What is a poem?

[Magnetron]

You get one shot in my book.

I'll read it again ( and again ) if I enjoyed it.

Storytelling with words is an Art that I appreciate in the same way that I appreciate story telling with Song or Music or both or even Movies.

You are not a poet. Instead, in my eyes, you are either a Storyteller or a Riddler. Unless I'm in the mood and someone throws out the challenge for me to accept, I'm not here to decipher riddles.

To me, you are a clever or skilled poet if your layers come together like instruments into a singular composition meant for EVERYONE to grasp in one take.

 

[Tsotha]

An analogy

Transaction. Trans-action. Suppose you were to go visit a prostitute, X is done, money is exchanged, transaction is complete. Now suppose you are attracted to someone (common definition of love), that person is attracted to you and something permanent results and you consummate that love. X is still done, but as a component of something more. Between these two extremes lies a whole variety of scenarios (relationships) some parasitical, destructive, etc. Poetry is like that.
All well and good, numbered one, what about jerking off?
Well we get that a lot. Over in New Poems. Still called poems, and easily identified by serial submissions with no comments. They don't engage.

So your poems are little fuckers looking for a fuckee.

This is why so Triangles are easy grist for the popular mill, the inherent instability creates interest. Consider what I just said about instability and interest.

There is nothing lofty about this attempted definition, as they tend to come from the most venal.

There is nothing that delineated as they tend to come from the most anal.

Poetry is beyond you. Poems are an attempt to close that distance.

Damn. I wish they had explained it like that back in school. I guess everyone would have been listening, then. On the other hand, the teacher would probably have been arrested.

 

[butters]

You get one shot in my book.

I'll read it again ( and again ) if I enjoyed it.

Storytelling with words is an Art that I appreciate in the same way that I appreciate story telling with Song or Music or both or even Movies.

You are not a poet. Instead, in my eyes, you are either a Storyteller or a Riddler. Unless I'm in the mood and someone throws out the challenge for me to accept, I'm not here to decipher riddles.

To me, you are a clever or skilled poet if your layers come together like instruments into a singular composition meant for EVERYONE to grasp in one take.

using this definition, most writers here fail.

there are those poems/poets whose meanings appear understood by all on first read. either that is true, and the message is a simple, universal one -or it's untrue but everyone feels they understand it. it's my experience there are many levels of understanding. a popular/successful poem appeals to the broadest spectrum of readers - it might still be multi-layered, but many won't see those layers, only the one that interests them.

 

[twelveoone]

You are not a poet. Instead, in my eyes, you are either a Storyteller or a Riddler. Unless I'm in the mood and someone throws out the challenge for me to accept, I'm not here to decipher riddles.

I'll accept that, rolling on the floor laughing, what you are saying it seems, is either you understand it, or you don't.
There are no mysteries to you. Outside that boundary lies bullshit.
Clue there are techniques and nuances that good storytellers use.
Clue there are techniques and nuances that good poets use.
They do not necessarily overlap, because the audience is different.
Something else is happening that may be beyond what you are familiar with, either a mystery or bullshit.

Direct Question: (or challenge) Who do you consider a good poet and why?

 

[theognis]

some readers want it dished up on a plate, processed, bones removed, and their lips wiped for them afterwards.

i prefer to get my fingers a little greasy

I prefer the kind of poetry that can be compared to a small puzzle box, especially one that contains something big inside, if you can open the box.

 

[greenmountaineer]

When I last visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, there must have been several hundred paintings I passed by. Some I stopped for a minute or two to look at. I am not schooled in the all the aspects of painting as art, but every now and then I'd see one in particular where I spent considerable time looking at it, seeing it from different angles, noticing the texture, the colors, etc., and then finally taking it all in as something whole.

While I agree there should be established a connection with the audience upon the first reading, poetry for me is much like the experience described above. I have literally spent as much as an hour reading a poem, and I'm talking about some I have read on this site, not just the well known. I can think of a dozen reasons off the top of my head to look at the same work from a different angle. To mention a few: how does the poet use syntax? Do hard/soft consonants mesh with the emotion expressed in the narrative? What's the pace of the poem, and do the choice of words, line endings, and rhymes, if any, contribute to that? Then when I'm ready, i intuitively put that all together in my mind to see how well they integrate and make poem complete.

 

[Magnetron]

using this definition, most writers here fail.

there are those poems/poets whose meanings appear understood by all on first read. either that is true, and the message is a simple, universal one -or it's untrue but everyone feels they understand it. it's my experience there are many levels of understanding. a popular/successful poem appeals to the broadest spectrum of readers - it might still be multi-layered, but many won't see those layers, only the one that interests them.

I'm not saying you have to dumb it down so the not so obvious story becomes more obvious to the everyday person.

No.

One layer transmitted and received and appreciated for what it is is all that really matters.

If the majority of readers walk away from your poem satisfied with the obvious layer or story - you are still a successful writer.

In my opinion, of course.

