The new hierarchy?

[twelveoone]

To order ordered lists, revision rank,
Relink the ill-forged chain of Reasoned Art,
He came. Some called him Wit, some called him Crank,
To whit came the numbered heresiarch.

His bony scythe sliced all vainglorious
Poets thin, their weak-weft cuprous sones
Diced into mere poor, sob-storious
Strict metered verse that bled in wat'ry tones.

We miss our hierarchies! the Poets cried.
He laughed a cruel laugh, played some Zevon
(The bloody one where headless Roland died),
A madman across the water. Like Levon,

He proudly wore his war wound like a crown
And swore to flip all windmills upside down.






What hierarchies?

a present

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=240208

you and friends want to count it off?

 

[vrosej10]

Angeline, Liar, and VR,
let's get on the same page.
If I say Angeline is good, a don't need a reason, because it could be any of a variety of reasons, or none at all, no harm done. If I say Angeline is better than Liar, well Liar might want to know why, now in that case I better have a reason...preferably a list of them.
Now VR, to respond to you, no you don't, not all the time, anybody that thinks that is a fool, and will run afoul of me.
Now, what do I know about poetry, not much. But, I know enough to, shall we say hold my own against PoetGuy and group, because we go back, don't we?
And I noticed a slight shift in the past couple months, because you aren't just looking at ankles are you bud?

No more than you but you seem happy to put your two cents in; so I do too. I frequently vote for poems that I didn't enjoy but I find well written.

 

[twelveoone]

No more than you but you seem happy to put your two cents in; so I do too. I frequently vote for poems that I didn't enjoy but I find well written.

Tell me about PoetGuy's latest...

what are you recommending?

There are two cents...

 

[vrosej10]

Bite me. the original comment was an off the cuff remark that I'd intended to clarify only to find at that time I was unable to use the board; it'd frozen or something. I just forgot to go back.

 

[twelveoone]

I hope you see my point
Specifics...
You point at something, point specifically, and why it works.

 

[twelveoone]

Bite me. the original comment was an off the cuff remark that I'd intended to clarify only to find at that time I was unable to use the board; it'd frozen or something. I just forgot to go back.

Poems are complex entities on the move, you can't expect someone to see what you see.

Bite me. Probably not a good choice of words. Now go back and really look at it, do you think you could duplicate it?

 

[twelveoone]

That my darlings is my two cents,
Pay attention,

the currency does change

I have other matters to attend to PoetGuy

 

[vrosej10]

Poems are complex entities on the move, you can't expect someone to see what you see.

Bite me. Probably not a good choice of words. Now go back and really look at it, do you think you could duplicate it?

My statement here refered to the comment that so offended you in this thread. I could not duplicate PoetGuy's work anymore than you could. It is a unique incident specific to PoetGuy.

I am doing my best. It seems like that just pisses you off. I come here and always give the best possible at the moment I am in. If that is not good enough for you, I am afraid everybody is going to disappoint you.

 

[twelveoone]

My statement here refered to the comment that so offended you in this thread. I could not duplicate PoetGuy's work anymore than you could. It is a unique incident specific to PoetGuy.

I am doing my best. It seems like that just pisses you off. I come here and always give the best possible at the moment I am in. If that is not good enough for you, I am afraid everybody is going to disappoint you.

Don't tempt me...

What I am saying is be careful. If you point at an example, point specifically..
one of the things in that poem is rhyming couplets, are you advocating a return to?

My several selves to one coherent thing,
Be it elfin poet, troll, or Ming

Which is not what I would recommend to anyone. I don't thing he would either.

Yes, that comment offended me, those type of comments always do. Value judgment with nothing attached. Specifics.

...this is how it’s done.
how???

would you like me to tell you how to write poetry and post a link to someone's name?

 

[twelveoone]

Where I'm coming from, this is not all about you VR. I've been here before. It operated on the "my say so" level, two groups. One group did know something, the other didn't know shit. This is maybe rather cryptic, PG does know. This will not happen again.
I am not taking the "my say so" bullshit from anyone. I was handed that package two weeks ago.
I don't expect anyone to take my saying so, either. Everything should be questioned.

 

[PoetGuy]

a present

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=240208

you and friends want to count it off?

Thanks. Poet Guy appreciated that.

No need to count it off, though. Like most light verse, the meter is so obvious that it does not need to be scanned.

It does make one wonder where Algonquin Twit has got to, though.

 

[PoetGuy]

Where I'm coming from, this is not all about you VR. I've been here before. It operated on the "my say so" level, two groups. One group did know something, the other didn't know shit. This is maybe rather cryptic, PG does know. This will not happen again.
I am not taking the "my say so" bullshit from anyone. I was handed that package two weeks ago.
I don't expect anyone to take my saying so, either. Everything should be questioned.

Do you think they were serious, or simply pulling your chain?

