there was both regress and progress. It's not too important in the context of the meaning of poetry. After Chinese and Basho hardly anybody had the intellectual strength to tackle the problem. Unfortunately, it was not in the Chinese style to formulate general principles. They were teaching via examples. Skalds didn't bother with any formulation of general concepts at all. They were only preoccupied with creating forms and with writing beautiful, wonderful poems. Lesmian and Mandelstam said interesting things about poetry. Ezra Pound is responsible for the modern )) understanding of poetry among Anglosaxons but he was nowhere near as profound as Chinese and Japanese. He was able to skim just abc without the background, without the base. He did try to understand and promote the Chinese and oriental poetry but somehow he didn't manage to understand it. Strange? But natural.
Creating under influence is an interesting topic, which is outside the scope of this thread--unless, as the owner of this thread, you decide that actually this is a different thread.
Ditto. Psychology until now was outside the scope of this thread. I can tell you that rabbits are making love in the heads of the participants of this forum.

OK, if all you want is to argue for the sake of arguing, I am done. Good luck.

Fuck the rabbits, I asked you nicely once why "all those Eliots and Frosts are pitiful weak amateurs when compared to Lesmian". Right now as I see it , it is somewhat of a Polska Über Alles Polka that you are playing.
Why? Show me.
Oh, we will get into the problems of translation...
Curious as to why you mention the mystical oriental past, Vikings, et al. in these slightly hyperbolic statements and not the Greeks and Romans, when like it or not they are the foundation of Western poetry.
(Not that I like it, but that is something else)

 

[Tathagata]

I write about nature a lot too, as you know. But the difference now is that most poems are not just observation, sort of a word painting of what one sees, but a statement about alienation that is maybe related to childhood memories (in both our cases). Not that those kind of poems weren't being written a hundred (or more) years ago, but there seems a preponderance of them now. Aliention is the norm, not the exception.

And I guess that's because we have more leisure time to be alienated now. A luxury our ancestors didn't have.

My Saturday ramble, too. Saturday waking-up ramble.

There is an element, in say "Daffodils" , that hints at transcendentalism
( there's that fucking word again) I wouldn't say it was just a way of saying
" Oh look. pretty flowers" I think, as that Divine Spark indicates, it was
" seeing a big picture" or seeing the divine in everything.
Every time I read it I can't help think that Wordsworth was trying to get across the same message as the Buddha when instead of his usual sermon to his followers he simply held up a flower.
Only with too many words



Then again I may be way out there.

I think poetry was lumped in with painting and sculpture as a means to enlighten and to present the higher understanding, if you will, of man.


I remember reading " The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in 7th or 8th grade and thinking it was incomprehensible and long and boring.

10 years and many books, drinks, and drugs later, I loved it.

So much for enlightened thought.

 

[Angeline]

There is an element, in say "Daffodils" , that hints at transcendentalism
( there's that fucking word again) I wouldn't say it was just a way of saying
" Oh look. pretty flowers" I think, as that Divine Spark indicates, it was
" seeing a big picture" or seeing the divine in everything.
Every time I read it I can't help think that Wordsworth was trying to get across the same message as the Buddha when instead of his usual sermon to his followers he simply held up a flower.
Only with too many words



Then again I may be way out there.

I think poetry was lumped in with painting and sculpture as a means to enlighten and to present the higher understanding, if you will, of man.


I remember reading " The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in 7th or 8th grade and thinking it was incomprehensible and long and boring.

10 years and many books, drinks, and drugs later, I loved it.

So much for enlightened thought.

I know what you mean about Wordsworth. He did write about nature in a way that could be described as zenlike. He was definitely going there with the Grasmere stuff and Tintern Abbey. And did the time he wrote coincide with the New England Transcendentalists? Maybe they were later; I can't remember and I'm too lazy today to look it up lol. I know he's usually lumped in with the Romantic Poets, but I never thought he really fit there. He doesn't seem to me to be in the same mold as Keats and Shelley or even Byron.

And forget Coleridge. I've heard others rave about him. But I had to memorize sections of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner in high school and that has killed my ever being able to appreciate it. Stupid bird. Who walks around with a friggin bird around their neck for pennance? Too Christian dogmatic for me. I really hate that poem.

 

[Tathagata]

And forget Coleridge. I've heard others rave about him. But I had to memorize sections of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner in high school and that has killed my ever being able to appreciate it. Stupid bird. Who walks around with a friggin bird around their neck for pennance? Too Christian dogmatic for me. I really hate that poem.

