Credentials

Trixareforkids said:

I can't stand the whine
Personally I prefer to hop through the barley fields
In search of Jacks bean stalk
I keep hearing harp music
And smelling giant (god?) farts
But I've yet to trip over any golden eggs

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every time a god farts a poem is born
that's why you need the beans

this is why there is a serious lack of poems under monotheism
atheists are much worse
but when they let one rip
Mama, call out the hearse

twelveoone said:

every time a god farts a poem is born
that's why you need the beans

this is why there is a serious lack of poems under monotheism
atheists are much worse
but when they let one rip
Mama, call out the hearse

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Hey, it's a job
A comedy of justice
If you will
Where the atheists
Feed the earth
With their 100% organic
Remains to be seen
Agnostics munching
On the new growth
While those who have been
Dipped and battered
Throw a fish fry

Trixareforkids said:

Hey, it's a job
A comedy of justice
If you will
Where the atheists
Feed the earth
With their 100% organic
Remains to be seen
Agnostics munching
On the new growth
While those who have been
Dipped and battered
Throw a fish fry

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its luck
fuckin luck
no matter how you fake it
in an otherwise stale universe
i was born brain dead
or so it was said
how could it get much worse?
submit the shit out of NPR?
and claim some muse bit my ass
or sit under the bodhi tree
and hope it was a fig that dropped
yes
"these things too, shall pass"

twelveoone said:

its luck
fuckin luck
no matter how you fake it
in an otherwise stale universe
i was born brain dead
or so it was said
how could it get much worse?
submit the shit out of NPR?
and claim some muse bit my ass
or sit under the bodhi tree
and hope it was a fig that dropped
yes
"these things too, shall pass"

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You're so a musing
With your musings
On whether
Poems are good or bad
Happy or sad
Making me wonder
If I'd written
Book reports
In verse
The teacher would have been
Less terse in her discourse
On the proper
Forming (no reforming)
Of young minds
With too much time
Wasted
On thinking
Of or for themselves
When it was all right there
Outlined in the not to be
Deviated from
Curriculum

Edit: actually the book report I did was on Stranger In A Strange Land, not Job: A Comedy of Justice, but hey, I took poetic license Heinlein sight being 2020 and Beyond This Horizon.

twelveoone said:

what credentials to you to write?
This question occured to me, because a certain person has been making a lot of noise about lack of credentials, thinking that it is perfectly valid to write with just a heart, saying nothing about poetry or the tools of poetry.

Think about it.
.....................................

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This question was never very clear. No one expects any credentials of a writer of poetry as a writer of poetry, so you need to specify what credentials does one who wishes to share and take time away from the reader need to show within composition?

I can write a poem for myself, but I can't be misunderstood that when I post a poem on the Internet or any public forum it's not just for myself. It's an invitation to share something with someone else, and each time the reader clicks on a link to a poem most aren't so jaded that they assume they're wasting their time.

What is it about the person who posts anything and everything they write? Whether it's for "keeping a record" or for feedback? You can keep a record privately, why are records kept in threads, on submissions pages, blogs, websites?

There is a real difference between putting forth a polished poem for feedback(even if only looking for positive feedback) and that other thing, dropping any old turd into the public record, the bizarre need to have a complete public record of your 'art'. Who are these future web archaeologists year 2045 who are going to stumble over Blog de Poesie circa 2011 and discover a Rimbaud? You're wasting their time too if you don't take care and you yourself become a bit of a genealogist of past poetic technique.

I have degrees having nothing to do with composition, any kind of art. I studied technique because it was entirely necessary to understand what poets past were doing for me to even take serious the notion that I could write a poem that someone else might enjoy. Hard headed people want to spring poems from the sea foam onto the world as something to be beheld, something untarnished by the stodgy, mundane past.

bflagsst said:

This question was never very clear. No one expects any credentials of a writer of poetry as a writer of poetry, so you need to specify what credentials does one who wishes to share and take time away from the reader need to show within composition?

