Poetry, prose, metre, stuff, to keep the other thread clean

Tsotha said:

So, in your opinion, a poem is necessarily written within a form?

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An inviolate poem is written within purview of {form poetry}. Take any poem that isn't as clear as day prosery, any contemporary free verse and you will find the author adhering to some semblance of traditional English meter and form.

Free verse poetry just means inconsistent meter, not "no semblance of form", "no repetition of traditional poetic technique". Butter's thread is replete with examples of well-done contemporary free verse poetry, OpenField has given us plenty of good examples.


A Sad Thing
byCleardaynow©

Oh. Tis a sad thing,
A sad thing but true.
There is nothing to say
And no one to say it to.


This vignette could possibly be defined within a form: a quatrain, nursery rhyme(abcb)...but no, abcb wouldn't qualify under traditional quatrain rhyme scheme and nursery rhyme is strict on not only stresses, but discrete trochaic units. It is free verse poetry and not prose.

bogusagain said:

@Epmd607 I'm not sure what you are getting at in reply to my post. All I said was poetry was artifice. A metaphor is artifice, like all language. Language is made of series of symbols, visual on a page or sound symbols. I is not me, it is a signifier of the object that is me. Artifice. It is all artifice. There is no truth.

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I was replying to poetry(and you also seem to imply that all written language) is meant to deceive or cloud and obscure meaning and communication. For a metaphor to be artifice it would have to cover up some form of truth, there would have to be some semblance of truth to be covered over and obscured for there to be deception.

"I" is a tool, of course it's not you or a metaphor for you, it's only useful in describing something about the world, that you're referring to your person regarding some further context within the world outside of language. I can't imagine how you can call the concept of "I" or written language 'artifice'.

I'm replying to the idea that symbols(specifically metaphor) are meant to obscure what they signify. The Jesus Myth of Resurrection wasn't written to obscure the factuality of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead or not, or ever existed. The story exists to express something independent of a godlike man simply rising from the dead after a few days of cold storage. What does the story point to? What does the symbol mean and how is it used to say something?

Poetry has been used to express what is difficult to express in prose. Perhaps it began as a tool to aid memorization in storytelling, but it's been a solid 2,000-plus years that it has grown beyond that, engaging metaphor and parable. Maybe you believe there is nothing that is inexpressible about the world. But I do, and I believe that poetry uses symbol and metaphor to point in the direction of that thing that cannot be expressed plainly in the tools of speech and prose.

So why am I hung up on the popularity of prose poetry? Why are people who liked 70s rock n roll or early punk hung up on the non-existence of these art forms in the current era?

Epmd607 said:

For a metaphor to be artifice it would have to cover up some form of truth, there would have to be some semblance of truth to be covered over and obscured for there to be deception.

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Not at all. Artifice can be an effort to reveal or conceal the truth but at the end of the day, artifice is artifice. I might use a metaphor to try to illustrate my feelings as honestly as I can but the metaphor is not and never can be my feelings. It is what it is, artifice.

Epmd607 said:

"I" is a tool, of course it's not you or a metaphor for you, it's only useful in describing something about the world, that you're referring to your person regarding some further context within the world outside of language. I can't imagine how you can call the concept of "I" or written language 'artifice'.?

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"I" is a sign that represents me or as in a lot of poetry, it is a sign to represent the universal "I", the self belonging to the voice. "I" is artifice because it is a sign. "I" is not materially me.

Epmd607 said:

I'm replying to the idea that symbols(specifically metaphor) are meant to obscure what they signify. The Jesus Myth of Resurrection wasn't written to obscure the factuality of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead or not, or ever existed. The story exists to express something independent of a godlike man simply rising from the dead after a few days of cold storage. What does the story point to? What does the symbol mean and how is it used to say something?

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Aah well, it could interpret what you want it to interpret and I suspect that is dependent largely how a person has been brought up and educated. What the original writers of the Jesus myth meant we can have an educated guess. Certainly writers of the gospels appear to actually believe Jesus physically rose from the dead and what they were writing was the truth and not a myth Only later after the advent of the enlightment after the stories were questioned by rational minds did what was believed to be fact, metamorphosed into a metaphor. Some people still do believe the resurrection to be fact.

