Credentials

[twelveoone]

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.
What credentials does it take?
For one, none. The same stupid reasons you have can be applied to the other side. However, but post your poems, they are no longer yours, they are now the customers. Some people leave asshole comments, more people write asshole poetry. Only the very dumb, make a lot of noise about "credentials" and about the fact that their writing is untouchable.

Lesson one, a rhyme at the end of the line is a nice start, but just because you can do that doesn't mean that it is poetry.
This is no reason for you to open a thread and call it an Academy. Shows a lack of knowledge of definations.

 

[WickedEve]

What credentials do I have to write poetry is the same as asking me what credentials do I have to be a human being. Teaching poetry, though, that's different.

 

[Angeline]

What credentials do I have to write poetry is the same as asking me what credentials do I have to be a human being. Teaching poetry, though, that's different.

I teach poetry. I have degrees and stuff.

I have no real credentials to write it though...except life.

 

[WickedEve]

I teach poetry. I have degrees and stuff.

I have no real credentials to write it though...except life.

Then you may teach poetry. It really helps to have degrees and stuff. lol I could teach a novice some basics, but I know my limitations. And that's a good thing. I know (usually) when to keep my mouth shut and learn instead of trying to teach.

 

[Recidiva]

I think credentials come in when someone is paying you. Credentials are only presented when you want something from somebody. This is free. So since nobody has to pay for anything except time or internet access, I think those are your credentials for being here. Spare time and internet access. The ability to type or string words together beyond that is a matter of opinion.

Art and poetry may be judged, but that's not the point. People creating poetry and art for free just want to share it to see if it resonates with anyone else. If it doesn't resonate, move on. Not really much need to judge it or critique unless requested. For every person who does "bad" art or "bad" poetry for you, there's another person that gets it because they're on the same level of ability, struggle or expression. It's always nicer to hear that someone gets where you are or gives constructive criticism rather than apply it to some ideal standard that mostly kills art rather than create more art with originality.

 

[SeattleRain]

Then you may teach poetry. It really helps to have degrees and stuff. lol I could teach a novice some basics, but I know my limitations. And that's a good thing. I know (usually) when to keep my mouth shut and learn instead of trying to teach.

if I had a school I would hire you without an interview to teach poetry

just saying

 

[SeattleRain]

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..

Biology
Secondary Education
Instructional Technology


I only ever took one poetry class. I wrote a sexy piece about eating a mans fingers and caused a big stir. Other than that, no writing credentials beyond a fucking whole lot of practice and I probably read about 20 poems a day.


When teaching science, I had my students write a poem in every single unit. What better way to see how much someone has learned than to ask them to be creative with it?

We did diamonte poems for the Heat unit.

I have a box in the attic filled with their poems and illustrations they did with them.


I wrote more poetry than the teacher that taught them poetry ever did. Although she did read a great one about her husband snoring for poetry night.





So much depends upon the individual. In writing, anyone can write how they want to. In giving advice? Well the learner beware in all situations not just poetry. A great teacher for one might be the kiss of death to another's style. But what great poems can come from the kiss of death. Bad learning experiences are often better than good ones.

 

[bluerains]

damn...if poetry had to be credible ..how much beauty would be lost..when imagination has to have credentials..might as well put the lot in conventry...
you are starting to sound like a condo commander...


I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.

- Edgar Allen Poe

Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
order.
- S. T. Coleridge

... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
illusion of the imagaination...
- Macaulay

...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
happiest minds...

- Shelley

...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even over
and above its interest of meaning...
- Gerard Manley Hopkins

...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and overclothed
blindness to a naked vi- sion...
- Dylan Thomas

...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
something that can not be said...
- E. A. Robinson

...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...

- Barbara Hyett

POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense
of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed language chosen
for its sound and suggestive power as well as its meaning, and by the
use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadenc- es,
rhyme, or metaphor.

- American Heritage Dictionary

A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".

- Osip Mandelstam

... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed
as a table or a motorcyle...
- W. H. Auden

Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific gravity in the
most effective and externally inevitable sequence.

- Joseph Brodsky

A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism participates.

- Charles Simic

A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way of the
poem itself, all the way over to the reader.

- Charles Olson

 

[WickedEve]

if I had a school I would hire you without an interview to teach poetry

just saying

Do you offer health insurance?

 

[SeattleRain]

oh, 1201 one of the articles you suggested reading was about how poets used to be everyday people-- carpenters, farmers, and the like, and now they are trained poets teaching poetry editing poetry journals holding poetry contests.

There is NO rule about this, but in general, I tend to enjoy the workin' mans poems. One of my favorites works at a vineyard, hard labor.