Heathen

To an irish catholic boy a bird around your neck was better than saying 20
" Our Fathers" at the alter.

 

[sophieloves]

I know what you mean about Wordsworth. He did write about nature in a way that could be described as zenlike. He was definitely going there with the Grasmere stuff and Tintern Abbey. And did the time he wrote coincide with the New England Transcendentalists? Maybe they were later; I can't remember and I'm too lazy today to look it up lol. I know he's usually lumped in with the Romantic Poets, but I never thought he really fit there. He doesn't seem to me to be in the same mold as Keats and Shelley or even Byron.

And forget Coleridge. I've heard others rave about him. But I had to memorize sections of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner in high school and that has killed my ever being able to appreciate it. Stupid bird. Who walks around with a friggin bird around their neck for pennance? Too Christian dogmatic for me. I really hate that poem.

Wordsworth was all about feeling the power of Nature as far as i've read, which maybe isn't nearly enough the imagery in some of his works is stunning. but maybe you have to be into Nature. don't know. lol. all i know is that the romantics do it for me, but Wordsworth feels a little outside that range, as if addressed things in a very different way. he wrote before the other guys, or am i wrong? i don't know a lot, just what i like. but as for Coleridge, i'm not a huge fan of most his work even if i can see its merits, but who could not be touched by the fantastic imagery he conjures here? the sounds, the sounds - and those final lines:

And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

they knock me out. wow.

here's the whole work.




In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !


The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

 

[Picodiribibi]

There is an element, in say "Daffodils" , that hints at transcendentalism
( there's that fucking word again) I wouldn't say it was just a way of saying
" Oh look. pretty flowers" I think, as that Divine Spark indicates, it was
" seeing a big picture" or seeing the divine in everything.
Every time I read it I can't help think that Wordsworth was trying to get across the same message as the Buddha when instead of his usual sermon to his followers he simply held up a flower.
Only with too many words



Then again I may be way out there.

I think poetry was lumped in with painting and sculpture as a means to enlighten and to present the higher understanding, if you will, of man.


I remember reading " The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in 7th or 8th grade and thinking it was incomprehensible and long and boring.

10 years and many books, drinks, and drugs later, I loved it.

So much for enlightened thought.

The key is the word "divine." I think the Transcendentalists produced the last generation of english-language poems that saw wonder in God and His creations. Part of what made Whitman the point of departure, imo, is that his poetry reflects an alienation from that god; Walt celebrates the creative power Man, not gods.

 

[Angeline]

Wordsworth was all about feeling the power of Nature as far as i've read, which maybe isn't nearly enough the imagery in some of his works is stunning. but maybe you have to be into Nature. don't know. lol. all i know is that the romantics do it for me, but Wordsworth feels a little outside that range, as if addressed things in a very different way. he wrote before the other guys, or am i wrong? i don't know a lot, just what i like. but as for Coleridge, i'm not a huge fan of most his work even if i can see its merits, but who could not be touched by the fantastic imagery he conjures here? the sounds, the sounds - and those final lines:

And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

they knock me out. wow.

here's the whole work.




In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !


The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

I know. This is what everyone who loves Coleridge says to me. And I've known people (teachers, other students when I was in college) who I really respect who love Coleridge. I just can't stop associating him with senior English class: the heat of the building, the minutes ticking slowly by on the clock, my teacher (who was actually very good) droning on, and me listening to the wind and the bees outside and just wanting to not be at school.

Here's some of what Wikipedia says about Wordsworth:

William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years that was revised and expanded a number of times.

So he was early. I prefer Keats from that period. I loved Shelley, too, in college, but, in general, Romantics' poetry doesn't reach me the way it did then. Too many words, too many pretty pictures. It's not that I only like later poetry, either. I adore Shakespeare and John Donne. I get this feeling with the Romantics that they were desparately trying to hold on to something about to be shattered by the industrialization of the later 19th century. And by Darwinism, too.

 

[sophieloves]

Whitman makes man as much a part of god as everything else, celebrating the wonder of being instead of placing us all as weak, snivelling creatures who have to put god up on some sort of pedastal. well, that's what i get from him. he revels in being a humanand embraces our physicality - and why not?

 

[Angeline]

Whitman makes man as much a part of god as everything else, celebrating the wonder of being instead of placing us all as weak, snivelling creatures who have to put god up on some sort of pedastal. well, that's what i get from him. he revels in being a humanand embraces our physicality - and why not?

And it's pretty safe to say that if there hadn't been a Whitman, there wouldn't have been a Ginsberg.