Epmd607 said:

Maybe you believe there is nothing that is inexpressible about the world. But I do, and I believe that poetry uses symbol and metaphor to point in the direction of that thing that cannot be expressed plainly in the tools of speech and prose.

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I think poetry is a tool of expression and communication but it will always be artifice because when I am expressing my emotion through poetry, no reader will ever experience my emotion, the best I can hope for is that my words can provoke in the reader an empathy that simulates the emotion I felt. That is what I mean when I say it is all artifice.

GOT TO GO. I finish later.

Epmd607 said:

So why am I hung up on the popularity of prose poetry? Why are people who liked 70s rock n roll or early punk hung up on the non-existence of these art forms in the current era?

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I'm not sure they are hung up on the non-existence of these art forms in the current era. Surely you have to believe something exists to get hung up on it.

I think Adrian Mitchell articulated the problem poetry has when he said, and I quote..."Most people ignore poetry because most poetry ignores most people."

It is up to poets to write poetry that engages people, not sit in their ivory towers lamenting they are misunderstood geniuses. When leading poets can openly discuss too many poetry books are being published because there are not enough good poets in a year that only thirty poetry books were published (in the UK) by commercial publishers, you know poetry has a problem.

The real problem as far as I can see is that anyone who publishes poetry that doesn't fit in with the esoteric world of the high art of orthodox poetry, they are attacked. Often the attacks sound like jealousy because the heretic poetry usually outsells the academic orthodoxy. When the British Pop poets outsold the leading academic poets of their day by hundreds of thousands, they academic poets attacked the Pop poets as not being poets at all. Yet if they stopped and thought about it, they should have seen the new audience the pop poets were attracting to poetry could be woed by them as a possible new audience. However, they were too small minded to see the possibility because they could not get past their own sense of genius and their need to be seen as superior to the average reader.

Was that a rant? I guess it was.

bogusagain said:

I'm not sure they are hung up on the non-existence of these art forms in the current era. Surely you have to believe something exists to get hung up on it.

I think Adrian Mitchell articulated the problem poetry has when he said, and I quote..."Most people ignore poetry because most poetry ignores most people."

It is up to poets to write poetry that engages people, not sit in their ivory towers lamenting they are misunderstood geniuses. When leading poets can openly discuss too many poetry books are being published because there are not enough good poets in a year that only thirty poetry books were published (in the UK) by commercial publishers, you know poetry has a problem.

The real problem as far as I can see is that anyone who publishes poetry that doesn't fit in with the esoteric world of the high art of orthodox poetry, they are attacked. Often the attacks sound like jealousy because the heretic poetry usually outsells the academic orthodoxy. When the British Pop poets outsold the leading academic poets of their day by hundreds of thousands, they academic poets attacked the Pop poets as not being poets at all. Yet if they stopped and thought about it, they should have seen the new audience the pop poets were attracting to poetry could be woed by them as a possible new audience. However, they were too small minded to see the possibility because they could not get past their own sense of genius and their need to be seen as superior to the average reader.

Was that a rant? I guess it was.

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No, it was not a rant, you said a lot of correct things, in my opinion, and I agree to a lot of what you said. It is only a hic-cup of post-modernism that poetry is like it is today. Up to the 1970ies the climate was much healthier. But who writes anymore like Neruda, like Brecht, like Elytis?
I mean, who's subjects are like theirs at least?

Epmd607 said:

Free verse poetry just means inconsistent meter, not "no semblance of form", "no repetition of traditional poetic technique". Butter's thread is replete with examples of well-done contemporary free verse poetry, OpenField has given us plenty of good examples.


A Sad Thing
byCleardaynow©

Oh. Tis a sad thing,
A sad thing but true.
There is nothing to say
And no one to say it to.


This vignette could possibly be defined within a form: a quatrain, nursery rhyme(abcb)...but no, abcb wouldn't qualify under traditional quatrain rhyme scheme and nursery rhyme is strict on not only stresses, but discrete trochaic units. It is free verse poetry and not prose.