Einstein did his best work while working at a patents office.

I do not mean disrespect to the trained poets living a life among poets at all. I would love to someday go for a MFA (don't hit me 1201) because I really do not have a good background in the classics, etc. But I also would like to learn how to build a house, wire electricity, plumbing. Everytime someone has the ceiling tiles out and a guy or girl up there fixing something, I have to stop and watch, so fascinating!

 

[SeattleRain]

Do you offer health insurance?

um no but I know how to take out splinters without passing out


okay I lied


I will have to call a neighbor if you get a splinter sharpening pencils and the like

 

[RhymeFairy]

damn...if poetry had to be credible ..how much beauty would be lost..when imagination has to have credentials..might as well put the lot in conventry...
you are starting to sound like a condo commander...


I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.

- Edgar Allen Poe

Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
order.
- S. T. Coleridge

... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
illusion of the imagaination...
- Macaulay

...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
happiest minds...

- Shelley

...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even over
and above its interest of meaning...
- Gerard Manley Hopkins

...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and overclothed
blindness to a naked vi- sion...
- Dylan Thomas

...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
something that can not be said...
- E. A. Robinson

...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...

- Barbara Hyett

POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense
of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed language chosen
for its sound and suggestive power as well as its meaning, and by the
use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadenc- es,
rhyme, or metaphor.

- American Heritage Dictionary

A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".

- Osip Mandelstam

... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed
as a table or a motorcyle...
- W. H. Auden

Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific gravity in the
most effective and externally inevitable sequence.

- Joseph Brodsky

A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism participates.

- Charles Simic

A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way of the
poem itself, all the way over to the reader.

- Charles Olson

I love this.

Thank You Blue ~

 

[champagne1982]

Vivid recall
extensive vocabulary


Besides, I know what I like.

 

[teacherman570]

Credentials are mirage in many cases. Thinking back on many of my teachers over the years, there were quite a few who really didn't know how to teach their subject. I took a poetry class in college, after having written poetry for 7 years. The work I did for the class, was utter crap. The professor made it sound as though good petry came from a mathematical formula.
Anyone can flash a piece of paper or a card saying they know their shit. But I can tell you from my experience, and from reading work here, it's those who write from spirit and heart that should be teaching how to write.

 

[Recidiva]

Credentials are mirage in many cases. Thinking back on many of my teachers over the years, there were quite a few who really didn't know how to teach their subject. I took a poetry class in college, after having written poetry for 7 years. The work I did for the class, was utter crap. The professor made it sound as though good petry came from a mathematical formula.
Anyone can flash a piece of paper or a card saying they know their shit. But I can tell you from my experience, and from reading work here, it's those who write from spirit and heart that should be teaching how to write.

The best acting teacher I ever had said "Do it my way until you can tell me to fuck off because you know your way is better." That's still some of the best teaching I've ever had. I learn other people's way...then I tell them to fuck off sometimes. If I can't find a better way to do it, I keep on doing it their way until someone or something, including myself teaches me otherwise.

 

[bogusbrig]

I spent eight years at art college (two separate four years) and all I got out of it was a sterile imagination. I didn't have the inclination to make any art and doubt I could have if I wanted to, for several years afterwards. I actively tried to forget everything I'd been taught, which of course is impossible. However it was only when I was confident to disregard all the things I was taught by people with credentials could I start making art again.

I'm not going to allow myself to go through the same damn process with poetry. Fuck what is right or wrong. I'll write what I want to write and judge the quality of what i write by the reaction of the people I respect.

 

[bluerains]

I spent eight years at art college (two separate four years) and all I got out of it was a sterile imagination. I didn't have the inclination to make any art and doubt I could have if I wanted to, for several years afterwards. I actively tried to forget everything I'd been taught, which of course is impossible. However it was only when I was confident to disregard all the things I was taught by people with credentials could I start making art again.

I'm not going to allow myself to go through the same damn process with poetry. Fuck what is right or wrong. I'll write what I want to write and judge the quality of what i write by the reaction of the people I respect.

bravo BB...you are now on the list for Coventry...hypothetically ..Heinlein...that is

 

[Recidiva]

bravo BB...you are now on the list for Coventry...hypothetically ..Heinlein...that is

I want to live in Heinlein's worlds. I might not be tough enough to survive them, but I want to live there anyway and give it a shot

 

[My Erotic Tale]

Fuck what is right or wrong. I'll write what I want to write and judge the quality of what i write by the reaction of the people I respect.

I totally agree with this...

I believe you've stretched my words into a tool your trying to use against me 12, which is okay I understand your nature.