 

[Tsotha]

I think having layers adds to a poem, but I don't think a poem is automatically bad if it doesn't have that. What I want is a connection, resonance, and I can have the strongest connection right at the very first reading.

 

[butters]

I'm not saying you have to dumb it down so the not so obvious story becomes more obvious to the everyday person.

No.

One layer transmitted and received and appreciated for what it is is all that really matters.

If the majority of readers walk away from your poem satisfied with the obvious layer or story - you are still a successful writer.

In my opinion, of course.

hello again

seems to me poetry is a cat of a different colour to stories; a story has to take a reader on a journey from A to B, with any number of diversions along the way just so long as the author takes care not to lose the reader along the way. prose can be poetic, very at times.

for me, poetry feels something less (on the surface at least) linear, less organised - more concerned with imparting a mood, an emotional connection than its prose counterpart. if i had to try and show what i meant here in a drawing, i'd use a picture of a mapped route for a story... for poetry? a pond's surface covered in ripples from coloured raindrops that strike the surface and spread, colours modifying as each ripple interacts with others. depending on specific word-choices, the colour of the rain can be implied - so it's not necessarily bright, multi-coloured drops. sometimes the drops are all blue, the water in the pond silver, or even black.

 

[twelveoone]

To me, you are a clever or skilled poet if your layers come together like instruments into a singular composition meant for EVERYONE to grasp in one take.

Won't happen. Variance of graspabilty. If everyone GET'S IT, it is innately boring to others. Now just about everyone here mentioned layers, it often is the layers that enable new discovery.
Are all movies the same? No, some movies show you more the second viewing.

Now the reason I asked you about what you consider a good poem, is because you mentioned "storytelling", most storytelling poems that I know of, translated into prose lose something, most stories translated in to poetry would also lose something.
Another analogy, most photographers are not good painters and vice versa, although some overlap may exist as to composition, the tools are different, the outcome and the audience also would not be the same.

 

[Magnetron]

Thankfully, we all see things differently and it allows for a diverse outcome.

 

[Angeline]

Thankfully, we all see things differently and it allows for a diverse outcome.

Thumbs up to that.

 

[Magnetron]

When I first heard Eyes Like Yours by Shakira in Spanish, which I didn't comprehend an iota of, I fell in love with her and wanted to have her babies. Yes, I would physically birth the offspring. Oh, that voice ....... I would endure hours of Mexican ballads on a Chicago based station just to hear her while I was making deliveries for an electrical contractor. And then one day I saw her dancing on TV and was horrified to learn that her musicality was not inherited by her legs. Hips do lie. Hers betray her every time. She should have been a contestant on Dancing With The Stars, not a guest act.

Anyhoo, point is, I can absolutely love a poem I don't understand in the first pass and read it numerous times until I think I do. It is just more of a longshot without the music and the voice and considerably farfetched if it lacks any lyrical qualities.

I believe the majority of are like this and so I choose to write stuff the majority can effortlessly appreciate. Not because I want the most readers and fans I can possibly attain, but because the average person is worthy and deserving of poetry as well.

Discounting most everyone as morons would be like me saying most of you are morons because you lack the curiosity and intuition to interpret your own nocturnal dreams after waking while I can. Dreams are just poetry on steroids.

 

[twelveoone]

When I first heard Eyes Like Yours by Shakira in Spanish, which I didn't comprehend an iota of, I fell in love with her and wanted to have her babies. Yes, I would physically birth the offspring. Oh, that voice ....... I would endure hours of Mexican ballads on a Chicago based station just to hear her while I was making deliveries for an electrical contractor. And then one day I saw her dancing on TV and was horrified to learn that her musicality was not inherited by her legs. Hips do lie. Hers betray her every time. She should have been a contestant on Dancing With The Stars, not a guest act.

Anyhoo, point is, I can absolutely love a poem I don't understand in the first pass and read it numerous times until I think I do. It is just more of a longshot without the music and the voice and considerably farfetched if it lacks any lyrical qualities.

I believe the majority of are like this and so I choose to write stuff the majority can effortlessly appreciate. Not because I want the most readers and fans I can possibly attain, but because the average person is worthy and deserving of poetry as well.

Discounting most everyone as morons would be like me saying most of you are morons because you lack the curiosity and intuition to interpret your own nocturnal dreams after waking while I can. Dreams are just poetry on steroids.

Despite the fact, thankfully, we are all different, there seems to be close to a common ground here. Reverse what you just said, perhaps Poetry is a dream on steroids that would be just about as good a definition as any.
In the past, I mentioned that you do have have about 30 seconds to grab the reader attention (similar to what you said).
"Define your audience" (you did)
But also in the past, too often, I have seen far too many people post "poems" and get offended when suggestions are made as to possible improvement. My guess, cumulatively over 100 years of experience objected to, by people that started to write "poetry", that haven't even read any.
In perspective poetry is a hobby, all hobbies entail knowledge and/or craft.
Do you think for one moment, I can get away with some of the shit I write, if I didn't have that knowledge or craft? Fuck no. Curiously enough, I have been called "popular".