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One, you are telling us, not showing. I would ask you to tell me why, except
I fell what you are doing is slightly unethical by posting Cleardaynow's poem in a thread and not commenting where the comments are expected.

Now I assume you feel comfortable comparing A to B to C, because they are free verse, I would feel comfortable if I knew you had some sort of permission. Otherwise it is a violation of intellectual property laws and unethical to reproduce an entire poem elsewhere.

i.e. poem there, comment there. You wish to promote Openfield fine.

Epmd607 said:

An inviolate poem is written within purview of {form poetry}. Take any poem that isn't as clear as day prosery, any contemporary free verse and you will find the author adhering to some semblance of traditional English meter and form.

Free verse poetry just means inconsistent meter, not "no semblance of form", "no repetition of traditional poetic technique".

Click to expand...

wtf

Full Definition of INVIOLATE
: not violated or profaned; especially : pure
does this mean?
Adhere by how much? 80% by formalist standards, 70% by more normal standards, with a bit of chicanery thrown in?

Inconsistent meter means what? Formalist is 20% inconsistent, by the way they measure it.

Now what metre are you talking about? The old two step which has been out of favour for what, 30 some years? Now I don't know how old you are, but 30 years is close to, or better than half your life.

Sorry, but this strikes me as soapboxery with dirty (loaded) words.

Epmd607 said:

An inviolate poem is written within purview of {form poetry}. Take any poem that isn't as clear as day prosery, any contemporary free verse and you will find the author adhering to some semblance of traditional English meter and form.

Free verse poetry just means inconsistent meter, not "no semblance of form", "no repetition of traditional poetic technique". Butter's thread is replete with examples of well-done contemporary free verse poetry, OpenField has given us plenty of good examples.


A Sad Thing
byCleardaynow©

Oh. Tis a sad thing,
A sad thing but true.
There is nothing to say
And no one to say it to.


This vignette could possibly be defined within a form: a quatrain, nursery rhyme(abcb)...but no, abcb wouldn't qualify under traditional quatrain rhyme scheme and nursery rhyme is strict on not only stresses, but discrete trochaic units. It is free verse poetry and not prose.

Click to expand...

"Pure" poetry is adherence to a set of arbitrary rules (rhyming, meter)? Is there a purpose to following those rules, or is it something that must be done to qualify your work as a poem?

Tsotha said:

"Pure" poetry is adherence to a set of arbitrary rules (rhyming, meter)? Is there a purpose to following those rules, or is it something that must be done to qualify your work as a poem?

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thou must perform on bended knee
your penance for idolatry
but baring that a bribe sufficed

Actually, I can answer this.

Tsotha said:

"Pure" poetry is adherence to a set of arbitrary rules (rhyming, meter)? Is there a purpose to following those rules, or is it something that must be done to qualify your work as a poem?

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No, no. My point has always been: prose poetry is fine, it works well describing small scenarios, to say things directly, but to be a consummate prose poet you're likely not going to say much of anything special. There are novels to say certain things and the space poetry provides is inadequate, unless you dedicate your time and energy into creating new metaphor, new ways of circling around that thing which can't be expressed in a novel's worth of words, ideas, images.

Sound works with metaphor in a certain way as to become a symbol beside itself, completely foreign to how words work in a story, speech, any other text. That's where I spend my time, finding out how an author is using sound and symbol, organization of words and lines. Where's the play action pass, the artistic misdirection, how many things are being said in how many ways? Poet as offensive coordinator, reader as quarterback with multiple options. Why does the poet choose to have an internal rhyme here and end the final line on a half-rhyme out of that internal rhyme and why do I enjoy it so much? I'm always glossing over that thing because it's very rare to come across exceptional poems and one needs that data set to mine and dissect.

twelveoone said:

One, you are telling us, not showing. I would ask you to tell me why, except
I fell what you are doing is slightly unethical by posting Cleardaynow's poem in a thread and not commenting where the comments are expected.

Now I assume you feel comfortable comparing A to B to C, because they are free verse, I would feel comfortable if I knew you had some sort of permission. Otherwise it is a violation of intellectual property laws and unethical to reproduce an entire poem elsewhere.

i.e. poem there, comment there. You wish to promote Openfield fine.

