A poet's list "to do"

[Senna Jawa]

• Travel.
• Be outdoors a lot.
• Listen to music a lot.
• Always have a small notebook and a pen or pencil with you.
• Jot down and collect isolated phrases that come to your mind. But wait for the time to be ripe. Don't force a poem around a single good phrase.
• Forget about yourself (especially about your stupid inner self).
• Concentrate on the Nature: other people, trees, sky, animals, clothes, buildings, vehicles, ... touch everything too, feel the temperature and texture, smell, hear (listen, pay attention).
• Treat yourself in poems just like another sidewalk, swimming pool, tree, another person, stone, ....
• Read dictionaries. Read poetry a bit (in more than one language). Read classical critical works.
• Do translations and variations. Be serious about variations, treat them like your original poems. Everything you write, including casual and humorous pieces, write seriously, to the best of your artistic ability.
• Even from the most nasty and unfair critique of your (or someone else) poem, if the guy is half good, extract a seed of something that counts, that can improve your poem(s). Analyze and turn a negative comment into a constructive observation. For instance, you may replace a phrase or change the order of words as a result of someone making fun of that phrase.
• Each time someone points out a cliche in your poem don't justify your cliche, don't protest, say nothing, blush, feel deeply embarrassed, frustrated, sick, hide in a hole, and don't come back until you write a poem free of cliches.

 

[Angeline]

• Travel.
• Be outdoors a lot.
• Listen to music a lot.
• Always have a small notebook and a pen or pencil with you.
• Jot down and collect isolated phrases that come to your mind. But wait for the time to be ripe. Don't force a poem around a single good phrase.
• Forget about yourself (especially about your stupid inner self).
• Concentrate on the Nature: other people, trees, sky, animals, clothes, buildings, vehicles, ... touch everything too, feel the temperature and texture, smell, hear (listen, pay attention).
• Treat yourself in poems just like another sidewalk, swimming pool, tree, another person, stone, ....
• Read dictionaries. Read poetry a bit (in more than one language). Read classical critical works.
• Do translations and variations. Be serious about variations, treat them like your original poems. Everything you write, including casual and humorous pieces, write seriously, to the best of your artistic ability.
• Even from the most nasty and unfair critique of your (or someone else) poem, if the guy is half good, extract a seed of something that counts, that can improve your poem(s). Analyze and turn a negative comment into a constructive observation. For instance, you may replace a phrase or change the order of words as a result of someone making fun of that phrase.
• Each time someone points out a cliche in your poem don't justify your cliche, don't protest, say nothing, blush, feel deeply embarrassed, frustrated, sick, hide in a hole, and don't come back until you write a poem free of cliches.

I've been making mandelbrot (the cookie, not the fractal) and also listening to Miles Davis (Porgy and Bess, great recording). This feels like poetry to me. It will be even more poetic when I eat a piece of the mandelbrot with fresh coffee.

 

[Senna Jawa]

I've been making mandelbrot (the cookie, not the fractal) and also listening to Miles Davis (Porgy and Bess, great recording). This feels like poetry to me. It will be even more poetic when I eat a piece of the mandelbrot with fresh coffee.

Sure. But the trick is to make poetry feel like coffee and cookie and Miles Davis.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I've been making mandelbrot (the cookie, not the fractal) and also listening to Miles Davis (Porgy and Bess, great recording). This feels like poetry to me. It will be even more poetic when I eat a piece of the mandelbrot with fresh coffee.

This brings up something very valid that I'd add to that (already very good) list. It's sort of a variation on the spiritual concept of 'unceasing prayer' or za-zen, walking meditation - that every operation becomes a prayer or a meditation.

The idea is: there is nothing un-poetic. Every action, every moment, contains a poem. Every topic and scene and interaction holds a potential set of words that contains its essence. To be a writer is more than an activity; it is a way of being, a point of view.

or something like that.

meh

bj

 

[Angeline]

Sure. But the trick is to make poetry feel like coffee and cookie and Miles Davis.

Wise guy. I knew you'd say that.

 

[Angeline]

This brings up something very valid that I'd add to that (already very good) list. It's sort of a variation on the spiritual concept of 'unceasing prayer' or za-zen, walking meditation - that every operation becomes a prayer or a meditation.

The idea is: there is nothing un-poetic. Every action, every moment, contains a poem. Every topic and scene and interaction holds a potential set of words that contains its essence. To be a writer is more than an activity; it is a way of being, a point of view.

or something like that.

meh

bj

I understand you even though every fiber of my being says it's wrong to listen to Snidely Whiplash.

