I agree to disagree

[twelveoone]

One of the objects of criticism, is to point out something you see, everyone does not see the same things. Someone that uses close reading, will not see the same things as a genre based reading. A marxist is looking for something else. There can NEVER be an agreement, NOR should there be. What are there like 17 different ways of looking at poetry. I once found a website where a guy took a stab at a poem using the different theories. It's a shame it wasn't Wallace Stevens, I really would like to see a marxist interpt of a blackbird. Or what is signified by the blackbirds.
Suppose someone tried to do Genre based on Old Wallace when it didn't conform...
Gay and Lesbian Criticism of 13 blackbirds, should be a hoot.
There is not right or wrong that extends across the board.
http://webclass.lakeland.cc.il.us/sphillips/lit270/critiques.htm

I wish I could find that damn website again - maybe I did
http://www.textetc.com/theory.html

 

[Angeline]

One of the objects of criticism, is to point out something you see, everyone does not see the same things. Someone that uses close reading, will not see the same things as a genre based reading. A marxist is looking for something else. There can NEVER be an agreement, NOR should there be. What are there like 17 different ways of looking at poetry. I once found a website where a guy took a stab at a poem using the different theories. It's a shame it wasn't Wallace Stevens, I really would like to see a marxist interpt of a blackbird. Or what is signified by the blackbirds.
Suppose someone tried to do Genre based on Old Wallace when it didn't conform...
Gay and Lesbian Criticism of 13 blackbirds, should be a hoot.
There is not right or wrong that extends across the board.
http://webclass.lakeland.cc.il.us/sphillips/lit270/critiques.htm

I wish I could find that damn website again - maybe I did
http://www.textetc.com/theory.html

If you remember we had a thread (I think annaswirls started it) where we riffed on the blackbird poem. I might have posted a thread like that too at one point--I did write a poem using the "different ways" technique like Stevens--but Anna's thread got some good responses.

There was something similar done with translations of a poem by Fernando Pessoa. This site had more than ten different translations and they were quite different. And some were quite good as well as different.

Sometimes it's ok to agree. I write something that I think conveys X and some reader tells me that they read it and felt really X and I'm happy because I know I got it across. But mainly I'd rather hear how it might be improved or taken to a different place.

My bugaboo is specificity. I hate vague, generic comments. When I comment I've read and thought about your poem, and I'll tell you what I think. If you tell me it's "great" or it "sucks," and that's the sum of your comment, I've got zilch...bubkes from your read.

 

[Palba_Noruda]

One of the objects of criticism, is to point out something you see, everyone does not see the same things. Someone that uses close reading, will not see the same things as a genre based reading. A marxist is looking for something else. There can NEVER be an agreement, NOR should there be. What are there like 17 different ways of looking at poetry. I once found a website where a guy took a stab at a poem using the different theories. It's a shame it wasn't Wallace Stevens, I really would like to see a marxist interpt of a blackbird. Or what is signified by the blackbirds.
Suppose someone tried to do Genre based on Old Wallace when it didn't conform...
Gay and Lesbian Criticism of 13 blackbirds, should be a hoot.
There is not right or wrong that extends across the board.
http://webclass.lakeland.cc.il.us/sphillips/lit270/critiques.htm

I wish I could find that damn website again - maybe I did
http://www.textetc.com/theory.html

The list given in the first link details critical theory at its worst: narrow intellectual games devised by literati bureaucrats who needed shiny new products for graduate students to buy.

The second link provides a much more nuanced commentary on the subject.

In general, I tend to distrust literary theory. Why? When I was in college, our English department was very strong on literary criticism and very weak on poetics and rhetorics. That was rather annoying, because theory and criticism (rationality), in my view, should be the servants of art (irrationality).

To put it another way, I have had a long struggle to get out of my theory head (compulsively rational) and into my art self (genuine and irrational). (There is a side story of the irrationality of my sexuality, but that gets long and kind of weepy, so I won't go into that LOL.)

I enjoy workshop groups.

And I think the basic argument for criticism, that it makes art better, is a laudable goal.

However, I don't think that goal should go unexamined.

Underlying that goal is the idea that better and worse are important distinctions in poetry. That good and bad are important distinctions in poetry. Why should that be?

Better/worse, good/bad are awfully simple ways of categorizing poetry. Aren't we more complicated than that?

