About Poety #2

[Unmasked Poet]

Learning to fly- understanding why we write the way we do.

Some writers are lucky; writing in any form is ultimately about talent. No matter how much we study or practice, or learn, our talent defines our limits. The tools we use sharpen what talent we have. Some of us are born with “swiss army knives” and some of us have “sabers” this cannot be changed. Yet whatever we are born with we can hone. I’m starting this thread to discuss and supplement other information on the forum. I will start with vision, by the way your five poetic senses are:

Sight
The ability to see internal and external objects and concepts
Sound
The ability to hear words and rhythm, poetry is a spoken art. Even reading silently, it must sound good!
Voice (often called style)
Taking the components of the other 4 and melding them in something unique.
Thought
Understanding the complexity of the other 4 senses and learning to use them
Heart
Emotions are an unlimited supply of inspiration.

Poetry is difficult to write because these five senses are always out of balance. To create a good poem these five do not have to be equal, only in harmony. It is hard to get these 5 to sing on key.

What do you see? Often when we write poetry we see very little, this makes for bad poetry! Many of us write from emotion first and this will only lead you down the road of regurgitating what you have absorbed in someone else’s poetry or music or writing. This is why we all write the same poems particularly unpolished poets. Emotionally speaking there is nothing new. I will address this concept when I get to the heart portion. But this is about sight. Poets learn, or are born with extended vision. If you would like to find out about yours try this exercise.

Look around the room your in, now find two objects that are always in the same place. The must be inanimate objects. Now write a poem each day for five days about the object. Length is unimportant and do not compare poems from day to day just write them and place them face down in a pile. At the end of the week review what you wrote. If someone is interested in being an example send me your observations each day. I will illustrate the value of this exercise in this thread. I promise it will make you a better writer of poetry.

Vision in a poet is the primary component of a poet’s voice. You can tell who has vision and voice right away when you read or hear a poet. On our site most poets speak in a monotone one-poem sound just like another on the same subject. That is normal when you’re learning to fly. Rhyme is the biggest killer of voice. I will explain why in the voice section.

Ever wonder why in art class the teacher has everyone draw the same bowl of fruit and yet all the pictures look different? Well poetry is like that. You have to learn to see what your looking at, and then you have to draw it, and the two things are never the same.

Poets on our site with “vision” well there are only a few, and they’re not hard to find. I suggest you put on smithpeters eyes, read every one of his poems. I’m not saying they’re all good, (but many are) isn’t it refreshing to see the bowl of fruit from his perspective?

U.P.

 

[Unmasked Poet]

Blind as a poet.

What do you see? Does this poet have vision? A voice? Can you tell who the poet is from our group? We are talking about vision if you forgot where we were go back and read the first post again. Hell do it anyway, it will keep you in the flow. Read all five poems, I will catch up with you at the end.

#1

I see your swarthy buttocks
peeking like twin black apples
with dull ruddy highlights
over the open horizon of my thick
unabridged ocean of jots
and tittles, procrastinate with your bulging
latissimus dorsi and focus
on the Archimedean point of light
kissing your omnipotent elbow.

It's true-you do shrug,
But only to support the sprouting
globe at the base of your neck,
which in turn serves
as a foundation for the bulb
which when lit beneath its absurd
Target shade, illuminates the words,
the world, and the crown of you burnished
and humble head.

#2
A smoked glass ball encrusted
with pewter continents,
encased in a grid, the world
rests without orbit

or spin, between the shoulder-
blades of a god who is dead,
under a light that is fueled
by the ghosts of poisoned rivers.

#3

Beneath the creamy triangle
shade--topless like the great

Pyramid of Cheops, missing
the head corner stone--you stand.

The world would not roll
off your back like Ayn Rand

implied: you bear it the way
Nepalese sherpas carry impossible

weight--by a strap across
the forehead. Before we were

round you were a pillar
for the heavens. Where

would we be without you
and your stonebound brother?

#4
Today a square
base of infantry green
shadowed with right angle pride
supports a bronze tragedy in lines
of Michaelangelo with quiet history
in my living room buff before the stratified cliff of my blue dictionary waiting to be turned on.

#5

A glow on deep blue-
black metal head, wearing earth;
I read by your light.

Did any of these poems breathe? Come to life? What is the poet talking about? Is the vision clear? I will tell you what I think in a moment. Please feel free to jump in and add your opinions.

U.P.

 

[REDWAVE]

Turning the tables

All right, sports fans (or spurts fans-- I'm not sure which), it's time to "turn the tables" and critique the critiquer! You got it-- I'm going to do a review of UP's dissertation on poetry.


