WilliamButlerYeats (The other)

[butters]

i forgot:

fifthly - twelveohone a frigid cockblocker? i had to laugh. seriously. absurdly funny. and not exactly anything to do with the debate.

sixthly - (can i have a 'sixthly, even?) bogusagain a crappy, lazy, ignorant writer not worthy of the name poet? gedthafuckoutofit. and bogus, you KNOW it ain't so.



if i think of more, i shall continue with my list. *nods*

 

[bogusagain]

fourthly - lively debate, gentlemen. and yes, i use that term quite loosely

The mistake WBY and blagfsst made (or are they one and the same?) was to play the man and not the ball. If they gave my poems a critique, they could have sliced and diced them and put them through a mincer and I wouldn't have responded or at least I would have just said, ouch, fair cop or appreciate the critique, I don't completely agree but you've given me food for thought.

However, when blagfsst accuses me of 'you don't know meter, metaphor, how to tell a story, and you certainly don't know how to use surrealism' and then you read his tedious drivel which have all the faults he accuses my work of having, there was no way I was going to sit and just say 'ouch!'.

As for WBY. I might not have the grounding in poetry education he might have but I can suss a craftsman whose a desperate wannabe artist when I see one because I see such types all the time in my own line.

 

[butters]

The mistake WBY and blagfsst made (or are they one and the same?) was to play the man and not the ball. If they gave my poems a critique, they could have sliced and diced them and put them through a mincer and I wouldn't have responded or at least I would have just said, ouch, fair cop or appreciate the critique, I don't completely agree but you've given me food for thought.

However, when blagfsst accuses me of 'you don't know meter, metaphor, how to tell a story, and you certainly don't know how to use surrealism' and then you read his tedious drivel which have all the faults he accuses my work of having, there was no way I was going to sit and just say 'ouch!'.

As for WBY. I might not have the grounding in poetry education he might have but I can suss a craftsman whose a desperate wannabe artist when I see one because I see such types all the time in my own line.

yes.

differences of opinion based on aesthetics are to be expected ... plain bullshit, though, will pretty much make sure i respond, even belatedly. comments like those damage a poster's own credibility. lively i can handle - welcome, even - but this sort of stuff will make anyone visiting the forum and reading, question bflagg's own judgement.

 

[Epmd607]

The mistake WBY and blagfsst made (or are they one and the same?) was to play the man and not the ball. If they gave my poems a critique, they could have sliced and diced them and put them through a mincer and I wouldn't have responded or at least I would have just said, ouch, fair cop or appreciate the critique, I don't completely agree but you've given me food for thought.

However, when blagfsst accuses me of 'you don't know meter, metaphor, how to tell a story, and you certainly don't know how to use surrealism' and then you read his tedious drivel which have all the faults he accuses my work of having, there was no way I was going to sit and just say 'ouch!'.

As for WBY. I might not have the grounding in poetry education he might have but I can suss a craftsman whose a desperate wannabe artist when I see one because I see such types all the time in my own line.

I think Ishtat sums up your poetry well, as a whole, with this statement.

ishtat
03/25/11

The poem is well written with some particularly good lines but the unrelieved resentment makes it, for me, overall something of a cliche. A more subtle showing of the smugness and hypocricy, contrasted with (apparent) courtesy and goodwill might work better than this telling, which whilst clearly felt is a little too one dimensional. A poetic rapier rather than a broadsword might work better...
------------------------------

There's a lot of posturing, specifically in the newest Sylvia Plath series.


they ate you like an infestation
life feeding on life, turning in
on itself, no light penetrating
the chrysalis, in which your
nightmares morphed

every stanza resembles: "Maggotry maggotry, ho hum maggotry, and parasites too*of course I'm talking about people, cuz this is poetry!"

 

[bogusagain]

I think Ishtat sums up your poetry well, as a whole, with this statement.

ishtat
03/25/11

The poem is well written with some particularly good lines but the unrelieved resentment makes it, for me, overall something of a cliche. A more subtle showing of the smugness and hypocricy, contrasted with (apparent) courtesy and goodwill might work better than this telling, which whilst clearly felt is a little too one dimensional. A poetic rapier rather than a broadsword might work better...
------------------------------!"

You spoilt you attack by missing this out "but perhaps that's my Englishness resurfacing!" and in effect somewhat softens Ishtat's comment. That phrase is a crucial part of the quote because I suspect Ishtat being English has more insight into what I was driving at and realises he might be responding to his own sensitivities than to the poem. I suspect you don't have that much insight into what I was driving at because you aren't part of the society I was attacking.

If you are going to quote, quote, don't quote out of context.