I can write a poem for myself, but I can't be misunderstood that when I post a poem on the Internet or any public forum it's not just for myself. It's an invitation to share something with someone else, and each time the reader clicks on a link to a poem most aren't so jaded that they assume they're wasting their time.

What is it about the person who posts anything and everything they write? Whether it's for "keeping a record" or for feedback? You can keep a record privately, why are records kept in threads, on submissions pages, blogs, websites?

There is a real difference between putting forth a polished poem for feedback(even if only looking for positive feedback) and that other thing, dropping any old turd into the public record, the bizarre need to have a complete public record of your 'art'. Who are these future web archaeologists year 2045 who are going to stumble over Blog de Poesie circa 2011 and discover a Rimbaud? You're wasting their time to if you don't take care and you yourself become a bit of a genealogist of past poetic technique.

I have degrees having nothing to do with composition, any kind of art. I studied technique because it was entirely necessary to understand what poets past were doing for me to even take serious the notion that I could write a poem that someone else might enjoy. Hard headed people want to spring poems from the sea foam onto the world as something to be beheld, something untarnished by the stodgy, mundane past.

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There is a difference to me between the threads and the submitted poems.

The threads are for working out thoughts and getting feedback as well as for just plain fooling around. It's been my experience, and in my short time here I've observed it in others as well, that poets are very much improvisational writers and I've seen off-hand comments or little nonsense pieces from one person produce something more substantial from another.

Submissions are for pieces that we feel are more polished, ya know barring all the crap we toss out there as newbs, thinking it is polished.

Also, why the hell should anyone care about wasting the time of future web archaeologists? The stuff that is timeless will survive, and the stuff that's not will fall to the wayside, just like all the writing from past eras. But here's the thing. What "deserves" to survive has always been a construct of the very privileged few, until now and the ability to share via the web, which allows the everyday person to decide for themselves what is worthy of their attention.

The benchmark today is still 'being published' but the publishing world is a small world and does not necessarily speak to the likes or wants of the general public. Even if you assume it does, again it is a very limited world, there are more good poets than there are companies willing to publish them. The advent of the web and the ability to self-publish has gotten more works out there than ever before. Judging what is worthy or unworthy is completely individual and now it is within each individual's ability to do so.

That is worth more than any future 'archaeologist's' time. So what if there's a ton of 'bad' poetry out there, there's also a ton of 'good' poetry out there that we would not have had access to 30 years ago. I've been gobsmacked by the quality of poetry on A PORN SITE, and it's made me search further afield for all the other good poetry that I might be missing because it's not deemed worthy by publishing companies.

bflagsst said:

I can write a poem for myself, but I can't be misunderstood that when I post a poem on the Internet or any public forum it's not just for myself. It's an invitation to share something with someone else, and each time the reader clicks on a link to a poem most aren't so jaded that they assume they're wasting their time.

What is it about the person who posts anything and everything they write? Whether it's for "keeping a record" or for feedback? You can keep a record privately, why are records kept in threads, on submissions pages, blogs, websites?

There is a real difference between putting forth a polished poem for feedback(even if only looking for positive feedback) and that other thing, dropping any old turd into the public record, the bizarre need to have a complete public record of your 'art'. Who are these future web archaeologists year 2045 who are going to stumble over Blog de Poesie circa 2011 and discover a Rimbaud? You're wasting their time too if you don't take care and you yourself become a bit of a genealogist of past poetic technique.

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I agree with part of what you're saying above. I see submitting a poem to Lit (the site, not the forum) as a request to be read. It's as if the person said to me: "I've created something good, I want you to take a look". So when someone posts twenty poems within a week, it's hard to think that they are all that special. Even if they were incredibly good (and most are very bad), it would still be a bad idea to spam so many poems, because the pond is only so big.

