A question!

[Loafer]

Personally, i think my WORST poems are the ones i keep for myself. They are filled with all this stupid self-pity or whatever you want to call it and the words "me, mine, I, you" are just used to the point where they dont mean anything anymore and thats one thing i dont like about some poetry. I think my best poems are the ones that everyone can relate to, ones that take the reader on an experience...or at least thats what i WANT the poems to do...it doesnt usually work out that well....

 

[hermes]

Poetry in the "poetic" sense of the word can be anything or anywhere. I see poetry in many things every moment.

Poetry as a medium of the written word is different than other mediums of art. The closest it is to is painting. Movies and such a group effort unless they are very small, even then it is totally reliant on other factors than the filmaker. Poetry is all from the writer, and very different than movies and mmany other mediums that are dependent on outside factors.

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He coughed and shook his crumpled wings, closed his eyes and moved his lips, "It's time we should be going."

 

[Michael Griffiths]

Hermes,

You say:

Poetry is all from the writer, and very different than movies and many other mediums that are dependent on outside factors.

Does the process of "making poetry" make it necessarily different, other than the fact that its origins are from a different source (an individual rather than a "group," such as in film). I don't know about you, but I've heard certain songs (almost anything by Leonard Cohen, for ex.) that can be read as poems. So, put another way, is a song considered poetry IF AND ONLY IF, it is produced by a single person? If a song were produced by a band (thus more than one factor being involved: different people and recording devices, instruments, etc), couldn't it still be poetry? I don't see how the process of any particular art should deem whether or not it is poetry. The end result should, and the meaning the particular work contains, no matter what the medium (be it music, film or writing on a page or comuter screen). That's how I see it at the moment. I might be wrong. What do you think about what I've said?

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The Tempest

 

[hermes]

As I said before in the "poetic" sense of the term anything can be viewed as poetry. I view most every thing as poetry. I'm one of those types who will zone out for an hour at dinner time and forget to eat if I see a really cool design in a table cloth.

But the actual definition of poetry seperates it from MOST mediums.

Your example of a musician writing lyrics ( I love Cohen btw) is acurate, a bands lyrics are poetry no matter how many people write them The MUSIC is NOT.

Poetry and written word forms are unique. Movies take not only more than just one person, but even if it is just a director and a camera he still has to rely on the actors translation. Even if there are no actors he is relying on the set design, the furniture designer, the growth of the tree. Even if he designed the set he is relying on the type of camera and the type of film. And it goes on.

The written word is unique in that it only relies on the language. It puts across the writer's (no matter how many) meaning. There are very few forms of art like that. Painting comes to mind.


My point is poetry is unique in that the writer(s) can put down exactly what they intend and are not reliant on variables.

So to sum up, we can see things as "poetry". I can look at a painting and think how poetic it is but it's a painting not poetry, the closest it can be is a representation of poetry.

Just as I can read a poem and see how it paints a picture with words, it's still poetry not a painting.




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He coughed and shook his crumpled wings, closed his eyes and moved his lips, "It's time we should be going."

 

[Michael Griffiths]

Hermes,

Great response!! But let's say that poetry is different from other art forms in that it doesn't require other physical variables to create it, then what is the difference between poetry and, say, prose? Both require only the writer, and the written word. Does poetry also require something else that we haven't brought up? This is where it becomes tricky! Interesting topic, though.

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The Tempest

 

[rougerum]

griffiths, see that is your opinion. There isn't a black and whit statement on what poetry is. Some people do it the way I like and a lot don't, this whole thing was to find out what you believe in. ok? I do think poetry is different than film or stories and you know what, there is no proof that they are the same, there is only opinion! Maybe I should't have asked for the simple yes or no, I will admit that much.

~rougerum

 

[hermes]

Good Question

I can't really answer it very well, maybe I'll have a better answer after work. Course it's quite an old debate so I don't think I'll be able to "answer" it. My response for now:

The closest I can come up with is that prose is still hindered by the perception of the reader. There is an expectation that a story or action must be presented. There are rules of grammer that the reader is looking for, written clues to explain what is happening.

Although Since Ulysses, and before, prose authors have been trying to break the forms of prose. You stray too far though and soon its a mutant version of free verse dependent on the author or readers definition of what it is.

sorry, it's very early and I was up very late, I hope this makes some sort of sense. I'll have to ponder it at my job today while I pretend to do paperwork.

anyone else want to answer or argue?

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He coughed and shook his crumpled wings,
Closed his eyes and moved his lips,
"It's time we should be going."

 

[scappy]

I, like many before me, cannot answer this question, because I don't agree that there is only a yes or no answer. Poetry is, to me, only grey...black and white do not exist in poetry. My answer, however, in many words, follows:

First of all, poetry was originally intended to be read aloud, not read on paper. And if you're speaking aloud, ostensibly you have an audience to hear your words.

Also, poetry is intended to evoke a response of some sort from the listener (or reader these days). In order to get a response, someone has to hear or read it. Of course, the author could become the audience as well as writer and respond to it, but the traditional format is for an audience to listen to and respond in some manner.

The merit of the POEM can be found in the degree to which the audience responds to it. I don't know that there are good poets, only good poems.