Several people have noted that they don't care for simple like/dislike comments on their poems. But the very idea of doing some formal literary critique, while leading to a longer, even more thoughtful critique, still is working in a simple logical, binary way, a parallel version of like/dislike.

In other words, rational argument and critique and comments and feedback are all well and good, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking they are forms free of flaws and limitations.

 

[bronzeage]

The highest level college English course I took was a sophomore level class on technical writing. It was a service course for engineer students. I think the English department assigned the class to instructors who complained about teaching the freshman English composition course. I missed out on all the courses on literary theory, so conversations about such things leave me with little to contribute.

I have yet to read a definition of deconstructionism which does not sound like a parody of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Left to my own resources, I have made do with reading poetry and finding meaning in what is written. This works most of the time. Once the words are on the paper, the meaning is no longer controlled by the writer. Meaning is determined by the reader. The writer does their best to transfer images into words which will be rebuilt as images in the reader's mind. If the reader sees the same thing as the writer, we can call it a success. If the reader sees something better, we don't have a label for it. Not only do we lack a label, we don't have a yardstick either.

Since I cannot understand deconstruction, I concentrate on construction. I look at the way words are chosen and combined. It's not that complicated. Without this skill, everything we hear would be gibberish. Reading and understanding poetry (I assume it all has meaning, though that may be generous) is simply intensely applying the same skill we use to understand anything we read or hear.

 

[butters]

One of the objects of criticism, is to point out something you see, everyone does not see the same things. Someone that uses close reading, will not see the same things as a genre based reading. A marxist is looking for something else. There can NEVER be an agreement, NOR should there be. What are there like 17 different ways of looking at poetry. I once found a website where a guy took a stab at a poem using the different theories. It's a shame it wasn't Wallace Stevens, I really would like to see a marxist interpt of a blackbird. Or what is signified by the blackbirds.
Suppose someone tried to do Genre based on Old Wallace when it didn't conform...
Gay and Lesbian Criticism of 13 blackbirds, should be a hoot.
There is not right or wrong that extends across the board.
http://webclass.lakeland.cc.il.us/sphillips/lit270/critiques.htm

I wish I could find that damn website again - maybe I did
http://www.textetc.com/theory.html

goodness me. i stand in ... slantwise awe of those who are au fait with all this stuff. sounds dreadfully confusing to me, though. don't people ever find it gets in the way of 'feeling' the real poem in front of them? maybe i'm missing out on so much... and whilst i never applaud wilful ignorance, i'm generally known by those i crit as being someone able to hear the heart of the write, and when i've the time to crit i tend to make suggestions that won't send it into arrythmia or change its accent beyond its author's recognition

srsly, it's my own lack of formal literary education that makes me wary of some of the stuff and, by the same token, maybe in exaggerated awe of those able to hold all that information and not allow it to get in the way of what's what.

 

[Byron In Exile]

goodness me. i stand in ... slantwise awe of those who are au fait with all this stuff. sounds dreadfully confusing to me, though. don't people ever find it gets in the way of 'feeling' the real poem in front of them? maybe i'm missing out on so much... and whilst i never applaud wilful ignorance, i'm generally known by those i crit as being someone able to hear the heart of the write, and when i've the time to crit i tend to make suggestions that won't send it into arrythmia or change its accent beyond its author's recognition

srsly, it's my own lack of formal literary education that makes me wary of some of the stuff and, by the same token, maybe in exaggerated awe of those able to hold all that information and not allow it to get in the way of what's what.

Poetry is all about meter.

Rhythm. Rhyme is secondary.

A short poem doesn't need it, but a long poem does. — A long poem, as, for example, Spenser's "The Fairie Queene"

The pattern becomes hypnotic and almost addictive.

However, poetry benefits more from rhythm than from rhyme. Find Ciardi's English translation of Dante's "L'Inferno." He realized that Italian made rhyming much easier then English, so he abandoned that idea, and concentrated on the rhythm. His translation makes one want to learn Italian, just in order to read the original... seriously...

 

[vrosej10]

Poetry is all about meter.

Rhythm. Rhyme is secondary.

A short poem doesn't need it, but a long poem does. — A long poem, as, for example, Spenser's "The Fairie Queene"

The pattern becomes hypnotic and almost addictive.

However, poetry benefits more from rhythm than from rhyme. Find Ciardi's English translation of Dante's "L'Inferno." He realized that Italian made rhyming much easier then English, so he abandoned that idea, and concentrated on the rhythm. His translation makes one want to learn Italian, just in order to read the original... seriously...