There's a lot of posturing, specifically in the newest Sylvia Plath series.


they ate you like an infestation
life feeding on life, turning in
on itself, no light penetrating
the chrysalis, in which your
nightmares morphed

every stanza resembles: "Maggotry maggotry, ho hum maggotry, and parasites too*of course I'm talking about people, cuz this is poetry!"

You are welcome to your opinion. Actually in the Slyvia Plath series I went out of my way to pastisch some of her stanzas rather than use my own voice so maybe you think the same of Plath because that was what I was aiming at, she sounds to me "Maggotry maggotry, ho hum maggotry, and parasites too*of course I'm talking about people, cuz this is poetry!"

Thanks for the quote.

 

[butters]

well it got me to go read your first SP piece and vote/comment too! i offered a couple of suggestions but that's all they are. i never mind if people don't use them, thinking they don't fit the way they want their write to be.

 

[bogusagain]

well it got me to go read your first SP piece and vote/comment too! i offered a couple of suggestions but that's all they are. i never mind if people don't use them, thinking they don't fit the way they want their write to be.

Don't worry chip, I'm responding to petty jealousies, not to comments.

As when Epmd607 wrote this, I think Ishtat sums up your poetry well, as a whole, with this statement.. Ishtat was commenting on one poem, not my whole ouvre and Epmd607 making out all my poems are in the same vein means he doesn't read these threads very often because there several poems on these threads that are diametrically opposite in sentiment to Being English

They might be able to get me on having rough edges but they can't get me on being a bad writer and since when as negative emotions been banned from poetry? Are we all supposed to write polite petty bourgeois verse as defined by academics who live on the affluent green campuses of western culture?

 

[twelveoone]

There's a lot of posturing, specifically in the newest Sylvia Plath series.

I would be very, very careful with talk of posturing, Epmd607.

What has been going on is a game, a game that affects me, a sort of jihad called with a campaign of disinformation.
So WBY and bflagsst are the same, and they claim I'm the Poetguy and they know better.

Let's go back to the opener. I said:

One of the things about growth is the recognition someone does something better than you. These are four major things this guy does better than me. (and probably most)

As for our disagreements, WBY, I have my reasons, and with what I do, I am very good at.


So I perform a miracle. I kicked the crutch out from some one that doesn't need it.

I have said over and over again.
I am right/I am wrong/ about half of time
and
One of the things about growth is the recognition someone does something better than you.
i.e if you don't have a list of ten people at of all places literotica, you are missing something. My list would be rather extensive, not because I'm such the bad writer you might make me out to be. I suspect WBY's yours Emp's would be filled with each other or alts.
What you miss is a sense of Awe and Empathy, which are two components of poetry, that have to be internalized.

If you internalize what I just said, you arrive at:
You Don't Know
and the sum total of what you don't know far, far exceeds what you do.

That coming from a person some might perceive as arrogant, but that is way I am the most hated and feared person that ever arrived here.
I admit it, and will gleefully point it out to anyone that borders on the self important.
So if you and your alts want to step up and take the pledge, (you will be be surprised at how many doors it opens by this slight shift in perception) I might show you another trick or two, or we can revert back to thread tearing trashing, of which I am also good at.

As Vaseline on silvered glass
it slips, it slides, and glibly glides

You really don't want me to go on

I believe is strict iambic tetrameter, plus it has some other poetic tools in it, but I wouldn't know what they are.

The name of the game is, you don't have to better than the next guy, just try making your own better.

 

[butters]

Don't worry chip, I'm responding to petty jealousies, not to comments.

As when Epmd607 wrote this, I think Ishtat sums up your poetry well, as a whole, with this statement.. Ishtat was commenting on one poem, not my whole ouvre and Epmd607 making out all my poems are in the same vein means he doesn't read these threads very often because there several poems on these threads that are diametrically opposite in sentiment to Being English

They might be able to get me on having rough edges but they can't get me on being a bad writer and since when as negative emotions been banned from poetry? Are we all supposed to write polite petty bourgeois verse as defined by academics who live on the affluent green campuses of western culture?

it's ok, bogus. you are quite justified in responding to assertions that plainly step over the line.

and yes, i got that

we all have rough edges! goodness, there isn't ONE poet anywhere in the world who couldn't hope to write better... polish that little bit finer... know how to polish finer. as for negative emotions, of course not. and i certainly hope not. it'd be so damned boring!

 

[butters]

As Vaseline on silvered glass
it slips, it slides, and glibly glides

You really don't want me to go on

...

i do! i do!

 

[twelveoone]

it's ok, bogus. you are quite justified in responding to assertions that plainly step over the line.

and yes, i got that

we all have rough edges! goodness, there isn't ONE poet anywhere in the world who couldn't hope to write better... polish that little bit finer... know how to polish finer. as for negative emotions, of course not. and i certainly hope not. it'd be so damned boring!

As Vaseline on silvered glass
it slips, it slides, and glibly glides

How shiny you want it?