 

[Senna Jawa]

[...] To be a writer is more than an activity; it is a way of being, a point of view.

or something like that.

meh

bj

I have tried to list small things that one can do.

What you have written ("way of being") was said in the past many times. I felt resistance in the past when reading similar statements. Actually, I was mildly annoyed when authors were mixing philosophy, religion, zen, spiritual shambo-mambo-blah-blah with poetry. There was a relation, and there was a paradox in all this. Finally I understood that the Chinese way of poetry, continued by Basho, present in skaldic poetry, and of that by Boleslaw Lesmian, and some others, amounted to much more than just technical devices and style of writing. On those highest levels of poetry your very brain has to be molded in the poetry way. These authors over different centuries were different people but they had this in common.

Physical exercise shapes our muscles, even bones! Words shape our lips (well, in the case of English, lips get pretty much atrophied ). Thoughts and intellectual activities require certain shape and they literally shape our brain, just like mathematics does (while shallow activities amount to shallow brain).

Thus poetry does not need any reference to philosophy etc. Poetry itself has similar elements, but more profound, integrated seamlessly into its total.

Best regards,

 

[LeBroz]

I understand you even though every fiber of my being says it's wrong to listen to Snidely Whiplash.

She's still hung up on facial hair — even if it is a comedic moustache.

.
.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I have tried to list small things that one can do.

What you have written ("way of being") was said in the past many times. I felt resistance in the past when reading similar statements. Actually, I was mildly annoyed when authors were mixing philosophy, religion, zen, spiritual shambo-mambo-blah-blah with poetry. There was a relation, and there was a paradox in all this. Finally I understood that the Chinese way of poetry, continued by Basho, present in skaldic poetry, and of that by Boleslaw Lesmian, and some others, amounted to much more than just technical devices and style of writing. On those highest levels of poetry your very brain has to be molded in the poetry way. These authors over different centuries were different people but they had this in common.

Physical exercise shapes our muscles, even bones! Words shape our lips (well, in the case of English, lips get pretty much atrophied ). Thoughts and intellectual activities require certain shape and they literally shape our brain, just like mathematics does (while shallow activities amount to shallow brain).

Thus poetry does not need any reference to philosophy etc. Poetry itself has similar elements, but more profound, integrated seamlessly into its total.

Best regards,

It was merely a metaphor.

But I actually see all those things as the same pursuit, at the base. Without religion and philosophy and za-zen, my writing becomes meaningless and academic. For me, writing is a spiritual pursuit.

Ange: lol! and LeBroz: okay, okay. How bout Simon Bar Sinister? It's more about the eee-villl than the facial hair. Though it is an excellent disguise...

bj

 

[LeBroz]

• Travel.
• Be outdoors a lot.
• Listen to music a lot.
• Always have a small notebook and a pen or pencil with you.
• Jot down and collect isolated phrases that come to your mind. But wait for the time to be ripe. Don't force a poem around a single good phrase.
• Forget about yourself (especially about your stupid inner self).
• Concentrate on the Nature: other people, trees, sky, animals, clothes, buildings, vehicles, ... touch everything too, feel the temperature and texture, smell, hear (listen, pay attention).
• Treat yourself in poems just like another sidewalk, swimming pool, tree, another person, stone, ....
• Read dictionaries. Read poetry a bit (in more than one language). Read classical critical works.
• Do translations and variations. Be serious about variations, treat them like your original poems. Everything you write, including casual and humorous pieces, write seriously, to the best of your artistic ability.
  [*]Even from the most nasty and unfair critique of your (or someone else) poem, if the guy is half good, extract a seed of something that counts, that can improve your poem(s). Analyze and turn a negative comment into a constructive observation. For instance, you may replace a phrase or change the order of words as a result of someone making fun of that phrase.
  [*]Each time someone points out a cliche in your poem don't justify your cliche, don't protest, say nothing, blush, feel deeply embarrassed, frustrated, sick, hide in a hole, and don't come back until you write a poem free of cliches.

Both writer and reader carry their own 'baggage', the whole package of emotions, values, beliefs that make up their unique personality. A comment or critique from a reader should be viewed in that way; appreciate that new perspective, learn from it and grow. That feedback also tells the writer how well he got his point or vision across.

The writer should also critique his older poems. That too helps in growth by seeing how, over time, his own values or perspective have changed. If you refuse to learn and grow, go out and pick out your coffin.

.
.

 

[Tathagata]

This brings up something very valid that I'd add to that (already very good) list. It's sort of a variation on the spiritual concept of 'unceasing prayer' or za-zen, walking meditation - that every operation becomes a prayer or a meditation.