In free verse, clever rhyme (preferably not too much end rhyme), alliteration, assonance and consonance can stand in for meter in that it gives form and rhythm to the work. As someone pointed out to me recently (though I cannot remember who), free verse is not really free, it has is own patterns, just not those prescribed by traditional meter. Don't get me wrong. I am not knocking meter. I am just saying that metric form can be option but I do agree with you about long poems and meter. I am not the biggest fan of long poetry. It's hard to do well. I think long pieces need the discipline of meter.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

I took quite a few English courses (almost a 2nd degree), but don't recall much concerning literary criticism and theory. My advanced coursework focused on modern poetry and drama. I suspect the non-analytic aspects were what drew me in that direction.
I moved to theory when physics was my focus, and much of my work activity is near that sphere. More heuristic and perhaps holistic for poetry

 

[ninianne]

I dislike literary theory precicely because it masquarades as critique. I admit that I define critique fairly narrowly: a person critiques a poem (or any other literary work) when he defines the places where the poet has succeeded and failed in her attempt to write poetry. A critique is designed to be helpful to the poet. However, present day literary criticism ignores the needs of the poet (and sometimes the poem) in favor of expositions on literary theory.

Until fairly recently, the ranks of literary critics contained a predominance of poets. Literary criticism was a discussion of what made literature--trying to define what it was that they were doing, much as we do on forums like this one. But sometime in the past century, the realm of literary criticism was taken over by theorists.

When a person discusses a poem as it relates to a particular theory, the poet doesn't matter. The poem is usually secondary to the theorist's prejudices about social commentary, gender roles, or inherant ambiguity (I could go on, but that would mean grabbing some old books or notes).

Understand, I'm not saying that literary theory doesn't have it's place. In order to understand a poem, it is sometimes useful to apply it to a social construct or to consider what it says about the role of women in society. It may even be helpful to discuss (among friends or in a classroom) how the poem cuts the ground out from under itself in its attempt to make a statement.

However, that discussion of a poem has very little value to the poet. The poet (while the work is in progress) should want a careful, close reading, a critique. It is only after the poem is done and out in the world on it's own without the poet's explanations or apologies to guard it that it is ready to be theorised about.

After all, in most literary theory, authorial intent has no relevence except as a way to point out how she failed.

 

[vrosej10]

I dislike literary theory precicely because it masquarades as critique. I admit that I define critique fairly narrowly: a person critiques a poem (or any other literary work) when he defines the places where the poet has succeeded and failed in her attempt to write poetry. A critique is designed to be helpful to the poet. However, present day literary criticism ignores the needs of the poet (and sometimes the poem) in favor of expositions on literary theory.

Until fairly recently, the ranks of literary critics contained a predominance of poets. Literary criticism was a discussion of what made literature--trying to define what it was that they were doing, much as we do on forums like this one. But sometime in the past century, the realm of literary criticism was taken over by theorists.

When a person discusses a poem as it relates to a particular theory, the poet doesn't matter. The poem is usually secondary to the theorist's prejudices about social commentary, gender roles, or inherant ambiguity (I could go on, but that would mean grabbing some old books or notes).

Understand, I'm not saying that literary theory doesn't have it's place. In order to understand a poem, it is sometimes useful to apply it to a social construct or to consider what it says about the role of women in society. It may even be helpful to discuss (among friends or in a classroom) how the poem cuts the ground out from under itself in its attempt to make a statement.

However, that discussion of a poem has very little value to the poet. The poet (while the work is in progress) should want a careful, close reading, a critique. It is only after the poem is done and out in the world on it's own without the poet's explanations or apologies to guard it that it is ready to be theorised about.

After all, in most literary theory, authorial intent has no relevence except as a way to point out how she failed.

Authorial intent has been pretty much put down full stop.

I think I'd make a distinction between two different types of critique in regards to what you are saying.

1) This is the critique that focuses on technique, delivery, form, shape, colour,voice etc. This is practical critique and this seems to be the type of critique you want. This is practical and useful and theory would be of little use in this form of critique. HOWEVER this type of critique has little to do with assessing the work as a piece of art; it is more like taking apart an engine to see how it works.