This is why poetry is so subjective...people's responses vary so wildly that it is hard to say: EVERYONE agrees that this is a good poem because EVERYONE had the same reaction to it. The same problem exists with all art forms, to one extent or another.

I agree with those who stated previously, though, that poetry can be found in all aspects of life, and does not require words (spoken or written). Traditional poetry, however, is what I was defining above.

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"And it's already gone too far..."

 

[bicyclingfish]

I think that there are two kinds of poetry: one is an academic poetry, built and designed out of intention and desire to be poetic, to be pogniant, to be purposeful in its employment of poetic tooling; the second is a more personal type of poetry, the kind that lovers write to each other, that adolescent agnst spews forth, that a person might write without the recipient in mind... a niave sort of poetry.

With that said, the first type comes from the second. We all begin harsh and under-formed, under-educated and without concern for the devices of Yates and Keats and Dickinson. In time, some go beyond and learn further tooling, but some continue to write very personal, very intimate work despite what the 'critics' might say.

I don't think that any of us have any room to pass judgement- negative especially- on anyone else's work. Regardless of your schooling or personal development on your poetry, you are not any better than the rest of us. That's the vibe that rubs off from this post- that someone is out there determining where I am in my poetic and creative development and shrugging me off or paying attention just because of that. Screw that! I don't write for anyone in here specifically- I write for me.

And that brings me back to the first part of my post. I write from the first: very intentfully of what I'm saying, I do not have the full command of all poetic devices yet. Does that mean that I should wait to put anything up on the Internet?

No. My answer to your (implied) arrogant question: No.

 

[AllIWantIs]

In my opinion, schooling has absolutly nothing to do with poetry.
A person can study all the greatest poets and still not have the knack to be able to reach far down within themselves to be able to release their perceptions & emotions.
I've never heard of such a thing as a "text book poet".

 

[rougerum]

I never knew there was that academic poetry you learn at some school? I thought poetry was anything you wanted it to be I guess, well I say fuck your academic poetry thing.

~rougerum

 

[bicyclingfish]

"I can tell what kind of poet you are with a simple yes or no." - rougerum

Its not MY "academic poetry-thing" that allows me to judge anything.

Quit judging people so damn much and being so quick to condemn peoples' attempts to express themselves. You don't have the right- whether academic or god-given- to be the judge and jury of any of us.

I pour WHO I AM into what I write, and it doesn't matter to me whether its my first draft of fifteenth, dammit. When I wanna share it, I'm gonna share it.

Don't attempt to determine what 'kind of poet' I am simply because I answer your discriminatory question one way or another. You have no right to judge my art, my work, my poetry. Let's ask "Why do you post" and not be so damn righteous in our judgements. I'm hear to read what others do, regardless of when they created it in their journey.

I say, relax, read, and dream. And when you dream, dream out loud. Long live the revolution.

 

[rougerum]

oh quit whining, the question was to see how you looked at the art form of poetry. i will bad mouth any fucking poem I like too, if it bad, I will destroy the poem. I would say of how bad it is. If people aren't critical than the bad ones could never get better.

~rougerum

 

[AllIWantIs]

That's not cool rougerum, anyone with intelligence would NEVER bad mouth a poem, but perhaps critique with suggestions on how the poem would suit the critic more to their liking.
Notice I mentioned "suit the critic more to their liking".
If you don't like something, a dozen other people may LOVE it.
So I guess we're turning this discussion on how poetry is written from within but expected to please others?

 

[rougerum]

oh come on, the best american poet Edgar Allan Poe destroyed the poems he hated when he was a editor, he would literally blast the poem and not think twice about it. So you can't say intelligent people do not do that cause Poe is one of the best ever.

~rougerum

 

[AllIWantIs]

So did Edgar Allen Poe bad mouth anyone else's work besides his own?
He also was on something most of the time, could be good reason why he trashed his own work too.

 

[rougerum]

I meant that he bad mouthed everyone else's poetry and you are seriously going to say he was not good enough to know good from bad poetry by that he was on something?

~rougerum

 

[frogbat]

Poe as an example doesn't work- he's American - rudeness arrogance and collective stupidity go hand in hand with being in some parts of this world.

The only reason why the rest of the world puts up with Yanks is to save our but whenever the Krauts run out of Sausage meat

Badmouthing and criticising are both artforms in their own right, however each is distinct and someone 'round here has a Masters in one of them

 

[AllIWantIs]

The only rude Americans I know of are politicians. If a rude person is not part of a political party it's because in the politicians eyes the practicing rudes have not perfected their rudness enough to join the political party.
Bad mouthing is not an art form unless you're Eminem, and I only say that because if he couldn't bad mouth then he would be a nobody.

 

[popkidu2]

You write poetry for yourself...at least most poets do.

Personally, I rarely share what I write with others. It's a very painful experience to do so, because it exposes a part of me that I try desperately to hide. What I write down is all my fears and insecurities and everything else that gets me down. When I share that, I become very vulnerable. The only time I do so is when either a) I NEED to tell others the way I feel but can't say it or b) when I'm in a safe place so to speak, where I think I can share my feelings and not get hurt.

I don't think that answered your question, but oh well.

 

[foray]

I'm not going to answer the question (which I think many have forgotten already, hur hur). Instead, I'm going to do the cop out thing and post a poem.

_Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry_ by Howard Nemerov

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn't tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.


foray