Now, if you're talking about the forum... I disagree. This is a forum, not the Blog de Poesie. This is a place for discussion and learning, at all levels of skill. People chat in verse, here. Poems are written in response to other poems. Challenges are issued. A lot of bad poems get written. Parts are salvaged, reused. Some are ignored, trashed, buried. Nobody cares - comments are exchanged, things are learned.

I keep a "public notebook" not because the poems in it are good, but because I have decided to make my learning process public. Every once in a while someone more experienced decides to drop me a comment. If I'd been more diligent, I'd have noted those suggestions down along with the poems, so people could see where I tried new things. I know that such insight / advice is useful to newbies (I am one, after all). I put a big disclaimer there so I don't hurt any tender poetic sensibilities.

bflagsst said:

I have degrees having nothing to do with composition, any kind of art. I studied technique because it was entirely necessary to understand what poets past were doing for me to even take serious the notion that I could write a poem that someone else might enjoy.

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Tsotha said:

I keep a "public notebook" not because the poems in it are good, but because I have decided to make my learning process public. Every once in a while someone more experienced decides to drop me a comment. If I'd been more diligent, I'd have noted those suggestions down along with the poems, so people could see where I tried new things. I know that such insight / advice is useful to newbies (I am one, after all). I put a big disclaimer there so I don't hurt any tender poetic sensibilities.

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aww fuck tender poetic sensibilities.
Cherry picking here, I really can't add to this, except hope that some poetic souls may read this. I doubt it.

Trixareforkids said:

The benchmark today is still 'being published' but the publishing world is a small world and does not necessarily speak to the likes or wants of the general public. Even if you assume it does, again it is a very limited world, there are more good poets than there are companies willing to publish them. The advent of the web and the ability to self-publish has gotten more works out there than ever before. Judging what is worthy or unworthy is completely individual and now it is within each individual's ability to do so.
gra
That is worth more than any future 'archaeologist's' time. So what if there's a ton of 'bad' poetry out there, there's also a ton of 'good' poetry out there that we would not have had access to 30 years ago. I've been gobsmacked by the quality of poetry on A PORN SITE, and it's made me search further afield for all the other good poetry that I might be missing because it's not deemed worthy by publishing companies.

Click to expand...

let me disabuse you of some of these notions
The benchmark today is still 'being published' - even if you are a "published poet" there is no money to be made selling publications. Most of it is remaindered, and the money is made up front for poets -by grants. I'm not going to add to this, said a 1,000 times. see bogusagain's posts.

There may be a ton of 'good' poetry, but there is far more than a ton of 'bad' poetry, let's pull a number out of my ass, ratio 1 to 20?

Of the 'good' poetry most of it has been done to death, and most readers wouldn't know it.

Which leads me back to what bflagsst said:
I studied technique because it was entirely necessary to understand what poets past were doing for me to even take serious the notion that I could write a poem
bflagsst and I couldn't disagree more as to what may constitute what may be 'good' poetry and we may disagree as to what is 'bad' poetry.
And we can just about substitute any two names here in juxtaposition, i.e.
Tzara and Senna Jawa
and the same results will be yielded, and yet we will all be in pretty much agreement that there is a difference between "poetry" and ass wiping.
I put to some of you, ass wiping should be done in private not in new poems despite how prolific your poetic hole feels the need to share.
So fuck tender poetic sensibilities.
Tod and Trix and Tso seemed to have dropped the tender part and kept the sensible in the poetry. i.e they listen to X, Y, and Z and weigh their options.
1,2, and 3.

Bumpity

Yikes.

Enchantment_of_Nyx said:

Yikes.

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It’s an old, old thread but there are some opinions in there I was enjoying before time got in the way, so I bumped it.

wow, just saw this last night. started reading it late and ended up realllllly late. i miss that guy, and it was fun reading us all interact.

butters said:

wow, just saw this last night. started reading it late and ended up realllllly late. i miss that guy, and it was fun reading us all interact.