Click to expand...

I posted the poem as part of a critique, obliquely or not. I had previously criticized the same author for shirking technique, and having seen their response to said critique I assumed they'd see how I'd referred to them again in this thread. ClearDayNow, I enjoyed your vignette, I don't know how I didn't manage to slip that in here or on the NP page submission. That poem was of special interest to me because it reminded me of one of my own poems:

Some night, I'll sweat
and feel a stricture,
then peel my lip and wonder,
whether you'll frame my pen
or my picture.


I would criticize myself and many other poets for not having the courage to move beyond being a poet of nice vignettes. It is so very difficult writing four, five or more stanzas of that quality and really saying something of yourself as poet. I have all kinds of short poems that are only the handful of lines precisely because I gave up, didn't have the skill necessary to write that great poem I first imagined.

Epmd607 said:

Sound works with metaphor in a certain way as to become a symbol beside itself, completely foreign to how words work in a story, speech, any other text. That's where I spend my time, finding out how an author is using sound and symbol, organization of words and lines. Where's the play action pass, the artistic misdirection, how many things are being said in how many ways? Poet as offensive coordinator, reader as quarterback with multiple options. Why does the poet choose to have an internal rhyme here and end the final line on a half-rhyme out of that internal rhyme and why do I enjoy it so much? I'm always glossing over that thing because it's very rare to come across exceptional poems and one needs that data set to mine and dissect.

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Now you're cookin, let me clarify, you sound a lot like me here. I don't think we disagree on much.

First and foremost I will start by saying I'm really new at poetry critique, discussions and debate. But some of what I've read in this thread reminds me of the reason I was hesitant to post poetry in the first place. It seems as if, instead of true critique which assists in improvement and offers suggestions on how to do so, some posts are instead volatile and opinionated with the opinions being claimed for all mankind rather than themselves:

Epmd607 said:

I was replying to poetry(and you also seem to imply that all written language) is meant to deceive or cloud and obscure meaning and communication. For a metaphor to be artifice it would have to cover up some form of truth, there would have to be some semblance of truth to be covered over and obscured for there to be deception. .......

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I beg to differ. Your interpretation of his statements are quite different than mine. I believe he meant simply that poetry is a way to say something without actually saying it; a clever or artful skill (definition of artifact) to share thoughts and emotions without coming right out and saying it.
To twist this into stating he meant All poetry is deceiving is quite ludicrous - in my humble opinion.

Epmd607 said:

Poetry has been used to express what is difficult to express in prose....

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Prose poetry is a form of poetry but without break. Are you suggesting that because someone did not hit the return key they cannot express themselves properly? Or are you implying that one form of poetry conveys expression better than another? To me, I think it is how the author felt at the moment they were writing it...did it flow continually, did it break, should there be a pause like a sigh to make you slow down.... **

Epmd607 said:

An inviolate poem is written within purview of {form poetry}. Take any poem that isn't as clear as day prosery, any contemporary free verse and you will find the author adhering to some semblance of traditional English meter and form.

Click to expand...

I again have to question your sense of absolute. All poems not written a certain way means All poets are then secretly stick to certain rules? May I humbly ask, Wouldn't it be more accurate that this is your opinion and not a fact?
I can assure you, when I write my poetry and it isn't in what you qualify as perfect prose form, I did not write them to follow a rule or adhere to what is traditional. I just simply wrote them. If my thought ended I stopped the line, if I wanted to place emphasis on a word or phrase I may have placed them by themselves...my form depended on my emotions at the time, not worrying if it should be correct lines, syllables, rhythm, etc. Perhaps not following any rules is the reason my poems need much polishing...or perhaps it's why a reader can empathize with the poem.

Epmd607 said:

No, no. My point has always been: prose poetry is fine, it works well describing small scenarios, to say things directly, but to be a consummate prose poet you're likely not going to say much of anything special. There are novels to say certain things and the space poetry provides is inadequate, unless you dedicate your time and energy into creating new metaphor, new ways of circling around that thing which can't be expressed in a novel's worth of words, ideas, images.