2) The second, theoretical critiques are done for the most part to try an understand the work as art. They are not meant to be helpful to the artist. This is deemed to be a finished worth. Once your give birth to a poem and cut the umbilical cord by offering it up to the world, then it becomes a thing unto itself, whole and separate and the criticism is about it not you. You might be its mother/author but your are not your poem. I would also add that a theoretical critique that views an artwork through the lens of one particular set of theories, is a weak critique (pardon the rhyme).

Theory has its place. It might not be what you, in particular, want, but that does not make it useless.

 

[bronzeage]

Authorial intent has been pretty much put down full stop.

I think I'd make a distinction between two different types of critique in regards to what you are saying.

1) This is the critique that focuses on technique, delivery, form, shape, colour,voice etc. This is practical critique and this seems to be the type of critique you want. This is practical and useful and theory would be of little use in this form of critique. HOWEVER this type of critique has little to do with assessing the work as a piece of art; it is more like taking apart an engine to see how it works.

2) The second, theoretical critiques are done for the most part to try an understand the work as art. They are not meant to be helpful to the artist. This is deemed to be a finished worth. Once your give birth to a poem and cut the umbilical cord by offering it up to the world, then it becomes a thing unto itself, whole and separate and the criticism is about it not you. You might be its mother/author but your are not your poem. I would also add that a theoretical critique that views an artwork through the lens of one particular set of theories, is a weak critique (pardon the rhyme).

Theory has its place. It might not be what you, in particular, want, but that does not make it useless.

This debate would make more sense if we stopped using the word "theory" and substituted "theology" in its place.

Literary theory is based more on a system of beliefs, than science based on observation and experiments with reproducible results.

 

[vrosej10]

This debate would make more sense if we stopped using the word "theory" and substituted "theology" in its place.

Literary theory is based more on a system of beliefs, than science based on observation and experiments with reproducible results.

I actually agree with you. Theory is a useful tool but subscribing to a particular theoretical system is like joining a religion and sticking rigidly to one of these theories can blind you to other possible modes of thought. Science and art should never mix though. One relies of the concrete, the provable, the inmovable nature of the universe to define a system of rules that can be relied upon. Art is ephemeral and capricious. There is not a single set of rules that apply to every situation (which is why I suggested that if you must go all theoretical on a poem, don't just use one set of theories; attack it will all you know and you will extracts more of the delicious juicy meaning).

What I have noticed is the more theoretical the discipline you go into, the more closely theory resembles religion. At university, I specialise in gender and sexuality for one of my majors and the big hoodoos in this area is essentialism. Frankly I think sexual behaviour is both nurture and nature, that some behaviour is inborn but this doesn't jibe with the particular set of ideas you must subscribe to to succeed in this area. When dealing with subject, I stick to the party line. People forget that theory is theory; it's not fact.

 

[twelveoone]

Gay and Lesbian Criticism of 13 blackbirds, should be a hoot.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

maybe I'm wrong, isn't that what they called dildos back in the days they made them out of Bakelite?

 

[twelveoone]

This debate would make more sense if we stopped using the word "theory" and substituted "theology" in its place.

Literary theory is based more on a system of beliefs, than science based on observation and experiments with reproducible results.

you can say that about all the "soft sciences" except possibly linguistics, or at least that part that directly relates to neuroscience

but remember the hard sciences got their start from "theory" much to the chagrin of "theology"

and at a sub-atomic level...
There are six types of quarks, known as flavors: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.

I smell a poem coming on without rhyme or reason or metre, just strange and charming, like me.


Concerning Mr. Dante, don't you think Hell would have read a little better if it was more arhythmic, ...a little less Italian? I guess it would have made it tough to get to the next level.

 

[twelveoone]

If you remember we had a thread (I think annaswirls started it) where we riffed on the blackbird poem. I might have posted a thread like that too at one point--I did write a poem using the "different ways" technique like Stevens--but Anna's thread got some good responses.

There was something similar done with translations of a poem by Fernando Pessoa. This site had more than ten different translations and they were quite different. And some were quite good as well as different.

Sometimes it's ok to agree. I write something that I think conveys X and some reader tells me that they read it and felt really X and I'm happy because I know I got it across. But mainly I'd rather hear how it might be improved or taken to a different place.

My bugaboo is specificity. I hate vague, generic comments. When I comment I've read and thought about your poem, and I'll tell you what I think. If you tell me it's "great" or it "sucks," and that's the sum of your comment, I've got zilch...bubkes from your read.

