Why are many Literotica poems so vague?

[Du Lac]

Re: Eve.. and her writing

Then I realized that I didn't have to be a brilliant poet. I just needed brilliant readers who saw genius in everything, simply because they were brilliant!

Nice Eve.. hence why you are so talented.. you just write what is inside of you... and I do love your writing..
Du Lac

 

[WickedEve]

Nope, you're using the wrong end.

Oh, you want the pointy, pokey end. God, you're such a freak, mutt.

 

[WickedEve]

Re: Re: Eve.. and her writing

Then I realized that I didn't have to be a brilliant poet. I just needed brilliant readers who saw genius in everything, simply because they were brilliant!

Nice Eve.. hence why you are so talented.. you just write what is inside of you... and I do love your writing..
Du Lac

Actually, when I first arrived at lit, I would fret about it. I once said something like, "No. It's not about god and linoleum. The part about the butterfly really is about... a butterfly." Well, that's not what I said, but you get the idea. lol Now, I really do use metaphors! Not good ones all the time, but they're metaphors.

 

[jthserra]

"Why are many Literotica poems so vague? "

Just lit poems? Have you tried reading Jorie Graham?


But then Eve said: "You know what worries me? I go back and read poems that I've written months or a year ago, and I don't know what in the world I'm talking about. It sounds cool, and I like it, but I don't know what it's about.


And I remembered a poem:

While Explaining One of My Poems to a Reader, I Suddenly Realize I’ve Forgotten What It’s About

The tree – a metaphor for growth
no – for life or green, no wait
the tree is just a tree seen
through a bathroom window;
it’s the bathtub, its ring
the milky water, the floating
bar of clean, pure, white Ivory
that means, well, clean and pure
perhaps white….
It floats, which symbolizes
the lightness of being, no
I’m wrong, that’s Kundera.

This fog, uncertainty, is unbearable,
it’s the bird that flew, that smacked
into the window, dropping dead
to the cold, frozen ground.
It is me, trying to escape
a thud on the glass, a man
peeking in windows, a woman
climbing into the tub
daintily stepping around the soap
floating in the tepid water.
The tree, outside the window
the crack of a branch
a tumbling shadow as I fall
onto the frozen ground.

My explanation is dead
in the water – my final breaths
mist in cliché, my poem
its forgotten meaning
its embarrassingly pretentious voice.


jim : )

 

[WickedEve]

"Why are many Literotica poems so vague? "

Just lit poems? Have you tried reading Jorie Graham?


But then Eve said: "You know what worries me? I go back and read poems that I've written months or a year ago, and I don't know what in the world I'm talking about. It sounds cool, and I like it, but I don't know what it's about.


And I remembered a poem:

While Explaining One of My Poems to a Reader, I Suddenly Realize I’ve Forgotten What It’s About

The tree – a metaphor for growth
no – for life or green, no wait
the tree is just a tree seen
through a bathroom window;
it’s the bathtub, its ring
the milky water, the floating
bar of clean, pure, white Ivory
that means, well, clean and pure
perhaps white….
It floats, which symbolizes
the lightness of being, no
I’m wrong, that’s Kundera.

This fog, uncertainty, is unbearable,
it’s the bird that flew, that smacked
into the window, dropping dead
to the cold, frozen ground.
It is me, trying to escape
a thud on the glass, a man
peeking in windows, a woman
climbing into the tub
daintily stepping around the soap
floating in the tepid water.
The tree, outside the window
the crack of a branch
a tumbling shadow as I fall
onto the frozen ground.

My explanation is dead
in the water – my final breaths
mist in cliché, my poem
its forgotten meaning
its embarrassingly pretentious voice.


jim : )

I just read the poem and found that too much laughter can hurt.

 

[Du Lac]

In the end....

All that matters is that you write!!! Learn and have a good time! I think that was part of what Art was displaying in this poem that started the thread... (really not about the poem.. rather.. about the all out banter that this poems comment thread was incorrectly used for!)

We are all here to learn, write and laugh some... I think someone called that living... Sack what do you think.. you have a life therefore I say the expert on that subject!!!
Du Lac

 

[WickedEve]

And I remembered a poem:

While Explaining One of My Poems to a Reader, I Suddenly Realize I’ve Forgotten What It’s About

Okay, I had to check and I was right. This is your poem. Damn. It's brilliant! I could just smack you for writing something so freaking brilliant and posting it on lit. Tell me you submitted it elsewhere? Tell me!

 

[sack]

I would like to laugh more.....

And understanding what the poet is trying to say helps me do that. I'm sure my poems have their incomprehensible moments...Ode To Lauren Hynde raised a few eyebrows!! Just for the record, I did rate the poem in question a "4". I only vote "4" or "5" on poems, or I don't vote at all. So, I consider a "4" poem to be a good to very good poem that just needs a little editing to make it flow better...


