What do you want?

[GuiltyPleasure]

When reading poetry, what catches and holds you there? What makes you seek more work by that poet? What inspires you?

 

[DocktorWu]

My two cents

That’s such a large question. I enjoy poems that illuminate, allow a unique view into the subject. The successful execution of poetic device or form is enjoyable and something to marvel at if the poem is good. A writer who has a strong command of the words used. Those are the three keys I look for in a poem. Over the last few months I have been absorbed in the current Poet Laureate Kay Ryan.

 

[eagleyez]

When I hear the gears groan,
An uphill grade
Air brakes hiss on the long decline,
Below the valley teeming,

Its a good way to go there.

 

[Fuckette]

http://www.scottkim.com/inversions/gallery/images/synergy.gif

Synergy​

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Sound. More than anything, it's the sound of the words that will hold me in a poem. It's one of the reasons I love Walt Whitman - he's as preoccupied with words as I am, how they feel on the mouth, how the sounds echo one another, how rhythm is created in a line.

Meaning's nice too, of course.

bj

 

[champagne1982]

I agree with this to a certain point. I love the right words spilled onto my tongue and ears at the perfect moment. annaswirls and Liar are the local Lit poets who can do that for me. Then, we have the poems that stir my emotions by connecting me to the experience through the verse, Patrick Carrington and Angeline are poets who drag my heart out. Then there are the poets who tie me up with their metaphor and imagery, WickedEve, Tristesse, neonurotic, Maria -- all have immersed me in the scenery of their poetry. I've been struck by the open eroticism and fun of poems by UYS, Remec and upbj. [aside]You all realize I'm stuck in the if I mentioned this one then I need to talk about this, too, trap, don't you?[/aside] Heck, I love poetry and poets are some of the most interesting people on the planet.

I love poetry that uses the tools and devices at hand to communicate directly to my medulla, bypassing the cortex, to make me instinctually know exactly what's going on.

 

[WickedEve]

When reading poetry, what catches and holds you there? What makes you seek more work by that poet? What inspires you?

I know it when I read it.
I'm better at giving examples.

This is from my favorites list:
Tzara - 0 Stories, 40 Poems
smithpeter - 7 Stories, 541 Poems
Angeline - 1 Stories, 168 Poems
vampiredust - 0 Stories, 53 Poems
jd4george - 1 Stories, 81 Poems
jthserra - 385 Stories, 267 Poems
bogusbrig - 0 Stories, 9 Poems
twelveoone - 0 Stories, 11 Poems
JCSTREET - 5 Stories, 106 Poems

I need to update the list to include some other literotica poets, like: annaswirls, pat carrington, denis hale, champy, maria, lauren, neo, rybka, tristesse and others...

Okay, if we're also talking non-lit poets, then I don't have a list at the moment.

 

[Liar]

Flow, rhythm, bursts of phonetic insanity, a little cadentic dry humping against the conventions of speech.

And ideas. Shit I hadn't thought of.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I didn't intend this to become one of those deadly "list" threads that crop up from time to time over in the GB. As champie said - you get stuck in the - if I mentioned this one then I need to talk about this, too - trap.

Once in a while a line or verse jumps out of a poem and keeps me reading. I look for the visual aspect, perhaps because of my painting background.

I find "dense" poetry hard to read and often feel I'm short-changing myself. There must be something I'm missing. The same goes for lengthy or wordy poems, unless they have a strong hook to hold me I tend to lose interest and drift away. It makes me feel guilty that I'm not giving the poet his/her dues.

I write pretty short poems about small, unimpressive things. Try as I may I cannot write poems with real depth, meaty poems. Should one attempt a style that is alien?

 

[WickedEve]

I didn't intend this to become one of those deadly "list" threads that crop up from time to time over in the GB. As champie said - you get stuck in the - if I mentioned this one then I need to talk about this, too - trap.

Once in a while a line or verse jumps out of a poem and keeps me reading. I look for the visual aspect, perhaps because of my painting background.

I find "dense" poetry hard to read and often feel I'm short-changing myself. There must be something I'm missing. The same goes for lengthy or wordy poems, unless they have a strong hook to hold me I tend to lose interest and drift away. It makes me feel guilty that I'm not giving the poet his/her dues.

I write pretty short poems about small, unimpressive things. Try as I may I cannot write poems with real depth, meaty poems. Should one attempt a style that is alien?

I posted a list.
Always attempt a style that's alien. Attempt.

 

[Angeline]

When I read a poem that evokes sensory memories in me so that the phrasing and imagery make me hear, see, feel, smell, touch, taste what the poem is getting at, I am transported. In other words, when poetry causes me to suspend my disbelief and be there in the world of the poem I know it's really (really) good.

I'd also add Wicked Eve, eagleyez, tathagata, darkmaas and well others too numerous to name to that list Eve started. They've all written poems that transport me when I read them.