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Repeating same as above **

OMG, I think I'm falling in love.
ps there are no rules, techniques or tricks if you will, the polishing as you refer to is more learning what to apply where and when, and from what I just read, if should be a quick study
so...OMG, I think I'm falling in love.

Matryoshka said:

First and foremost I will start by saying I'm really new at poetry critique, discussions and debate. But some of what I've read in this thread reminds me of the reason I was hesitant to post poetry in the first place. It seems as if, instead of true critique which assists in improvement and offers suggestions on how to do so, some posts are instead volatile and opinionated with the opinions being claimed for all mankind rather than themselves:



I beg to differ. Your interpretation of his statements are quite different than mine. I believe he meant simply that poetry is a way to say something without actually saying it; a clever or artful skill (definition of artifact) to share thoughts and emotions without coming right out and saying it.
To twist this into stating he meant All poetry is deceiving is quite ludicrous - in my humble opinion.



Prose poetry is a form of poetry but without break. Are you suggesting that because someone did not hit the return key they cannot express themselves properly? Or are you implying that one form of poetry conveys expression better than another? To me, I think it is how the author felt at the moment they were writing it...did it flow continually, did it break, should there be a pause like a sigh to make you slow down.... **



I again have to question your sense of absolute. All poems not written a certain way means All poets are then secretly stick to certain rules? May I humbly ask, Wouldn't it be more accurate that this is your opinion and not a fact?
I can assure you, when I write my poetry and it isn't in what you qualify as perfect prose form, I did not write them to follow a rule or adhere to what is traditional. I just simply wrote them. If my thought ended I stopped the line, if I wanted to place emphasis on a word or phrase I may have placed them by themselves...my form depended on my emotions at the time, not worrying if it should be correct lines, syllables, rhythm, etc. Perhaps not following any rules is the reason my poems need much polishing...or perhaps it's why a reader can empathize with the poem.



Repeating same as above **

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Martyr Oshka defines: "True critique", "prose poetry", and wants to parse 'fact' vs. 'opinion'.

You're definition of "true critique" neglects most of the reason why anyone even bothers offering critique. Is it that we're so selfless and altruistic that we only want to educate the lesser poets? Or, perhaps we offer critique, partake in the act of criticism because it's the only 'true' way to learn and grow as a poet. Engaging the work of others, reflecting on one's own work during that engagement and so on.

Your definition of prose poetry: "Prose poetry is a form of poetry but without break." is objectively wrong(which is astonishing since we're dealing with such a nebulous sub-category of an already nebulous art form) and comes off slightly retarded since you're criticizing me haphazardly for what you believed were my definitions?

imho every statement you made without prefacing or concluding with imho I'm still going to take as your opinion and I'd recommend you do the same.

This conversation with bogus, pelegrino, tsotha, some others has gone on for longer than this thread. But you don't come across as someone having even read this short thread. Since I've already answered and re-answered "...are you implying that one form of poetry conveys expression better than another?", regards.

I don't understand why it's so difficult to follow the metaphor 'prose is profane where poetry is sacred.' Take all the religious baggage out of the two terms and follow it home.

Free verse poetry, the child of every form in Tzara's thread of forms:
-------> a form I'll create today utilizing traditional techniques
----> ways to use sound(semblance of meter, featuring the musicality of the English language), order your metaphor(the physical order of the poem in lines and stanza, road signs to symbol)
-----> adhering to the orthodoxy of alliteration and assonance and all the techniques that exist to assist in the music of our language

What can the sacred vessel express where the profane vessel falls short?

Imagine the lyrics of your favorite lyrical song. What is the lyricist limited by whereas the poet is not limited?

Epmd607 said:

I don't understand why it's so difficult to follow the metaphor 'prose is profane where poetry is sacred.' Take all the religious baggage out of the two terms and follow it home.