 

[butters]

As Vaseline on silvered glass
it slips, it slides, and glibly glides

How shiny you want it?

well that's pretty damned shiny, but what of the rest? was it all as shiny?

anyway, some of my shinies i shone with a glass cloth but still others found them full of fingerprints and come to think of it, i perceive vaseline as more viscous in nature than those lines would credit - they more baby oil than vaseline. maybe if the glass was warm...

meh. anyway, shiny isn't always shiny, if you get my drift. sometimes matt's the new shiny - or eggshell, even!

 

[PoetGuy]

every stanza resembles: "Maggotry maggotry, ho hum maggotry, and parasites too*of course I'm talking about people, cuz this is poetry!"

Maggotry, the Misery Cat

With maggotry and parasites, his poems expose their flaws,
For he’s not mastered Prosody, and who defies Yeats’ Law?
A poem is music, simply sung—a lilt, a tune, an air!
(And most of all it cannot be composed out of despair.)

O maggotry! O maggotry! We all despise such maggotry,
Which breaks Yeats’ fine Poetic Law with prosaic depravity.
Such English gloominess I think would bum out cher Voltaire.
Hell, even Marx and Engels both might find them doctrinaire.

They’re outwardly respectable, with line breaks by the yard,
But rotten with philosophy, their theme one grand canard;
Such mannequin-like posturing, they hardly seem alive,
And certainly no masterpiece from someone twenty-five.

I guess we’ll just condemn them, send them to the abbatoir,
Just shred their flesh for their largesse in being trop, trop noir.
With Yeats as our sole teacher, we will all write lovely poems
Of eight or nine fine-crafted lines as sturdy as oak phloem.

It’s for the best, I guess, I guess. We must preserve High Art—
Inelegance in poetry is like a public fart.
But I will miss such maggotry—it’s vigor, vim, esprit,
So I’ll make do, locked in the loo with Charles Bùkowskì.

 

[bogusagain]

This is so much an interesting thread, I hope that those who see it as an attack will see it as an opportunity to debate. I hope WBY, blagfssst and Empd see this as an opportunity to put their views forward because so far all they have put forward are personal attacks. I would enjoy, and I suspect poetguy, 1201 and chip would love to have real meat to argue with, reasons, justifications and specifics. I think most people who love any art, relish being put in their place and learning something new, I know I do. I respect those that have something to teach me because you can't argue, you just admire their insight but those that insult, teach nothing.

OK it's a challenge but its a challenge worth rising to because it shows you believe in something and aren't just interested in destroying what threatens your comfortable view of an art.

 

[Epmd607]

1201, I never said you were poetguy. Me and bflag decided Tzara was best suited to play the part. We like Tzara, we don't like you.

 

[Epmd607]

Tzara's still mad that bflagsst used to say he was trying to outwrite Yeats and probably neruda. I always thought that was a lofty goal/conviction, but to take it as a proclamation of "I write better than XYZ" is pure silliness.

I'm sure that the best poet in all writerdom from the past five years is bflagsst. Some of the poems posted here are the living, breathing proof. I'll point out five or so, doubt anyone could come up with one other poet who's written five better during the same period.

 

[bogusagain]

I'm sure that the best poet in all writerdom from the past five years is bflagsst. Some of the poems posted here are the living, breathing proof. I'll point out five or so, doubt anyone could come up with one other poet who's written five better during the same period.

This seems to be similar to the bickering argument that goes on in the visual arts where the vanquished old school claim the new school can't draw or paint because they are off expressing themselves and trying to create a new visual language. When modern artists show they have the skill and technique to do what the old school could do if they had the inclination, the retort comes back, we're still better than you. Maybe but they have an every dwindling audience and that really gets up their nose.

But I'm interested because the poems I have read of bflagsst come across to me as a triumph of technique over expression and emotional honesty.

 

[Epmd607]

for example, a favorite of mine

You've placed me 'tween your thumbs, just to whistle


Tell me of your totem stones,
of the spaces I can't know,
of the life of your body
before your bones
had turned from the gristle,
when I'd only been a blade of grass
'tween your thumbs while you whistled

 

[twelveoone]

1201, I never said you were poetguy. Me and bflag decided Tzara was best suited to play the part. We like Tzara, we don't like you.

like is such a lame word, go for the guts, the balls. the true measure of man is his enemies, the difference between your cult of self adulation and the one of six years ago is merely one of better writing. mere better writing. your judgment of what has value is still pretty much the same, does he follow - Great, does he not - Bad.

 

[twelveoone]

Tzara's still mad that bflagsst used to say he was trying to outwrite Yeats and probably neruda. I always thought that was a lofty goal/conviction, but to take it as a proclamation of "I write better than XYZ" is pure silliness.