Sack

 

[sack]

I wish I had written Jim's poem....

That really should be entered in a contest......I bet it would win!!


Sack

 

[Du Lac]

Smiling...

And understanding what the poet is trying to say helps me do that. I'm sure my poems have their incomprehensible moments...Ode To Lauren Hynde raised a few eyebrows!! Just for the record, I did rate the poem in question a "4". I only vote "4" or "5" on poems, or I don't vote at all. So, I consider a "4" poem to be a good to very good poem that just needs a little editing to make it flow better...


Sack

I understand dear one.. no need for explanation.. and by the way.. I was not commenting on you and your reply on the comment thread rather the other two who were rude and used the wrong forum for what should have been a discussion. Resentment rules in the house of the insane...
Happy Holidays Sack..
blessings
Du Lac

 

[sack]

to add to Du Lac's thoughts..

Yes, and resentment rules whenever anyone wins a contest. In some respect I'm sorry I won that Winter Holiday Contest. I think certain people actually think I held a gun to other writers' heads to get them to vote for my story...over the internet yet! Even Lauren Hynde isn't that creative, guess it is quite the concept for these lowlifes that my stories and poems could get high rankings for their own merits. Well, all right, I did send Laurel and Manu a VERY LARGE box of chocolate....



Sack, that vote-monger

 

[Tathagata]

Re: Exactly, Mutt, exactly......

A poem shouldn't have a myriad of unanswered questions that need to be "explained." If it's so personal or specific to the author and a few of his friends, than I wouldn't post it to the general public....


Sack

If there are poems you " do get" then, the ones you " don't get" weren't written for you.
Just because you don't understand something...doesn't mean it's wrong...it means you don't understand it

 

[Angeline]

Re: Re: Exactly, Mutt, exactly......

If there are poems you " do get" then, the ones you " don't get" weren't written for you.
Just because you don't understand something...doesn't mean it's wrong...it means you don't understand it

You're up too early.

 

[Tathagata]

Re: Re: Re: Exactly, Mutt, exactly......

You're up too early.

I know
overtime at work
lol

 

[Angeline]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Exactly, Mutt, exactly......

I know
overtime at work
lol

I went back to sleep.

(but I have to get ready for work in few minutes. ick.)

 

[twelveoone]

You have raised a fundamental question about what poetry is, and in doing so have, imo, confirmed what I and Lauren and lots of other poets here and elsewhere believe. Poetry foremost needs to communicate. It's writing, and the primary purpose of writing is communication. It is a contract between writer and reader.

Prose is written primarily for three purposes: to inform, narrate, or persuade. They're not mutually exclusive; a story can be convincing and informative, an argument can present facts and use narrative examples to prove itself. Poems are different though because their purpose, in addiiton to communicating, is to transport the reader into the world of the poem, to give the reader a transcendant experience. The problem, in my opinion, is that lots of writers can put startling images together, but if they don't communicate or connect them well there's a gap between their imagination and your (the reader's) vision.

This is why I never understand people who say they don't think they need to edit. It doesn't matter how well you can string interesting phrases together if your verb tenses jump all over the place or you have pronouns without antecedants or you're just imprecise. The reader won't get it. You need to think long and hard about how much sense what you write makes. I go back and look at things I wrote a week ago, month ago, year ago and think Wait! That didn't make sense. I try to fix it.

A few specific points about the poem you mentioned (and not to single whoever wrote it out--I've written things that I could say the same about).

First,
This line is vague, and in a poem every word needs to count. It's good to suggest or imply in poetry, but "alot" is too general. It doesn't take the reader anywhere.
that would explain alot

Second,
I believe in the following the writer means the sound the blades of a sleigh make swishing through snow. It's a good line, but a hyphen might have made the image more apparent.
sleigh ride of snow-bladed song

And Third,
This line, for me, conjures an image of deer in a snow-filled meadow, with the trail of their hoof prints behind them. That is a tranquil image. Again, a hyphen might have helped.
tranquility of a snow-trailed deer

Each of those lines could have been stated more clearly if that's what they mean, true, but I think the larger problem is that the poem is not cohesive. If you keep a strong control on your language, you don't jump from one discrete image to the next. A good poem should be like a painting where you appreciate details, but leave with an impression of the overall image. You have to put time in and edit to achieve that.

So what I'm saying is that great poems can be very abstract and metaphoric and still be great poems without stating their point outright. If you read Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening you know it's about being out alone in the snow because it's clear imagery, but it's also a parable about contemplating death without saying that word at all. Great poetry achieves the necessary balance between metaphor and clarity. And some poets, like Wallace Stevens, for example, write poems that can be very very abstract but still leave you with a strong, thematic understanding of their point.

It's not about too abstract. It's about good writing.