The idea is: there is nothing un-poetic. Every action, every moment, contains a poem. Every topic and scene and interaction holds a potential set of words that contains its essence. To be a writer is more than an activity; it is a way of being, a point of view.

or something like that.

meh

bj

walking zazen is meant to bring the mind to a single point.
In one school of zen/meditation, the practice consists of simply mentally labeling your activity ( walking walking walking, chewing chewing chewing) this eventually enables the mind to " watch itself" .
It sees itself " thinking thinking thinking"
eventually you're able to " stop the internal dialog" as Castaneda's Don Juan called it and you are operating from a point of non duality
In other words you are the activity, it is pure spontaneity
being that it is created naturally with out the taint of ego or judgment, it is pure and coming from a pure place.
Pollacks paintings are a good example of that creative process, as are many jazz/ musical solos ( did someone say Prez? did someone say SRV?)
In my opinion, anything created from that " place" would be art, the question is would I understand it?


It is cliché to say " it's a way of life" ( writing, cooking, running, painting) but at it's most pure it has to be

in other words I agree with you


over and out

 

[AChild]

you forgot one thing.

Taste you've got to taste everything.
Taste is the fucking of the five senses.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Taste you've got to taste everything.
Taste is the fucking of the five senses.

Take it easy, will you?

 

[Liar]

Taste you've got to taste everything.
Taste is the fucking of the five senses.

Well, there are some things I don't have to taste to know I don't want to.

Likewise with fucking.

 

[AChild]

I only wear hat so I may sometimes humbly bow and ask apology.
Bow.

Taste is the love of flesh. Taste is not holding hands or "we need to talk" talks. Taste is mortal. The angels don't spine on their clouds for marshmellows floating in a cold vanilla bean custurd sitting under a galaxy of spun sugar. Taste is to take in, to partake, to become. You are what you eat. The plants are to sun as you are to food. Taste is in proportion to form. What you take in and hold and boil down dictates the fire of your life. Will you support the flame keeping in mind everything a fire needs to burn?

Walking down the street I see people in their cars waiting for third generation processed food. The growing weight of them sinks their cars deeper and deeper into their eventual early graves. They let their flames die out smothered in cheap cheese. In short they are effed. Its not simply their mortal demise that is a tragedy, but the mark of promotion they left.

Going to the Farmer's market no one says hello, because their noses are too high. the terms of intellectual discourse are "raw"&"organic". The layering and the ability to understand them can raise the price of product by powers. These people are addicted to treating their bodies a temple. The negative is part of the addiction is keeping the price of templehood high. They are effed.

No offense was intended.

 

[twelveoone]

• Travel.

Like Emily Dickinson

• Be outdoors a lot.
• Listen to music a lot.
• Always have a small notebook and a pen or pencil with you.
• Jot down and collect isolated phrases that come to your mind. But wait for the time to be ripe. Don't force a poem around a single good phrase.
• Forget about yourself (especially about your stupid inner self).

Like Walt Whitman
But here is where it gets interesting, suppose Sylvia Plath had listened, would she have lived, probably not, but no Daddy.
This may require some thought, elaboration, where does the Robert Lowell school fit in this? I can live without it.
Leaving just Theodore Roethke and Basho? Do I want that? Hmmmm, where does this stuff come from, this poetry, from some stupid inner self? You might want to rethink this.

• Concentrate on the Nature: other people, trees, sky, animals, clothes, buildings, vehicles, ... touch everything too, feel the temperature and texture, smell, hear (listen, pay attention).
• Treat yourself in poems just like another sidewalk, swimming pool, tree, another person, stone, ....
• Read dictionaries. Read poetry a bit (in more than one language). Read classical critical works.
• Do translations and variations. Be serious about variations, treat them like your original poems. Everything you write, including casual and humorous pieces, write seriously, to the best of your artistic ability.
• Even from the most nasty and unfair critique of your (or someone else) poem, if the guy is half good, extract a seed of something that counts, that can improve your poem(s). Analyze and turn a negative comment into a constructive observation. For instance, you may replace a phrase or change the order of words as a result of someone making fun of that phrase.

I realise this statement has to made this way because of general audience limitations, however if a critique is unfair, how is it possible to extract a seed of something that counts from it; also negative may be a pejorative word for something that has potential utility.

• Each time someone points out a cliche in your poem don't justify your cliche, don't protest, say nothing, blush, feel deeply embarrassed, frustrated, sick, hide in a hole, and don't come back until you write a poem free of cliches.

Oh yea, have I suffered in the past for that one.