Free verse poetry, the child of every form in Tzara's thread of forms:
-------> a form I'll create today utilizing traditional techniques
----> ways to use sound(semblance of meter, featuring the musicality of the English language), order your metaphor(the physical order of the poem in lines and stanza, road signs to symbol)
-----> adhering to the orthodoxy of alliteration and assonance and all the techniques that exist to assist in the music of our language

What can the sacred vessel express where the profane vessel falls short?

Imagine the lyrics of your favorite lyrical song. What is the lyricist limited by whereas the poet is not limited?

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Perhaps a better choice of words...
Free verse, if I understand this lumpy taxonomy, probably owes more to Walt Whitman than the box of forms.
Prose poetry has nothing to do with metre, because it was developed by Baudelaire, who was a tight writer in forms...that also had nothing to do with metre.

I have no idea as to what you mean by "orthodoxy" here.

All this talk of vignettes, Derrida, etc. I decided to write one, ten years ago. I like this, only thing that ever made money ($1 on a bet), almost won a monthly contest here. Gratefully marked down for spelling, and then the person proceeded with a lecture, yadda, yadda, yah.

So, here...
Neither Prose
Nor Poem
and not even a joke:


American Vignette#1
AKA Guano Town Justice

The arroyo runs dry, Señor,
you have a peso for atonement
for my sins, for the poor box,
it groans with spiders, and dust
in my belly, makes me
want a drink. Just one drink .
Señor, just one drink?

She said this, standing
next to her handsome cerdo
(just wasted bacon), her words,
they buzzed sacred,
hungary, a cloud of flies
at a fertilizer feast. Just
then I had noticed the lonely
steeple of the church was just
pulled down. Must be the work
of Psycho Billy, and god just
abandoned Guano Town.

I am just a simplifing man.
I gave her a gringo dollar
and shot the pig..
"Now you have yurself dinner,
money to buy yur self a drink.
But the desert, it
plumes with silver rainbows,
go there, find Huidobro,
he will give you yur arroyo, cerdo
as metaphors.
(god hath given him a stepladder to reach low heavens
to milk the clouds like cows
if you are so inclined)
Hi-ho"

Now some say that this stranger,
(just non stranger)
must have been Johnny Derrida, riding
from Tombstone to Phoenix, just hunting
for Psycho Billy and filthy Ezra
and other bad men, holed
up in a tower somewhere.

For who else has such wisdom?
Just such wisdom, to leave
just a lead bullet behind.

Gone are the days when I could write this stuff at the drop of a hat, and put a couple of holes in the hat before it hit the ground.

Now that is one hellva first stanza, the artistic misdirection, and the woman sure had me fooled. Yep, nothin pure in this vaso.

I feel untrue counting syllables
when I write for you,
there are times I'd choose to
neglect the beat,
rather than feel cheap,
but cheapening the metric
smatters the sentiment,
so I then may elect
to stay sibilantly hushhhed,
or just broach some other subject.

Epmd607 said:

I feel untrue counting syllables
when I write for you,
there are times I'd choose to
neglect the beat,
rather than feel cheap,
but cheapening the metric
smatters the sentiment,
so I then may elect
to stay sibilantly hushhhed,
or just broach some other subject.

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wow, I thought my doggerel was bad

But I believe the question was: What does it do? These poetic tools that somehow I missed out on.
A straight iambic drive though what does it do?
These god given forms that almighty Turco collected for Tzara, what is their purpose?
The effect of sound, never mind, we sort of covered that, I may have covered it a bit more. Thread whorin, ya know.
Now the problem I have is that some seem to use it as a "barrier of entry", a separation of the wheat from the chaff. If you have a tool, show us the utility, without the sanctimonious language.
I do have a problem with this "pure poetry" that I hear about, but see such little verifiable existence of.
I also have a problem with the shelve stuffers, the pedestrian crap artists, but I seem to go after them directly, whereas, even on the things you do like, I never see a comment.

But since you're here, what did you think of Milton's Prosody? I've been dying to ask.

I've read Paradise Lost, had to. I was force fed it at school. I choked more than once on it but if I had to stop and consider every little detail of it, every little nuance, I would have stabbed the teacher. I suppose such minutae is great for practitioners but what does the average reader get out of it.