Baudelaire...
http://fleursdumal.org/

I think I ran across the Pessoa site once.

It's really cool to read the different translations
To be honest I never understood Wallace Stevens, maybe I'll ask Poet Guy.

I think I had three versions of the Inferno going at the same time, one canto at a time, found a copy of Binyon's Purgatorio which nobody seemed to like except Ezra.
Never got to Paradise
Story of my life

As far as comments go... I may have been blessed with the best, it's a shame those poems are gone...forever...hard disk crash, back up on a zip drive...what the hell was I thinking?

But your "bugaboo is specificity. I hate vague, generic comments. When I comment I've read and thought about your poem, and I'll tell you what I think." That is one of the greatest learning tools, when I see a comment that is contrary it forces me to look at what someone else's view is, is the reader right or did the writer make a mistake? On my work, it sometimes confirms what I did, "took the wrong turn didn't you?" (Below)

But as far as the rest below re: theory, wrong, wrong, wrong it gives you another way to look at something. An interesting book I'm in the middle of is Judith Oster's Toward Robert Frost, the Reader and the Poet confirms what I always suspected, Frost was quite the game player. I think it is one of the reasons he is so good, he sets it up so it just beyond your reach. Eliot same thing, employing false leads Pound got knows what the fuck he was thinking, but it gave birth to a small cottage industry.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
theory refers to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action
which is a good starting place as any to gel your "babel" (I think pabla's just arguing to justify no commenting) around to something approaching a structure behind the structure or in the case of Derrida, et. al. sometimes a destruction behind the structure.
It gives birth to the new. Revitalizes the old. Do you know how much more I got out of Shakespeare from Empson? It's just a different type of enjoyment chipbuddy.

 

[bronzeage]

I actually agree with you. Theory is a useful tool but subscribing to a particular theoretical system is like joining a religion and sticking rigidly to one of these theories can blind you to other possible modes of thought. Science and art should never mix though. One relies of the concrete, the provable, the inmovable nature of the universe to define a system of rules that can be relied upon. Art is ephemeral and capricious. There is not a single set of rules that apply to every situation (which is why I suggested that if you must go all theoretical on a poem, don't just use one set of theories; attack it will all you know and you will extracts more of the delicious juicy meaning).

What I have noticed is the more theoretical the discipline you go into, the more closely theory resembles religion. At university, I specialise in gender and sexuality for one of my majors and the big hoodoos in this area is essentialism. Frankly I think sexual behaviour is both nurture and nature, that some behaviour is inborn but this doesn't jibe with the particular set of ideas you must subscribe to to succeed in this area. When dealing with subject, I stick to the party line. People forget that theory is theory; it's not fact.

I still contend the word "theory" is misplaced in this discussion. It was adopted by the Arts side of the College of Arts and Sciences, who were jealous of their brothers on the other side of the quadrangle. The science guys were busy tracking down a new part of an atom and the Literary guys were desperate to find an new part of speech. It was relatively easy for the scientists to find a new atomic particles by taking the old ones and cutting them in half. Then, to add insult to injury, they reached back to their sophomore Lit classes to find names for their discoveries.

In the scientific world, a theory can become accepted as fact if nothing is ever observed which contradicts its suppositions. Its status as fact is cemented in place if it predicts observations which have not yet been made. Einstein's Theories on Relativity are now accepted as valid descriptions of the known universe because when scientists went to look for the phenomena it predicted, they found it.

As far as I know, literary theory has yet to predict the next great poem, novel or essay.

Literary science, if that is not an oxymoron, is still in the stage natural science found itself in the 19th century. Atomic structure and genetics were still vague ideas, waiting for acceptance. The one thing a naturalist could do was describe things. He could not explain why there were so many different kinds of beetles, but he could tell you how many different kinds existed and give a name for each.

If there is such a thing as literary science, it is a form of taxonomy, where the work consists of descriptions and labels. It gives them something to do. Every once in a while, one of the clever ones will tack "ism" to the end of a word and assure himself a chair in the English department and if he is fortunate, grad students to adore him.

 

[ninianne]

I don't object to the existance of literary theory or the practice of using literary theory to read works of literature. It has it's place, as you said, to try to understand the work. And I agree with you that any reading that focuses on a single theory leads to a "weak critique".

I think when I wrote my previous post, I was concentrating too much at the end on the difference between workshopping and theorizing. You're absolutely right. By the time a work enters the realm of critique, it should be a finished product, ready to stand on its own without the author. But critique should still have merit and relevence for the writer.