 

[champagne1982]

• Each time someone points out a cliche in your poem don't justify your cliche, don't protest, say nothing, blush, feel deeply embarrassed, frustrated, sick, hide in a hole, and don't come back until you write a poem free of cliches.

Oh yea, have I suffered in the past for that one.

But I've grown up a bit more. Oddly enough, primarily through my interactions with both of you gentlemen, twelveoone and Senna Jawa. I can only hope that you, two, will condescend to admit that I have contributed to your clarifying the expressions of your sagacity, if only in the way that I made you repeat the lessons.

 

[twelveoone]

But I've grown up a bit more. Oddly enough, primarily through my interactions with both of you gentlemen, twelveoone and Senna Jawa. I can only hope that you, two, will condescend to admit that I have contributed to your clarifying the expressions of your sagacity, if only in the way that I made you repeat the lessons.

as it turns out I wasn't thinking of you per se, and wonder of wonder sometimes they serve a purpose. And anything I say I only expect to be taken at 50% but you are a talented poet , don't ever be made to feel otherwise; your opinion matters. We had a to-do about a 75, and believe it ot not, that is the only 75 I regretted. And that was because it caused you to lose some stupid contest, and your poem (IMHO) was the better one. I did not vote on the other one.

Here are some Nietzsche quotes:
“What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”

We'll just change the last one to read:
“I cannot believe in a Poet who wants to be praised all the time.”
which goes a long way to explaining my relationship with this place

 

[Senna Jawa]

I only wear hat so I may sometimes humbly bow and ask apology.
Bow.

A bow is not enough. You still need to endure the three-stage punishment from the moderatoresses, each stage harder than the previous one, and the third one is just impossibly cruel. First you have to spank WickedEve. She talks tough but she is really a crybaby, so that it is not going to be easy! But you are a man, you can do it. Then you get spanked by Lauren. If you remember her old av then you know what it means (hint: it includes a pistol whipping). For the third stage you have to wait a while until Angeline writes a poem about this event. And then, I am so very sorry for you, you will have to read and learn her poem by heart! I know that this final punishment is unconstitutional but this is Literotica, so you can't get away with something civilized like an electric chair.

Taste is the love of flesh.

See:

advancing...​

Also, really,

the street's...​

Regards,

Senna Jawa​

PS. Ange -- , , get well!

 

[unpredictablebijou]

A bow is not enough. You still need to endure the three-stage punishment from the moderatoresses, each stage harder than the previous one, and the third one is just impossibly cruel. First you have to spank WickedEve. She talks tough but she is really a crybaby, so that it is not going to be easy! But you are a man, you can do it. Then you get spanked by Lauren. If you remember her old av then you know what it means (hint: it includes a pistol whipping). For the third stage you have to wait a while until Angeline writes a poem about this event. And then, I am so very sorry for you, you will have to read and learn her poem by heart! I know that this final punishment is unconstitutional but this is Literotica, so you can't get away with something civilized like an electric chair.

See:

advancing...​

Also, really,

the street's...​

Regards,

Senna Jawa​

PS. Ange -- , , get well!

I'm really working hard to think of something I can do that's outrageous enough for this punishment.

* fiercely jealous *

bj

 

[Tzara]

A bow is not enough. You still need to endure the three-stage punishment from the moderatoresses, each stage harder than the previous one, and the third one is just impossibly cruel. First you have to spank WickedEve. She talks tough but she is really a crybaby, so that it is not going to be easy! But you are a man, you can do it. Then you get spanked by Lauren. If you remember her old av then you know what it means (hint: it includes a pistol whipping). For the third stage you have to wait a while until Angeline writes a poem about this event. And then, I am so very sorry for you, you will have to read and learn her poem by heart! I know that this final punishment is unconstitutional but this is Literotica, so you can't get away with something civilized like an electric chair.

See:

advancing...​

Also, really,

the street's...​

Regards,

Senna Jawa​

PS. Ange -- , , get well!

OH MY GOD NOW I WANT A PICTURE of Lauren spanking you. That might be a work that appeals to a limited market, perhaps, but boy howdy I would pay something for it.

I am skeptical this exists. I think you are talking hypotheticals.

Merry Solstice.

 

[Liar]

OH MY GOD NOW I WANT A PICTURE of Lauren spanking you.

I want a picture of Lauren spanking Eve.

C'mon, Santa.

 

[twelveoone]

Do get your ass back here, Senna.
Like it or not, Best wishes for the upcoming year.

 

[WickedEve]

Bumping a really good thread. Check out the list in the first post.

 

[Safe_Bet]

It figures that Senna Jawa would come up with a list of MORE shit for me to do! (Pretty good list though )