 

[Magnetron]

hello again

seems to me poetry is a cat of a different colour to stories; a story has to take a reader on a journey from A to B, with any number of diversions along the way just so long as the author takes care not to lose the reader along the way. prose can be poetic, very at times.

for me, poetry feels something less (on the surface at least) linear, less organised - more concerned with imparting a mood, an emotional connection than its prose counterpart. if i had to try and show what i meant here in a drawing, i'd use a picture of a mapped route for a story... for poetry? a pond's surface covered in ripples from coloured raindrops that strike the surface and spread, colours modifying as each ripple interacts with others. depending on specific word-choices, the colour of the rain can be implied - so it's not necessarily bright, multi-coloured drops. sometimes the drops are all blue, the water in the pond silver, or even black.

I used to dream of writing long fiction, but ultimately came to the obvious conclusion that I was no good at. I chose to write poetry and lyrics as a means of getting to the heart of storytelling without all the he said, she replied.

Now, I can't imagine going back.

Longer fiction minus all that narrative baggage weighing it down is all symbolism unconsciously projected outward by the writers. The sights and sounds of movies are more akin to the virtual reality of nocturnal dream experience, again all unconscious projection.

There is a not so obvious message there if you are willing to dwell on what you absorbed and connect the dots, much like your Circus poem.

We can taken many passes at a movie without batting an eye because it only consumes a few hours of hour time. Something lengthy like IT by Stephen King is quite inconvenient to revisit, about 20 hours for the average reader. Either way is going to be obnoxious if we didn't enjoy it the first time around because it was crafted poorly.

While a poem consumes very little time to read in comparison, it can provide too little in content for the reader to work with. If you are not giving me enough, my process of association is going to overide your intentions and I will arrive at an alternative outcome. Again, much like your Circus poem. See attached comment if you already haven't.

Storytelling doesn't have to be linear A - B, but there should be enough meat and potatoes on the plate to satisfy the average person. If you write with the average person in mind, then you will have no problem filling the buffet with enough to keep the patrons returning for seconds and thirds.

 

[Magnetron]

Me?

I'm like a fast food drive though.

I'm going to screw up your order everytime.

 

[twelveoone]

I used to dream of writing long fiction, but ultimately came to the obvious conclusion that I was no good at. I chose to write poetry and lyrics as a means of getting to the heart of storytelling without all the he said, she replied.

Now, I can't imagine going back.

Longer fiction minus all that narrative baggage weighing it down is all symbolism unconsciously projected outward by the writers. The sights and sounds of movies are more akin to the virtual reality of nocturnal dream experience, again all unconscious projection.

There is a not so obvious message there if you are willing to dwell on what you absorbed and connect the dots, much like your Circus poem.

We can taken many passes at a movie without batting an eye because it only consumes a few hours of hour time. Something lengthy like IT by Stephen King is quite inconvenient to revisit, about 20 hours for the average reader. Either way is going to be obnoxious if we didn't enjoy it the first time around because it was crafted poorly.

While a poem consumes very little time to read in comparison, it can provide too little in content for the reader to work with. If you are not giving me enough, my process of association is going to overide your intentions and I will arrive at an alternative outcome. Again, much like your Circus poem. See attached comment if you already haven't.

Storytelling doesn't have to be linear A - B, but there should be enough meat and potatoes on the plate to satisfy the average person. If you write with the average person in mind, then you will have no problem filling the buffet with enough to keep the patrons returning for seconds and thirds.

I once ordered a cheese steak with fries for four days, on Friday, I ordered a cheese steak and then said I'll have an order of fries for a change. Ripping off soemone else's joke.
You are touching upon something here, the Familiar and the Unfamiliar, too much of either is writer's death. Boredom or Unaccessable. These are definite concerns. I think (I hope) most of us do think about it when writing. One of the biggest problem is the cliche, the average person actually likes it, it makes a poet sick because he has seen it so many times. One of the easiest work arounds is either subverting it (adding something to it) or inverting it (using it in so it doesn't mean what you expect).
Regardless of intended audience, there are tricks or (techniques) that can be utilized. And like Lincoln said...

 

[Magnetron]

And like Lincoln said...

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Is it just me or is there a draft in this theatre?

 

[twelveoone]

there is always a problem if you can't tell a threatre from a Booth

 

[butters]

there is always a problem if you can't tell a threatre from a Booth

ooh! a horse, a horse, to be coarse of course.

no draught? gimme shots!

 

[twelveoone]

ooh! a horse, a horse, to be coarse of course.

no draught? gimme shots!

bad choice of words

 

[butters]

bad choice of words

deliberately so....

 

[twelveoone]

deliberately so....

Duck, quackers

 

[butters]

Duck, quackers

*smiles behind hand, fails to duck, gets hit on head by guest for dinner*

 

[butters]

sorry, tsotha - time to get back on track