Credentials was asked when you want to critic and or tell some one how to write. A child/adult lives in poetry every day, feel and write it. Expressions of the soul in a literary creation. You need no credentials to express in art or poetry but you better have a degree if you want to teach and every body is entitled to an opinion.


Then who do you listen to when five people tell you what is wrong with your poem, 4 that know a bit about literature from experience and reading or the one LIT MAJOR <with the credentials> I find here (an amature site...not professional) there are a lot of people over bearing and way to willing to tell some one what is wrong with their poetry (not as lessons) but as a character trait? any how the one with credentials obviously has the winning vote. So who among us has this right.

I understand PAT does?<unsure of what> (you couldn't tell it by his comments) Ange was an editor and Du Lac a Lit Major. LeBroz...(the logical thinker) I would be happy to know who else among us has credentials that would raise my eyes and I would listen more earnestly to what they have to say. (I think I have learned more from Du Lac, Wicked, liar and even Jim as much as I hate to say that.) With that being said...yes you can learn from anybody...even a child but we are talking credentials as the thread suggests.

But when someone finds favor in being a CRITIC in training...don't expect me to take them serious. Look at this new poetry forum and read the mix of thoughts and suggestions from each poet/critic and you can tell who knows how to deliver a good comment that can be learned from and who is just tooting their own horn.

Thanks 12...I always wanted to know the who's who here.<grin>

 

[Recidiva]

I totally agree with this...

I believe you've stretched my words into a tool your trying to use against me 12, which is okay I understand your nature.

Credentials was asked when you want to critic and or tell some one how to write. A child/adult lives in poetry every day, feel and write it. Expressions of the soul in a literary creation. You need no credentials to express in art or poetry but you better have a degree if you want to teach and every body is entitled to an opinion.


Then who do you listen to when five people tell you what is wrong with your poem, 4 that know a bit about literature from experience and reading or the one LIT MAJOR <with the credentials> I find here (an armature site...not professional) there are a lot of people over bearing and way to willing to tell some one what is wrong with their poetry (not as lessons) but as a character trait? any how the one with credentials obviously has the winning vote. So who among us has this right.

I understand PAT does?<unsure of what> (you couldn't tell it by his comments) Ange was an editor and Du Lac a Lit Major. LeBroz...(the logical thinker) I would be happy to know who else among us has credentials that would raise my eyes and I would listen more earnestly to what they have to say. (I think I have learned more from Du Lac, Wicked, liar and even Jim as much as I hate to say that.) With that being said...yes you can learn from anybody...even a child but we are talking credentials as the thread suggests.

But when someone finds favor in being a CRITIC in training...don't expect me to take them serious. Look at this new poetry forum and read the mix of thoughts and suggestions from each poet/critic and you can tell who knows how to deliver a good comment that can be learned from and who is just tooting their own horn.

Thanks 12...I always wanted to know the who's who here.<grin>

I think the first person you need to listen to when you write for yourself is yourself. Yes, when you write for other people, you have to do it their way. If it's a teacher grading it, write it their way or take the low grade. If it's a publisher, do it their way or don't publish.

Unfortunately some people don't know the difference between constructive criticism, which would make something technically better from their viewpoint, or the Voice Of Authority who says "It Must Be This Way Or It Is Bad."

Learning the difference between the motivations and final result of all of these voices is really key to staying above water as an artist. There are many people who have wanted me to be a particular way artistically, and it's great to consider that and then think "That's a good point, but that's not for me" rather than forcing myself to go somewhere or be something "For the art" when it's really not me, it's someone else's point of view and I just don't feel that way, so I don't want to go there.

For instance, I'm not a person who writes with lots of visual description because that's not the way my brain works. I write much more emotionally and that really reaches some people who enjoy going that path. I don't write using the guidelines of all other authors, I've picked and chosen what I like, so I reach a few people who really get it, but also a lot of people who don't. Since I like writing for me, sometimes I just write to put it out there, so I don't feel lonely artistically, and I can gather friends or an audience who appreciates me for what I have to offer. Art for everyone doesn't exist. Nobody will agree everything is good. Even the masterpieces that are touted by critics will be genuinely disliked by people for good reasons valid to them. Art for a broad audience is usually a commercial venture. Art for a small audience based on a specific viewpoint is what I usually enjoy the most.

 

[My Erotic Tale]

I think the first person you need to listen to when you write for yourself is yourself. Yes, when you write for other people, you have to do it their way. If it's a teacher grading it, write it their way or take the low grade. If it's a publisher, do it their way or don't publish.

Unfortunately some people don't know the difference between constructive criticism, which would make something technically better from their viewpoint, or the Voice Of Authority who says "It Must Be This Way Or It Is Bad."