As with Shakespeare and many more. I never went near the stuff for ten years after leaving school and then I was only weaned back by a gal with a posh accent who had legs up to her shoulders and a smile that said, you can have me any which way you want to if you read what I read.

Surely, like great painters and sculptors and actors etc, the best poets absorb knowledge through practice and create intuitively and such study of detail, is for academics who can't write beyond that which has already been created, not poets who intuitively search for the new?

twelveoone said:

wow, I thought my doggerel was bad

But I believe the question was: What does it do? These poetic tools that somehow I missed out on.
A straight iambic drive though what does it do?
These god given forms that almighty Turco collected for Tzara, what is their purpose?
The effect of sound, never mind, we sort of covered that, I may have covered it a bit more. Thread whorin, ya know.
Now the problem I have is that some seem to use it as a "barrier of entry", a separation of the wheat from the chaff. If you have a tool, show us the utility, without the sanctimonious language.
I do have a problem with this "pure poetry" that I hear about, but see such little verifiable existence of.
I also have a problem with the shelve stuffers, the pedestrian crap artists, but I seem to go after them directly, whereas, even on the things you do like, I never see a comment.

But since you're here, what did you think of Milton's Prosody? I've been dying to ask.

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Blank verse is a system that is wholly unappealing to what I enjoy about poems. I can't comment on Milton outside of his lyrical poetry, in which he was entirely competent, but again wholly uninteresting to me.

The barrier for entry, we know, we've talked about it. If you haven't read much poetry you won't know how to write an engaging poem for poets or non-poets. What is contained within poems that is passed to the student of poems? What are tools of the trade aka traditions that all newcomers must be initiated into if they'd like to tread the same hallow halls of TS Eliot or the fallow fields of Dylan Thomas? Telling someone they should learn traditional forms, actually write within the confines of those forms, learn how the neo-romantics and then modernists deviated before beginning to create your own form or style of free verse...is just me repeating good information, what I learned from older poets the past dozen years.

Is it that poetry is nothing particular, that a prose story must have certain details, look a certain way and follow a very narrow structure, but to say the same thing of poetry is heretic to the folks who mistook what the after-modernists were actually going on about? I mean, that thing we hear so often 'round these parts: 'No, you're wrong in your criticism, poetry is whatever I want it to be!'

........................................................ Below I'll post a poem of yours, then briefly shew why it is an inviolate poem.

Red October
bytwelveoone©

I do not see the clouds on the horizon
in the hour preceding dawn,
only the numinous stars,
and wish for the warmth of a hand.

I looked in the mirror while shaving,
a cut imitation of life,
a dry pharoah, organs somewhere in jars,
I do not shave anymore.

Yea, I have been plagued by thieves,
had human warmth taken from me;
I burn with the heat of the sun
on sand.

The dawn clouds appear
in luminous awe
full shades turn nagual
white, then disappear.

And I look to the sunrise
over a low October fog
to see the splendour of god
in death, and the world
looks like it's on fire
over the burnt October mist.

..................................................

Symbol:

Numinous in first stanza, pharaoh in second, sun in third, luminous awe in fourth followed by nagual(personal skin-changing demigod), fifth stanza we refer to the splendor of god.

There is presence of divinity in the warmth of certain hands, my hands aren't godlike.

Sound:

first stanza - wish/warmth, horizon/hand
third - had/human, thieves/me, sun/sand
fourth - appear/disappear, burn/turn (depending on the reader)
fifth - over a low October, fog/god, finishing with splendor/world/fire/October

If I had the time to take half a dozen 1201 poems I might be able to loosely define 1201 style for those poems. It's a learned technique, no reason to overpower the reader with anything but partial rhymes, distance between related sounds, but as poem comes to conclusion(like most good modern poets) the technique comes through to even the novice that you are writing 'pure' poetry and not something else. 'Pure' as in, you've studied the tradition and utilized it in your own unique way. 5/5, good poem, bravo etc.

bogusagain said:

...

Surely, like great painters and sculptors and actors etc, the best poets absorb knowledge through practice and create intuitively and such study of detail, is for academics who can't write beyond that which has already been created, not poets who intuitively search for the new?