Perhaps they were serious, after all. Does it matter so much? If Reader X asserts that Poet A is "better" than Poet B, what affect does that have? Is Poet A's ego swelled to the point that he or she misjudges their own work? Is Poet B upset with the judgment and consumed with jealousy? Does Reader Y sneer at Poet B's work and praise Poet A's work simply on the basis of this comment?

Poet Guy finds these arguments at most mildly irritating and disruptive. Perhaps he is wrong to feel this way, but it is how he feels. His two p, anyway.

 

[twelveoone]

Thanks. Poet Guy appreciated that.

No need to count it off, though. Like most light verse, the meter is so obvious that it does not need to be scanned.

It does make one wonder where Algonquin Twit has got to, though.

count

 

[twelveoone]

Do you think they were serious, or simply pulling your chain?

Perhaps they were serious, after all. Does it matter so much? If Reader X asserts that Poet A is "better" than Poet B, what affect does that have? Is Poet A's ego swelled to the point that he or she misjudges their own work? Is Poet B upset with the judgment and consumed with jealousy? Does Reader Y sneer at Poet B's work and praise Poet A's work simply on the basis of this comment?

Poet Guy finds these arguments at most mildly irritating and disruptive. Perhaps he is wrong to feel this way, but it is how he feels. His two p, anyway.

...dead fucking serious, they where asking about you too.

as in this latest...follow you, which is fine as long as to what specifically needs to be followed is pointed out.

the same abstract value judgment that you would frown about in a poem is what I frown about with comparisons between A and B. Particularly people.
Specifics
Specifics
Specifics
Or I will come after you.
Because that is much sloppier thinking than fucking up in a poem, and much more disruptive in the long term.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

quite frankly a lot of the poets that submit here ..... the hoi polloi, don't want to know what's wrong with their poems and why they don't work. I've tried telling them politely and got nothing but abuse back and I mean abuse, the emails I've received are tantamount to libel which I presume is why they are not man (or woman) enough to put a name to them. Makes me wonder why the comment box is left open or perhaps they think their poems are so wonderful they will receive only praise. When I first arrived here a large chunk of my stuff was crap (and the first person who says they still are get's a slap!) but I listened to the wonderful advice offered. Once or twice I sloped off in hgh dudgeon but I always cooled off and came back but never ever did I descend to a vicious slanging match. Whatever hapened to manners .... sigh?

 

[twelveoone]

Do you think they were serious, or simply pulling your chain?

Perhaps they were serious, after all. Does it matter so much? If Reader X asserts that Poet A is "better" than Poet B, what affect does that have? Is Poet A's ego swelled to the point that he or she misjudges their own work? Is Poet B upset with the judgment and consumed with jealousy? Does Reader Y sneer at Poet B's work and praise Poet A's work simply on the basis of this comment?

Poet Guy finds these arguments at most mildly irritating and disruptive. Perhaps he is wrong to feel this way, but it is how he feels. His two p, anyway.

Shade's poetry

Nabokov provides some incidental samples of Shade's work—The Sacred Tree, The Swing— in addition to the title poem. This is a gallant authorial gesture, as when a professor at Cornell, Nabokov had complained from the lectern of authors who ask readers to accept a character's gifts on faith: "The author has hinted already that Gurov [the focus of Chekhov's Lady with the Little Dog] was witty in the company of women: and instead of having the reader take it for granted (you know the old method of describing the talk as 'brilliant' but giving no samples of the conversation), Chekhov makes him joke in a really attractive, winning way."[1] The longest sample is Shade's 999-line work, rendered in heroic couplets (rhyming pairs of lines in iambic pentameter), which is also titled "Pale Fire" and provides one facet of the novel's reflexive structure.

to wit..on faith

btw, I think you missed a few

 

[PoetGuy]

btw, I think you missed a few

Someone had left some specific criticism of the dangers (or incompetency) of meter being too regular.

Poet Guy admits to the fault of quoting a better author than himself as epigraph/texte, but begs indulgence in that it was an exercise designed by Lauren Hynde.

 

[PoetGuy]

...dead fucking serious, they where asking about you too.

as in this latest...follow you, which is fine as long as to what specifically needs to be followed is pointed out.

the same abstract value judgment that you would frown about in a poem is what I frown about with comparisons between A and B. Particularly people.
Specifics
Specifics
Specifics
Or I will come after you.
Because that is much sloppier thinking than fucking up in a poem, and much more disruptive in the long term.

Poet Guy assumes you refer to that "prose poetry" thread that Empd607 started. He read the comments on his own piece with interest, but did not find the thread topic to be something he felt he had much of any opinion on. The question it purported to discuss did not seem to be the right question, or at least not a question Poet Guy cared much about.

Poet Guy does not find these comparisons of poets to be particularly onerous or disruptive, but grants that you do and that you are free to react to them any way you see fit.