Learning the difference between the motivations and final result of all of these voices is really key to staying above water as an artist. There are many people who have wanted me to be a particular way artistically, and it's great to consider that and then think "That's a good point, but that's not for me" rather than forcing myself to go somewhere or be something "For the art" when it's really not me, it's someone else's point of view and I just don't feel that way, so I don't want to go there.

For instance, I'm not a person who writes with lots of visual description because that's not the way my brain works. I write much more emotionally and that really reaches some people who enjoy going that path. I don't write using the guidelines of all other authors, I've picked and chosen what I like, so I reach a few people who really get it, but also a lot of people who don't. Since I like writing for me, sometimes I just write to put it out there, so I don't feel lonely artistically, and I can gather friends or an audience who appreciates me for what I have to offer. Art for everyone doesn't exist. Nobody will agree everything is good. Even the masterpieces that are touted by critics will be genuinely disliked by people for good reasons valid to them. Art for a broad audience is usually a commercial venture. Art for a small audience based on a specific viewpoint is what I usually enjoy the most.

Is this a good critic?


*
10/09/05 By: twelveoone
A really bad collection of cliches, cheap sentiment, or is that just sediment of nothing new to say, even dipping into forced rhyme "we both just want to scream". Your "friends" to do wish to tell you this, and you do wish to listen.
Yes I gave you a 50, it is as low as I mark, it doesn't even deserve that.
I am tired of YOUR critical attitude of anyone pointing out the faults of a "poem". Remember the email, you sent me slamming the one I got an "E" - that you didn't agree with. That is what is known as inconsistency, your best work shows evidence of it. This one doesn't - it is just bad.
Yes, I have the balls to leave my number - 1201

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I also didn't note yesterday that 1201 actuaaly gave me the answer I have been asking for weeks now...why are you busting my chops 1201? well here it is and I just now saw it.

Remember the email, you sent me slamming the one I got an "E" - that you didn't agree with. >>>1201 ....is this the thorn in your soul that has my name on it? Is this the day I stepped on your toes? My opinion rubbed you wrong? A professional critic like your self 12 and can't take what you dish out daily...tisk tisk

I see the light <grin>

 

[Recidiva]

Is this a good critic?


*
10/09/05 By: twelveoone
A really bad collection of cliches, cheap sentiment, or is that just sediment of nothing new to say, even dipping into forced rhyme "we both just want to scream". Your "friends" to do wish to tell you this, and you do wish to listen.
Yes I gave you a 50, it is as low as I mark, it doesn't even deserve that.
I am tired of YOUR critical attitude of anyone pointing out the faults of a "poem". Remember the email, you sent me slamming the one I got an "E" - that you didn't agree with. That is what is known as inconsistency, your best work shows evidence of it. This one doesn't - it is just bad.
Yes, I have the balls to leave my number - 1201

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I also didn't note yesterday that 1201 actuaaly gave me the answer I have been asking for weeks now...why are you busting my chops 1201? well here it is and I just now saw it.

Remember the email, you sent me slamming the one I got an "E" - that you didn't agree with. >>>1201 ....is this the thorn in your soul that has my name on it? Is this the day I stepped on your toes? My opinion rubbed you wrong? A professional critic like your self 12 and can't take what you dish out daily...tisk tisk

I see the light <grin>

No, that's raging ego. Someone who just wants to be right and can't point out what you actually said that was a problem, only that they're better. That's something useless.

Like one of my favorites here:

"not well-written, not interesting, a waste of time."

This is just someone who doesn't like it, and that's fine. Can't tell me what's not well written about it, can't tell me what isn't interesting, can't tell me why they wasted MORE time to leave a comment.

I've taken some of the feedback here and put it to good use, I think, but some of it you just have to let go if it gives you nothing to work with.

 

[My Erotic Tale]

No, that's raging ego. Someone who just wants to be right and can't point out what you actually said that was a problem, only that they're better. That's something useless.

Like one of my favorites here:

"not well-written, not interesting, a waste of time."

This is just someone who doesn't like it, and that's fine. Can't tell me what's not well written about it, can't tell me what isn't interesting, can't tell me why they wasted MORE time to leave a comment.

I've taken some of the feedback here and put it to good use, I think, but some of it you just have to let go if it gives you nothing to work with.

<smiling> thank you Recidiva~

 

[bluerains]

what character most suits you?

I want to live in Heinlein's worlds. I might not be tough enough to survive them, but I want to live there anyway and give it a shot

I think I most want to be Margrethe...what a gal...

 

[My Erotic Tale]

I think I most want to be Margrethe...what a gal...

I aint sure about that but it sounds so much like a margarita and a gal...I'll take two <grin>