 

[CeriseNoire]

I like deliberate purpose that seems accidental. Manipulation of sorts. I want poetry that makes me feel something even if the subject is mundane. Oh, and I'm a sucker for pretty words. Not big words necessarily, but exactly the right words.

 

[champagne1982]

I write pretty short poems about small, unimpressive things. Try as I may I cannot write poems with real depth, meaty poems. Should one attempt a style that is alien?

this is where writing a sestina-type poem comes in handy for practice. Each strophe with the same words shaken up and ending different lines causes you to stick with a theme and say it a different way through 6 (lengthy if you'd like) of them.

You can also link a bunch of short poems that are related to each other, like Wallace Stevens did in the 13 blackbirdies poem. The meatier things are just your simple poems expounded upon several times over in the same verse.

(I think)

 

[hmmnmm]

Open to all possibilities but some days and moods more narrow or widely receptive than others. Variety, all for variety.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

It's easier to say what I don't like than what I do. Long ones usually lose me way before the end ... perhaps i have a short attention span I don't know but I have enjoyed learning about Terzanelle and Villanelle and reading everyone elses but Sestina oh no! although I did one it was a hard slog!

 

[champagne1982]

It's easier to say what I don't like than what I do. Long ones usually lose me way before the end ... perhaps i have a short attention span I don't know but I have enjoyed learning about Terzanelle and Villanelle and reading everyone elses but Sestina oh no! although I did one it was a hard slog!

<crying> Does that mean you don't read my long poems? I have a couple I just know you'd like. There's Hallowe'en Bill, a ballad style story length poem up in the "nonhuman" category and then my epic-ish Temptation's Dance.

And 'tess, just because your poems don't run on and on for pages doesn't mean they're not meaty in content. size shouldn't matter

 

[UnderYourSpell]

<crying> Does that mean you don't read my long poems? I have a couple I just know you'd like. There's Hallowe'en Bill, a ballad style story length poem up in the "nonhuman" category and then my epic-ish Temptation's Dance.

And 'tess, just because your poems don't run on and on for pages doesn't mean they're not meaty in content. size shouldn't matter

Usually I said usually!! phewwwwwwwww

Do you tell that to all the guys?

 

[champagne1982]

Usually I said usually!! phewwwwwwwww

Do you tell that to all the guys?

LOL. Only if they're poets.

 

[KarolJamie]

Imagery and rhythm. I love iambs and other meters.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Usually I said usually!! phewwwwwwwww

Do you tell that to all the guys?

Are you saying I'm a guy???

 

[UnderYourSpell]

*Shuts gob to stop me putting my foot in it again* I saiddddd does she tell the guys that not that you were a guy sigh well unless you got any hidden secrets I don't know about >>>>>>>>>>>>>runs

 

[Tzara]

I thought I had responded to this question before, but that appears to be in one of my distressingly frequent "hallucinatory posts."

Basically, I look for different things, different qualities, from different poets. For example, I like humor a lot and happen to find Kenneth Koch funny. He isn't always, and sometimes I like his not-so-funny poems too, but his sense of humor and ability to write that into his poems is a quality I especially admire in his work.

Similarly, I would cite Alan Dugan for sardonic wit. Funny, sometimes, but not the gentle humor of Koch. Dugan can be quite biting. What I like about his poems.

Kim Addonizio? Sexuality/sensuality, which her poems wear like a tight red dress. Sylvia Plath? The almost out-of-control nature of her late poems, which makes them so disturbingly raw.

Same with poets here. Those I especially like often have some particular quality that grabs me. Quite often, the quality is something I either don't do at all or don't do well. Poems of personal confession, for example. There are several poets here who do those in a manner I find interesting and which make me envious.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

I love poems that have striking imagery or quirky narrative voice. A lot of poets do that here. Many of the poems I read in this forum make me go "Wow!"

Lately I've been reading a book of poems by BJ Ward who is just splendid in this very real but engaging way. He's a really nice person too. I think I like reading a poem and thinking the person who wrote it is someone I'd have a beer with or something.

I see the amazing beauty of Kumin's poems, but find it hard to stick with because I get lost in the minutae of her images. I appreciate her talent but it isn't what I want in a poem, usually. Billy Collins is funny and sad at once and I love that. I love poems that strike notes of emotional complexity with me.

 

[annaswirls]

I like poetry with unusual phrasing and new ways at looking at the same thing...

What keeps me with a poem is the alternating feeling of being safe in something familiar and then thrown into the unknown.... that AH HA! mixed with the WHAT?

Kind of like dancing, close, cheek to cheek and then being twirled outwards and then pulled in close again.

but mostly unusual phrasing, reinventing language

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I like poetry I can understand it's all very well reading something and thinking well I am sure that's very clever but I have no idea what he/she is on about. Does nothing for the ego to read other peoples comments about what marvelous writing it is and I haven't got a clue!