I'm sure that the best poet in all writerdom from the past five years is bflagsst. Some of the poems posted here are the living, breathing proof. I'll point out five or so, doubt anyone could come up with one other poet who's written five better during the same period.

I'm sure you would think so, blindly so. But I have yet to see anything of either real value or substance in your pronouncements.

 

[twelveoone]

You've placed me 'tween your thumbs, just to whistle


Tell me of your totem stones,
of the spaces I can't know,
of the life of your body
before your bones
had turned from the gristle,
when I'd only been a blade of grass
'tween your thumbs while you whistled

This one?
I can see why you like it.

Simple question, now how in the fuck can I relate to that? I, a reader who is supposed to be engaged. While it does avoid clichedom, it comes off as a greasy Hallmark Card, like you forgot to wipe your fingers after eating fried chicken before you stuck it in the envelope.

 

[twelveoone]

This seems to be similar to the bickering argument that goes on in the visual arts where the vanquished old school claim the new school can't draw or paint because they are off expressing themselves and trying to create a new visual language. When modern artists show they have the skill and technique to do what the old school could do if they had the inclination, the retort comes back, we're still better than you. Maybe but they have an every dwindling audience and that really gets up their nose.

But I'm interested because the poems I have read of bflagsst come across to me as a triumph of technique over expression and emotional honesty.

bfagsst knows some of the mechanics
fails the diagnostics

they will always fail the diagnostics, the diagnostics are contingent on a concern for the reader. reader is paramount.

 

[twelveoone]

Maggotry, the Misery Cat

With maggotry and parasites, his poems expose their flaws,
For he’s not mastered Prosody, and who defies Yeats’ Law?
A poem is music, simply sung—a lilt, a tune, an air!
(And most of all it cannot be composed out of despair.)

O maggotry! O maggotry! We all despise such maggotry,
Which breaks Yeats’ fine Poetic Law with prosaic depravity.
Such English gloominess I think would bum out cher Voltaire.
Hell, even Marx and Engels both might find them doctrinaire.

They’re outwardly respectable, with line breaks by the yard,
But rotten with philosophy, their theme one grand canard;
Such mannequin-like posturing, they hardly seem alive,
And certainly no masterpiece from someone twenty-five.

I guess we’ll just condemn them, send them to the abbatoir,
Just shred their flesh for their largesse in being trop, trop noir.
With Yeats as our sole teacher, we will all write lovely poems
Of eight or nine fine-crafted lines as sturdy as oak phloem.

It’s for the best, I guess, I guess. We must preserve High Art—
Inelegance in poetry is like a public fart.
But I will miss such maggotry—it’s vigor, vim, esprit,
So I’ll make do, locked in the loo with Charles Bùkowskì.

Hey poetguy
what's the difference between meter and timing?
meter costs a quarter for fifteen minutes

timing
as they say
is everything

Oh I like your stenched verse
but what could be be much worse
to send the reader in a rage
(by bon mots) off the page.

The difference between a hearse
and a taxi.

 

[twelveoone]

1201, I never said you were poetguy. Me and bflag decided Tzara was best suited to play the part. We like Tzara, we don't like you.

judging from feedback, I would hope you two and others would begin to see a pattern, i.e. no E's, no H's

you do seem to miss a very important point, perhaps more than one.

A Basis for Proceeding
bybflagsst©

In this wheel you are the premise,
the immovable mover and pivot,
the hub, remiss umbilicus, and center
the hilum at separation,
the mark and merestone of the damned,
borne by an idolator in his adulation.

this says something
but what? A trance dance away from meaning? I think I'll go read bogus again, his maggots are on the page.
Try moving back to nounier nouns. They do have a tendency to get the reader to relate.

I commented scored it a 4, just letting you know.

Now, when do I get the upgrade?

 

[butters]

1201, I never said you were poetguy. Me and bflag decided Tzara was best suited to play the part. We like Tzara, we don't like you.

i find this hard to swallow from an adult poet. seriously.

Tzara's still mad that bflagsst used to say he was trying to outwrite Yeats and probably neruda. I always thought that was a lofty goal/conviction, but to take it as a proclamation of "I write better than XYZ" is pure silliness.

I'm sure that the best poet in all writerdom from the past five years is bflagsst. Some of the poems posted here are the living, breathing proof. I'll point out five or so, doubt anyone could come up with one other poet who's written five better during the same period.

in all writerdom? are you serious???

ok, it's great that you're a fan of his. so am i, to an extent, well - of his writing. but even on here i find others whose writing i prefer. this is not the biggest venue for poets by a long shot, online or off. personally, on here i believe Tzara, greenmountaineer, and Angeline write better. i haven't aquainted myself enough with Lauren's, Boo's, Charley's etc to get the best perspective there. but to claim 'in all writerdom'??? just... wow.