 

[butters]

i can see where twelvio is coming from here - i suppose, in a way, it's good that people retain a certain passion about how we should approach this sort of stuff for the good of us all.

comparing the work of one poet to another is rarely useful, for me as a reader anyway. it's like comparing a frog with a banana. individual poems should be addressed on their own merits, but then ... then it can be useful to point people in the direction of a poem or poet that delivers well in the area under discussion, in order for the author receiving critique to be able to read them and, hopefully, gain something from doing so. I honestly believe this was v's intention. the thing is, as she has pointed out, life got in the way of her returning to elaborate on that throwaway comment.

this is something we all need to be aware of when throwing comments in - most of us find time's at a premium, and so have to make do with far shorter comments than we'd like; the shorter they are, the more often they're likely to be misinterpreted. the nature of V's aussie-brusque manner could easily be interpreted as a sneer but we know her better than that.

what twelveoone has done here is to spotlight how important any of our comments can be to some poets out there. we could all do with thinking before we speak at times. but i'll be damned if i'm gonna self-censor to the extent that i'm afraid to open my gob in case i stick my foot in it.

 

[Epmd607]

Argumentum ad populum isn't an argument against group aesthetic value judgment. You're mistakenly asking for someone to attempt to make aesthetics resemble physics, which is silly and/or devious on your part. You can order the efficiency of workers, or the quality of a group of trees and give them hierarchical order based on some mildly subjective set which isn't science but resembles science.

So take something that doesn't resemble science like six workers or six paintings or poems and give me a finite group of people outside of the creators and I'll write the set and order the aesthetic judgments as statistical facts. Who works most efficiently, who has a better brush stroke, who wrote the poem that made you happiest etc.

Whether it's in making a Lit hierarchy of poems, poets, or commentators. Aesthetics only seems highly subjective due to the number of judgments that go unrecorded and without frame. If you have a group of 1201, bflagsst, Albert Schweitzer you can ask the participants to create linear value out of almost anything, given a very small number of articles to order. You can't ask anyone outside of that group to accept the hierarchy of judgments as valuable, it's still as subjective as believing any poll or vote that's ever been cast. But the judgments made inside the group are a true hierarchy of subjective value, and if you have enough people(unless you're a fan of classical statistics and your random sample can be any number) seemingly an objective hierarchy, where objectivity only speaks to the facts presented and the facts only resemble objectivity in the philosophy of aesthetics and not formal logic, scientific logic etc.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

what did he just say?

 

[twelveoone]

Someone had left some specific criticism of the dangers (or incompetency) of meter being too regular.

30% substitution, but that would be for regular meter, i.e. pentameter, I could have sworn I saw an 8 symbol line or two. But I don't remember having that convo with you. Perhaps somebody else... no matter I gave it a 5, and it is not my religion.

There was a reason I asked you to count the other poem I posted, since Emp is here I suggest the same for him.

Anyhow, would you recommend as a matter of course someone write in rhyming couplets, or do you think a reference was made to the sophistication of the rhymes itself, which I assume is a very difficult thing to do, or am I being disruptive again?

 

[PhaonsBrother]

what did he just say?

Scientists and poets have different biases, same as aliens have different weights and measures than Frenchmen and Frenchmen have different ways to describe a boxer's weight when a fight takes place in Las Vegas.

Value is synonymous with subjectivity. Subject has to be enframed around objects or facts, then the object can describe the subject. Lisa is five feet from a helmet.

 

[twelveoone]

i can see where twelvio is coming from here - i suppose, in a way, it's good that people retain a certain passion about how we should approach this sort of stuff for the good of us all.

comparing the work of one poet to another is rarely useful, for me as a reader anyway. it's like comparing a frog with a banana. individual poems should be addressed on their own merits, but then ... then it can be useful to point people in the direction of a poem or poet that delivers well in the area under discussion, in order for the author receiving critique to be able to read them and, hopefully, gain something from doing so. I honestly believe this was v's intention. the thing is, as she has pointed out, life got in the way of her returning to elaborate on that throwaway comment.

this is something we all need to be aware of when throwing comments in - most of us find time's at a premium, and so have to make do with far shorter comments than we'd like; the shorter they are, the more often they're likely to be misinterpreted. the nature of V's aussie-brusque manner could easily be interpreted as a sneer but we know her better than that.

what twelveoone has done here is to spotlight how important any of our comments can be to some poets out there. we could all do with thinking before we speak at times. but i'll be damned if i'm gonna self-censor to the extent that i'm afraid to open my gob in case i stick my foot in it.

as said, that and this was not all about V, and at first it was vague enough. and on the plus side I saw a comment on poetguy's poem that was a little surprising. I don't think anyone saw it as a sneer, wasn't worded that way, but you need specifics, in a unsolicited comment (NPR).

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Scientists and poets have different biases, same as aliens have different weights and measures than Frenchmen and Frenchmen have different ways to describe a boxer's weight when a fight takes place in Las Vegas.

Value is synonymous with subjectivity. Subject has to be enframed around objects or facts, then the object can describe the subject. Lisa is five feet from a helmet.

as clear as mud