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Every artist you can name was a serious student of a tradition before they created new traditions and forms. Before Bob Dylan began his career he likely knew more about American folk music and Americana than anyone. Jackson Pollock didn't begin by dripping paint around on the floor of his mother's pantry. TS Eliot was a philosophy student then a teacher, Billy Collins is a lifelong academic... It's plain lazy to think that you can be a great(or even passably competent) artist without being a great student and scholar of the arts.

The intuitive creation, the artist who breaks the mold- is usually just cover-up for traditional thievery and a little ingenuity after years of study. The reason the Beatles could jock the black american rock n rollers so well and craftily was precisely because they studied every record they could get their hands on inside and out, they learned the technique of what was burgeoning on widespread popularity and mastered it. How does Kaddish or Howl happen without Ginsberg dissecting WC Williams, without WC Williams studying Leaves of Grass?

Epmd607 said:

Every artist you can name was a serious student of a tradition before they created new traditions and forms.

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Cezanne couldn't draw and couldn't paint until he masked his inabilities with a style he developed, a style that inspired cubism and had Picasso to say, he (Cezanne) is the father of all of us.

Epmd607 said:

Before Bob Dylan began his career he likely knew more about American folk music and Americana than anyone.

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Music isn't Dylan's genius so much as his lyrics.

Epmd607 said:

The intuitive creation, the artist who breaks the mold- is usually just cover-up for traditional thievery and a little ingenuity after years of study.

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Is that your reason why Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Turner and Picasso amongst others pushed and extended the boundaries? As Picasso said, bad artists borrow, good artists steal and I do not seek, I find. Are you saying Picasso is a nobody?

One has to know the foundations of one's art but creativity is not a linear intellectual exercise, it is about freeing ones mind of pre-conceptions and opening up to possibilities.

bogusagain said:

Cezanne couldn't draw and couldn't paint until he masked his inabilities with a style he developed, a style that inspired cubism and had Picasso to say, he (Cezanne) is the father of all of us.



Music isn't Dylan's genius so much as his lyrics.

Is that your reason why Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Turner and Picasso amongst others pushed and extended the boundaries? As Picasso said, bad artists borrow, good artists steal and I do not seek, I find. Are you saying Picasso is a nobody?

One has to know the foundations of one's art but creativity is not a linear intellectual exercise, it is about freeing ones mind of pre-conceptions and opening up to possibilities.

Click to expand...

Paul Cézanne? He attended art school for about six years then studied drawing for years and continued to study art while attending law school. He didn't just try to draw in his study and create a new form of art out of the aether, he drilled technique for probably a decade. Cezanne and Zola were the blueprint for the rich, do nothing but study and practice bohemian.

Bob Dylan's lyrics came from his study of 19th Century newspapers on microfiche from the NY public library. He pulled lyrics from yellow journalism, sensationalist stories, straight up ripped off 'lost' songs that were never recorded, stuff that even Alan Lomax never came across in his professional study.

I'm not talking linearity, I'm talking studying a breadth of poetic technique before you go around presenting your own work as something worthy of critique. People appear, ask for critique, get defensive when they're told they need to relax the cliche, be a little more creative...and it's because they have no concept of poetry. How can you free your mind of pre-conceptions about poetry if you have no concept of poetry beyond reading a handful of poems in school or a few poems online?

The pre-conceptions of most of the people who post their poetry online is just plain-faced ignorance. If someone is asking for criticism and looking to write better poetry there is a blueprint out there. Learn the forms by reading form poetry, write within the confines of the forms in imitation, learn to master a couple of sound techniques, read widely to see how other poets have used metaphor, try and create original imagery and metaphor, step outside the form and check out the modernists, surrealists, try some of their techniques...it's a long study and practice and probably not worth it if you believe Basho emerged from the cave creating poetry without being a scholar of his predecessors.

The snobbery comes from folks who show up not just to show other people their poems, but actually interested in becoming a better poet and looking to engage but then saying, "No, I don't have to read poetry to become a better poet, you're an idiot stuck in the 19th century. In the 21st century we just write whatever we want and eventually it'll be good."