When I read a critique of Ann Sexton's "Her Kind" I want to discuss the women of the poem and the narrator who has been those women and the reader who can possibly identify with the narrator. I want to discuss the archetypical figures demonstrated in the three stanzas (roughly paralleling maiden, mother, crone). I want to discuss the artistic merit of the poem--how she evokes the feelings she does, what literary figures she uses, the structure she uses.

And such a discussion should improve me as a poet.

When I said that a critique should be designed to help the poet, I did not necessarily mean the poet who wrote the work. A discussion of the artistic merit of poetry should ultimately help poets think about the artistic merits of their own poetry. It should help them decide what values they posess as an artist and what they admire and how they want to change.

And that is where theory fails. Most literary theory is not focused on artistic merit at all. Theoretical readings are less about the work than about the theory that the reader is using to discuss the piece. And, unfortunately, the art of a poem is usually irrelevent to contemporary literary theory.

When a work is read with an eye to say Marxist theory, the merit of the work itself is not in question. What is in question is the way the poem stands in relation to the social questions that are important to Marxist theorists. Does it uphold the status quo or demonstate the need for socio-economic change? Or perhaps try to uphold the status quo but by so doing demonstrate the need for a radical socio-economic change.

The same holds true with other literary theories. A reading of a poem with an eye to feminism will focus on the implied and stated treatment of women; a deconstructionist reading will focus on how the poem doesn't say what it meant to because meaning is unknowable, an archtypical reading will focus on the way mythological figures are used in the work. In such a reading, the artistic merit of the poem is secondary.

When a reader concentrates on the aesthetics of a poem, discussing the artistic merit of the poem itself (irrelevent of the author and subject matter), the theorist returns to the true realm of criticism. He begins to talk about the poem itself and what makes it art. That is critique.

But such readings are not as common in the world of contemporary literary theory as they should be.

Authorial intent has been pretty much put down full stop.

I think I'd make a distinction between two different types of critique in regards to what you are saying.

1) This is the critique that focuses on technique, delivery, form, shape, colour,voice etc. This is practical critique and this seems to be the type of critique you want. This is practical and useful and theory would be of little use in this form of critique. HOWEVER this type of critique has little to do with assessing the work as a piece of art; it is more like taking apart an engine to see how it works.

2) The second, theoretical critiques are done for the most part to try an understand the work as art. They are not meant to be helpful to the artist. This is deemed to be a finished worth. Once your give birth to a poem and cut the umbilical cord by offering it up to the world, then it becomes a thing unto itself, whole and separate and the criticism is about it not you. You might be its mother/author but your are not your poem. I would also add that a theoretical critique that views an artwork through the lens of one particular set of theories, is a weak critique (pardon the rhyme).

Theory has its place. It might not be what you, in particular, want, but that does not make it useless.

 

[butters]

Poetry is all about meter.

Rhythm. Rhyme is secondary.

A short poem doesn't need it, but a long poem does. — A long poem, as, for example, Spenser's "The Fairie Queene"

The pattern becomes hypnotic and almost addictive.

However, poetry benefits more from rhythm than from rhyme. Find Ciardi's English translation of Dante's "L'Inferno." He realized that Italian made rhyming much easier then English, so he abandoned that idea, and concentrated on the rhythm. His translation makes one want to learn Italian, just in order to read the original... seriously...

i don't find myself agreeing blindly with this, Byron: there are plenty of poems written with perfect meter but still suck. and you appear to contradict yourself by then saying 'a short poem doesn't need it' ... is a short poem any less a poem because of its size? (size-queen asides get sat on here).

i agree that many poems work better for meter, especially when it's unobtrusive and isn't on my mind when i first read a work. i don't want to be thinking about the mechanics of a poem from the off - i want to experience its imagery, its musicality, the emotions it inspires (that stuff). meter, whilst admittedly a vital component of many exceptional writes, is simply another part of the framework on which to hang the fabric to be worked. i do agree that when done well, it's compelling .. but it has to be backed up with the cloth and the threadwork if it's to become a complete piece of couture.

i will definitely look out for that book. thankyou for the recommendation

Baudelaire...
http://fleursdumal.org/

I think I ran across the Pessoa site once.

It's really cool to read the different translations
To be honest I never understood Wallace Stevens, maybe I'll ask Poet Guy.