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The thread left me with a disinclination to post anything. I'm not referring to the thread starter, but to the overall content from various posters. I didn't read the whole thing, but if you look at just the beginning and the end, there's a common theme. My voice may not be missed here, but I doubt it's just mine that's missing. There's a bit of an echo.

Enchantment_of_Nyx said:

The thread left me with a disinclination to post anything. I'm not referring to the thread starter, but to the overall content from various posters. I didn't read the whole thing, but if you look at just the beginning and the end, there's a common theme. My voice may not be missed here, but I doubt it's just mine that's missing. There's a bit of an echo.

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The whole concept of who has credentials to post a comment on a poem was my driving force for bumping, this thread dates back to 2005 and was picked up in 2014,

The entire forum dynamic and drivers of the forum have either left, or possibly passed away, and some of them will never return.

If I’d have thought your reaction would be to boycott the forum over the thread I’d have left it buried.

todski28 said:

The whole concept of who has credentials to post a comment on a poem was my driving force for bumping, this thread dates back to 2005 and was picked up in 2014,

The entire forum dynamic and drivers of the forum have either left, or possibly passed away, and some of them will never return.

If I’d have thought your reaction would be to boycott the forum over the thread I’d have left it buried.

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It might be useful in a case like this to indicate why you're bumping it. It's really easy to glance casually at the comments in a thread like this and overlook the fact that they're ancient. I've done that on many occasions until I realized, "Oh, wait . . . "

It would be really nice if in fact some of the attitudes reflected six years ago are no longer as reflective of the group as a whole.

todski28 said:

The whole concept of who has credentials to post a comment on a poem was my driving force for bumping, this thread dates back to 2005 and was picked up in 2014,

The entire forum dynamic and drivers of the forum have either left, or possibly passed away, and some of them will never return.

If I’d have thought your reaction would be to boycott the forum over the thread I’d have left it buried.

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I wasn't trying to be pissy or confrontational about it, and I wouldn't say I'm boycotting the forum. I'm still following and enjoying what others post. (Also, recently, learning a lot about meter, some of which I'd forgotten and some of which I'm pretty sure I never knew.)

My honest reaction to the thread was that if those were the good old days, so to speak, and there's a nostalgia for them, I'll do best to limit myself to observation and the occasional compliment. I think that's a reasonable reaction, and I didn't share it to be unpleasant. I mentioned it because I thought there probably is some desire to have more people to participate here. That's all. Well, that and my own interest in reading less than perfect poems by less than perfect poets.

Enchantment_of_Nyx said:

I wasn't trying to be pissy or confrontational about it, and I wouldn't say I'm boycotting the forum. I'm still following and enjoying what others post. (Also, recently, learning a lot about meter, some of which I'd forgotten and some of which I'm pretty sure I never knew.)

My honest reaction to the thread was that if those were the good old days, so to speak, and there's a nostalgia for them, I'll do best to limit myself to observation and the occasional compliment. I think that's a reasonable reaction, and I didn't share it to be unpleasant. I mentioned it because I thought there probably is some desire to have more people to participate here. That's all. Well, that and my own interest in reading less than perfect poems by less than perfect poets.

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I never mentioned either pissy, or confrontational in my post, since your desire to back away a little from the forum occurred because I dredged up an old thread

My reaction was, due to the lack of participation in the place now and my desire to see more people and interaction then I valued your participation more, than that of finding an old thread and bumping it.

As to metre.... for me as an aussie it’s still a unit of measurement, I’ve never had the intelligence to figure out any of the formal credentialed ways of writing, basically I’m a drifter who randomly fell into this forum who decided to stay.

todski28 said:

I never mentioned either pissy, or confrontational in my post, since your desire to back away a little from the forum occurred because I dredged up an old thread

My reaction was, due to the lack of participation in the place now and my desire to see more people and interaction then I valued your participation more, than that of finding an old thread and bumping it.