Sack has a very good question.
You have a very good answer. In general, I quite agree. It is fine for Linear writing.
Some questions:
"It is a contract between writer and reader." what contract? ever read a contract? Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America, perhaps, contact?
"You need to think long and hard about how much sense what you write makes." sense? Lewis Carroll? T.S. Eliot?
Here you say:
"The linguist Noam Chomsky has a theory about sentence structures that he calls "Transformational Grammar." He contends that there is a surface structure, which is symbolic and presents the rules which we apply to processing the deeper structures which have to do with meaning and tone--the things that make us understand the way we understand. Lauren talks about layering meaning and the fact that you can read into her poems as little or as much as you want. No reader can completely understand another writer's intentions, but sometimes surface structures that are grammatically correct appear meaningless. Chompsky often used this example:

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

It's correct syntactically but every word in it contradicts the meaning of the word next to it. It's still a valid sentence though. It creates a series of images. And...I think that's poetic. "

Extracted, in your words:
"The problem, in my opinion, is that lots of writers can put startling images together,
It's correct syntactically but every word in it contradicts the meaning of the word next to it. It's still a valid sentence though"

Are you saying as long as it is grammatically correct, excuse me, a "sense" of sense will be implanted. That be nonsense. I would refer you to Orwell's "Politics and the English Languauge", except for the fact that Orwell was not a good poet.
Am I making sense?
Talking nonsense?
Anti-sense?
Can you drill down on this? Explain further?

I can't agree with you more about editting, would add that one must also try to see it as others would (contact, communication)

Perhaps, jim gets it right (and you refered to it also), with:

"While Explaining One of My Poems to a Reader, I Suddenly Realize I’ve Forgotten What It’s About"

 

[Tathagata]

Sack has a very good question.
You have a very good answer. In general, I quite agree. It is fine for Linear writing.
Some questions:
"It is a contract between writer and reader." what contract? ever read a contract? Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America, perhaps, contact?
"You need to think long and hard about how much sense what you write makes." sense? Lewis Carroll? T.S. Eliot?
Here you say:
"The linguist Noam Chomsky has a theory about sentence structures that he calls "Transformational Grammar." He contends that there is a surface structure, which is symbolic and presents the rules which we apply to processing the deeper structures which have to do with meaning and tone--the things that make us understand the way we understand. Lauren talks about layering meaning and the fact that you can read into her poems as little or as much as you want. No reader can completely understand another writer's intentions, but sometimes surface structures that are grammatically correct appear meaningless. Chompsky often used this example:

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

It's correct syntactically but every word in it contradicts the meaning of the word next to it. It's still a valid sentence though. It creates a series of images. And...I think that's poetic. "

Extracted, in your words:
"The problem, in my opinion, is that lots of writers can put startling images together,
It's correct syntactically but every word in it contradicts the meaning of the word next to it. It's still a valid sentence though"

Are you saying as long as it is grammatically correct, excuse me, a "sense" of sense will be implanted. That be nonsense. I would refer you to Orwell's "Politics and the English Languauge", except for the fact that Orwell was not a good poet.
Am I making sense?
Talking nonsense?
Anti-sense?
Can you drill down on this? Explain further?

I can't agree with you more about editting, would add that one must also try to see it as others would (contact, communication)

Perhaps, jim gets it right (and you refered to it also), with:

"While Explaining One of My Poems to a Reader, I Suddenly Realize I’ve Forgotten What It’s About"

You think too much.

 

[twelveoone]

You think too much.

I'll drink to that,
why is your chimp drinking Bud?

 

[Tathagata]

I'll drink to that,
why is your chimp drinking Bud?

because I havent mastered photoshop yet

 

[Liar]

Re: Re: Exactly, Mutt, exactly......

If there are poems you " do get" then, the ones you " don't get" weren't written for you.
Just because you don't understand something...doesn't mean it's wrong...it means you don't understand it

Egg-sack-lee.

I remember a thread a while ago where Eve brought her poems up for discussion. I then sais that I often don't understand her poems. This is not because it's bad poetry, but because she uses references that are not in my world. Same thing with other poets now and then, here and elsewhere. I see that the lines are pretty and read well, but I don't understand quite what it's about, because the metaphors doesn't communicate.

There was a poem a while ago that I sat and just said "huh?" about, until I realized that it was crammed with American football-terms. Then I googled myself to a 101 in your sissy-rugby, and all of a sudden every word made sense.

#L

 

[Tathagata]

Re: Re: Re: Exactly, Mutt, exactly......

There was a poem a while ago that I sat and just said "huh?" about, until I realized that it was crammed with American football-terms. Then I googled myself to a 101 in your sissy-rugby, and all of a sudden every word made sense.

#L

Football huh??
The road to enlightenment is an ugly thing sometimes

 

[twelveoone]

Re: Re: Re: Exactly, Mutt, exactly......

Egg-sack-lee.