I think I had three versions of the Inferno going at the same time, one canto at a time, found a copy of Binyon's Purgatorio which nobody seemed to like except Ezra.
Never got to Paradise
Story of my life

As far as comments go... I may have been blessed with the best, it's a shame those poems are gone...forever...hard disk crash, back up on a zip drive...what the hell was I thinking?

But your "bugaboo is specificity. I hate vague, generic comments. When I comment I've read and thought about your poem, and I'll tell you what I think." That is one of the greatest learning tools, when I see a comment that is contrary it forces me to look at what someone else's view is, is the reader right or did the writer make a mistake? On my work, it sometimes confirms what I did, "took the wrong turn didn't you?" (Below)

But as far as the rest below re: theory, wrong, wrong, wrong it gives you another way to look at something. An interesting book I'm in the middle of is Judith Oster's Toward Robert Frost, the Reader and the Poet confirms what I always suspected, Frost was quite the game player. I think it is one of the reasons he is so good, he sets it up so it just beyond your reach. Eliot same thing, employing false leads Pound got knows what the fuck he was thinking, but it gave birth to a small cottage industry.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
theory refers to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action
which is a good starting place as any to gel your "babel" (I think pabla's just arguing to justify no commenting) around to something approaching a structure behind the structure or in the case of Derrida, et. al. sometimes a destruction behind the structure.
It gives birth to the new. Revitalizes the old. Do you know how much more I got out of Shakespeare from Empson? It's just a different type of enjoyment chipbuddy.

so much in this post sets my head spinning. maybe one day i will have the time to luxuriate in reading the kind of material that lends itself to this different type of enjoyment. (no, i am not being facetious. i get it, how horizons can expand and thinking broaden, and how much fun that can be in its own right.)

 

[twelveoone]

Byron: there are plenty of poems written with perfect meter but still suck.

You don't want to read perfect meter, I found one guy who did write in perfect meter, but I can't remember where or who; but that's not important, because everyone else forgot him to.

 

[twelveoone]

As far as I know, literary theory has yet to predict the next great poem, novel or essay.

It gives them something to do. Every once in a while, one of the clever ones will tack "ism" to the end of a word and assure himself a chair in the English department and if he is fortunate, grad students to adore him.

my mission in life

bosonism

no top or bottom through, too much could be read into that from those other schools

 

[butters]

my mission in life

bosonism

no top or bottom through, too much could be read into that from those other schools

omg!
that's pretty smart from where i'm sitting - boson/bosun existing in the same space-ish-ism

*lets off party popper*

 

[bronzeage]

my mission in life

bosonism

no top or bottom through, too much could be read into that from those other schools

John Prine, founder of the boson school:

Old Sarah Brown sells tickets down
At the all night picture show
Where they grind out sex
And they rate it with an "X"
Just to make a young man's pants grow
No tops no bottoms just hands and feet
Screaming the posters out on the street
Strangling the curious and the weak
We give 'em what they want to see - O

 

[butters]

John Prine, founder of the boson school:

Old Sarah Brown sells tickets down
At the all night picture show
Where they grind out sex
And they rate it with an "X"
Just to make a young man's pants grow
No tops no bottoms just hands and feet
Screaming the posters out on the street
Strangling the curious and the weak
We give 'em what they want to see - O

hmmmmn, well that works (yeah, i see it, damnit ) - but i prefer the play on 'chair' in your post and the zero spin thingy where it overlaps and both occupying the same quantum state... well i do!

 

[twelveoone]

you two guys are just way too much
I try to so serious


Hey Bronze, have a good Christmas, they still got that in Texas? 'round here all we got is Jingle Bell Rock, and I even didn't know there was more than one version.

 

[bronzeage]

hmmmmn, well that works (yeah, i see it, damnit ) - but i prefer the play on 'chair' in your post and the zero spin thingy where it overlaps and both occupying the same quantum state... well i do!

"No tops, not bottoms," was one strategy considered by the Clinton administration, before deciding on "Don't ask, don't tell."

Next up, string theory in poetry:

Can you imagine traveling to another planet where they have been monitoring the past century of Earth's radio and TV broadcasts. They revere the limerick as the highest form of poetry, the way some English speaking poets revere Haiku. You try to explain to them, the limerick is a mindless vehicle for bawdy verse and puns, and they insist on hearing every Nantucket limerick you can remember.