As to metre.... for me as an aussie it’s still a unit of measurement, I’ve never had the intelligence to figure out any of the formal credentialed ways of writing, basically I’m a drifter who randomly fell into this forum who decided to stay.

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You're very good at it.

Enchantment_of_Nyx said:

You're very good at it.

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And here in lies my desire to look at some older threads, I wasn’t much more than a
Pump and dump erotica writer in the style of doctor Seuss
Without some of those contentious voices and this forum
anything you may compliment about my writing was gleaned
through this place.

Nostalgia for growth
conversation
and the past
warts and all

isn’t worth the expense of the potential future
and at the same time understanding where you came from in a fully fleshed out context
warts and all is from my understanding a better way forward, understanding where I came from in a writing sense and who helped shape and develop my critical though and appreciation for writing was and is worth a look at.

todski28 said:

And here in lies my desire to look at some older threads, I wasn’t much more than a
Pump and dump erotica writer in the style of doctor Seuss
Without some of those contentious voices and this forum
anything you may compliment about my writing was gleaned
through this place.

Nostalgia for growth
conversation
and the past
warts and all

isn’t worth the expense of the potential future
and at the same time understanding where you came from in a fully fleshed out context
warts and all is from my understanding a better way forward, understanding where I came from in a writing sense and who helped shape and develop my critical though and appreciation for writing was and is worth a look at.

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I did look. I'm pretty sure I saw, too.
I really wasn't trying to give you a hard time.

I suppose now I can claim I have credentials to be considered a poet.

One year I was nominated for 'most influential poet' - why?

But now I have a blue W for a poem.

But I do not see myself as a poet - just a writer.

oggbashan said:

But I do not see myself as a poet - just a writer.

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I don't see no big difference here.
They do use pens, typewriters or keyboards.
They sleep too...well...maybe more nightmares.
They drink [tea, coffee, beer, wine etc.] just like anyone else, too much.
They take show...e..r...r...r. There surely are trustworthy statistics about this, so I won't say more.
So, well, just because they only need a small bucket of words, mix'em up in a quizzically way and pour out something that, after a good barrel of [whiskey, rum, bourbon, vodka etc.], even they wouldn't understand...so, yeah, what's the big difference?


A well deserved W, Oggbashan!

Maybe my expectations are too high.

I expect a poet, even if their preferred medium is free verse, to be able to produce an acceptable poem in a formal structure such as a sonnet and that ability is an essential part of the tool set that a poet should have.

I know I can't produce even average poems in the variety of classical forms. I can do some - like triolets - but not all so I see myself as only a poet in training.

I see a parallel in the world of painting. Even the masters of abstract art have gone through training in more formal artworks such as portraits and landscapes before moving on to their preferred genre.

Enchantment_of_Nyx said:

I did look. I'm pretty sure I saw, too.
I really wasn't trying to give you a hard time.

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No hard time, just a moment for explanation and clarity.

You said what you were thinking, I explained what I did and why, and told you what I was thinking no hard time had by anyone

Although if you wanted a hard time...

ok I need to stop shamelessly flirting because it gets me in trouble!

Welcome to the forum, I forgot my manners when you first dropped in :embarrassed:

Hope you stick around for a bit.

oggbashan said:

Maybe my expectations are too high.

I expect a poet, even if their preferred medium is free verse, to be able to produce an acceptable poem in a formal structure such as a sonnet and that ability is an essential part of the tool set that a poet should have.

I know I can't produce even average poems in the variety of classical forms. I can do some - like triolets - but not all so I see myself as only a poet in training.

I see a parallel in the world of painting. Even the masters of abstract art have gone through training in more formal artworks such as portraits and landscapes before moving on to their preferred genre.

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Ogg, I have the writing ability of a spastic orangutan hailing from the thousand monkeys typing hypothesis, so I deem you as a far superior poet

We’re all learning it just depends on how far along the path we’ve travelled
and you’re about a city over from where I’m standing