I remember a thread a while ago where Eve brought her poems up for discussion. I then sais that I often don't understand her poems. This is not because it's bad poetry, but because she uses references that are not in my world. Same thing with other poets now and then, here and elsewhere. I see that the lines are pretty and read well, but I don't understand quite what it's about, because the metaphors doesn't communicate.

There was a poem a while ago that I sat and just said "huh?" about, until I realized that it was crammed with American football-terms. Then I googled myself to a 101 in your sissy-rugby, and all of a sudden every word made sense.

#L

Your Swedishness is showing...
Was Eve talking about making passes and scoring again?

 

[Liar]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Exactly, Mutt, exactly......

Your Swedishness is showing...
Was Eve talking about making passes and scoring again?

Oh I woulda gotten that through a wooden hat (let's see if you get that metaphor. ).

No, 'twasn't Eve. 'twasn't even on Lit. It had innings and linemen and whatnots in it.

 

[twelveoone]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exactly, Mutt, exactly......

Oh I woulda gotten that through a wooden hat (let's see if you get that metaphor. ).

No, 'twasn't Eve. 'twasn't even on Lit. It had innings and linemen and whatnots in it.

the wooden hat fits well on me wooden head
innings and linemen and whatnots?
are we talking cricket?

 

[Angeline]

Sack has a very good question.
You have a very good answer. In general, I quite agree. It is fine for Linear writing.
Some questions:
"It is a contract between writer and reader." what contract? ever read a contract? Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America, perhaps, contact?
"You need to think long and hard about how much sense what you write makes." sense? Lewis Carroll? T.S. Eliot?
Here you say:
"The linguist Noam Chomsky has a theory about sentence structures that he calls "Transformational Grammar." He contends that there is a surface structure, which is symbolic and presents the rules which we apply to processing the deeper structures which have to do with meaning and tone--the things that make us understand the way we understand. Lauren talks about layering meaning and the fact that you can read into her poems as little or as much as you want. No reader can completely understand another writer's intentions, but sometimes surface structures that are grammatically correct appear meaningless. Chompsky often used this example:

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

It's correct syntactically but every word in it contradicts the meaning of the word next to it. It's still a valid sentence though. It creates a series of images. And...I think that's poetic. "

Extracted, in your words:
"The problem, in my opinion, is that lots of writers can put startling images together,
It's correct syntactically but every word in it contradicts the meaning of the word next to it. It's still a valid sentence though"

Are you saying as long as it is grammatically correct, excuse me, a "sense" of sense will be implanted. That be nonsense. I would refer you to Orwell's "Politics and the English Languauge", except for the fact that Orwell was not a good poet.
Am I making sense?
Talking nonsense?
Anti-sense?
Can you drill down on this? Explain further?

I can't agree with you more about editting, would add that one must also try to see it as others would (contact, communication)

Perhaps, jim gets it right (and you refered to it also), with:

"While Explaining One of My Poems to a Reader, I Suddenly Realize I’ve Forgotten What It’s About"

Contract: a binding agreement between two or more persons or parties.

If I write something and you read it, isn't your expectation to understand what I've written? That contract. Ok, it's not "binding" in a legal sense, but if I haven't communicated to you, neither of us met our expectations.

What I mean is that in order to communicate, I need to apply correct grammar and usage and you need to understand it well enough receive my intended meaning. I can be metaphoric or use fantastical imagery (a la Lauren Hynde), but if I fail to make my ideas clear or connect them in a way that presents an overall picture, you have less of a chance to know what I mean.

And all Chomsky is saying is that you can manipulate language to make words that don't seem to go together fit in a grammatical order. That can be poetic. Poetry is usually better when you transcend cliche, make the reader see something in a new way by using unexpected turns of language. A whole poem of "colorless ideas sleep furiously" would not work as a poem (unless the title was something like "Nonsense," which would clue you, the reader, into what I was doing). Usually, one poetic line does not make a poem. It can, but it still has to say something a reader can understand.

I don't see that those two concepts--using proper grammar and what Chompsky proposes--are inconsistent. I do agree with Liar and Tath because poetry does have a different purpose than prose, and anyway each reader brings her own unique experiences to what she reads. That does shade understanding. But there's still a point at which a writer's inability to manipulate language in order to make clear what the poem is about is going to impede a reader's ability to understand or even appreciate it.

There's always the possibility that you won't appreciate what I write because it's not your taste or you're not ready to understand what I'm saying or whatever. There are people who look at a Jackson Pollack painting or hear John Cage and perceive genius and there are other people who upon doing so say "huh?" or worse. Still, communication (e.g., sentences or brush strokes or moments of film) is about making sense, even in "art"--deviation from that only works in the context of an overall piece of art that does, in my opinion.

And I forget what my poems started out to mean all the time--or they go in a direction other than what I expected when I started writing them. But they still need to make sense.