Talk about cliches-- UP's essay is chock full of them, starting with saying that writing is about talent-- duh! Your grasp of the obvious is outstanding, Sherlock! Your tool seems to be a rusty penknife, as you tediously and tendentiously mouth one platitude after another!


O, God, is this fun-- roasting the roaster!

 

[REDWAVE]

I love riddles!

In regard to your second post, UP, I have this to say: a lamp, a globe, and the sky. Those are the first three, in order. Numbers 4 & 5 I'm not sure about.

BTW, the poetic style seems a lot like Storm's. Are you plagiarizing him, UP? Got him tied up in your basement?

 

[Unmasked Poet]

Yah, Yah, Yah,

I'm not doing a critique Red. This is coming from my heart.

U.P.

 

[REDWAVE]

Heart of Stone?

O, that's really a rich one, UP! You're the one who's said (more than once, I believe) that you don't care what's in someone's heart, just what's on the page. What's that sig line of yours again? Something about it's not who you are, it's what you write? But more importantly, did I get the first three right?

 

[Unmasked Poet]

Red, please go fill your prescriptions! It just so happens your wrong and right. Why don't you just be patient? I'm sure the poet will chime in soon.


Oh my heart,

U.P.

 

[REDWAVE]

Typical!

That's just like UP-- ask him a question about a riddle, and he responds with another riddle!

Also, UP, there should have been a question mark after "patient." Tsk, tsk.

 

[KatPurrs]

Here I come to save the day!

which means that Mighty Kat, is on her way! um..er..sorry, showing my age again.....

#1 = The first stanza completely escapes me. I'm sorry. The second, my guess is that it's' a floor lamp, with a shade sporting a finial on top? "burnished and humble head" oh wait! "omnipotent elbow"....Is it a swing-arm light, with a shade, with a finial on top? (I'm exhausted already)

#2 = This must be a globe of the earth.

#3 = Now the lampshade is topless which blows my theory about the type of lamp in #1 and makes me wonder if the author chose more than 2 inanimate objects in the room to write about. But I think this is still about the globe which sits under the lamp. (oh god, am I almost done?)

#4 = huh?

#5 = I know! It's a globe that lights up! No?
hmmmm. I give up. Will the author please stand so I can apologize my little heart out for being so dense.

An embarrassed Kat~

 

[KatPurrs]

An attempt to save face here

At least I DID understand the Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged" dealy. (big deal, I know)

And RED, I think you need a diversion... Howz about hopping over to the "Holding Poems Up To The Light" thread and tackling Writer Dom like you were going to do a while back before you realized WE was available, as planned. huh, huh, pretty please?

I still miss that girl.

Kat~

 

[Unmasked Poet]

For you insight fellow poetry readers, the author himself speaks!

Ded Poet.


I will add comments later.


#1. This was pretty much just a straight attempt at describing the object from my angle of vision, letting it go where it took me. Of course the Archimedean reference [btw,would you mind correcting the sp. on that for me, on the thread?]
is to the perennial problem of trying to get to a point of objectivity outside one's own mind, which according to Hannah Arendt, in our materialistic times has manifested as jumping off the planet into space--hence, the point of light reflecing off of Atlas' elbow is 'Archimedean' relative to the globe (also, Atlas himself represents this point,since he is 'moving the world').

The beginning of stanza two is a reference to Ayn Rand's capitist propaganda novel, "Atlas Shrugged".


#2. In this one, the object became a jumping off point for what became a rather bleak meditation on the modern world. Personally, I think this one comes closest to succeeding as a poem. 'Encased in
a grid'. There is, in Native American mythology, a
'web of life'. Our modern version of this is the WWW and globalization--the language in this piece is meant to suggest imprisonment in a constructed world of our own making. Stanza two, the line 'fueled by the ghosts of poisoned rivers' refers to nuclear power ('toxic' might be better). Where I live, power comes from a nuclear facility located on an island in the Mississippi river. 150 years ago this region was pristine forest land, largely uninhabited; today the river is a toxic chemical soup.

#3. This was a return to the associations I was grappling with on day 1. The Ayn Rand reference is explicit here. Here again I was struggling to describe the object directly while letting the mythological connotations find expression as well.
Here the tone is more optimistic, and the focus is
on strength and the gifts of culture that have been handed down to us. The last strophe refers to
Prometheus, Atlas' brother, who was chained to a rock to have his liver perpetually pecked at for stealing fire from Zues and giving it to humans.
Poor Titans, you know, fightin' The Man on behalf of puny humans and look at the thanks they get!

#4. The pocess of condensing has begun. Working to capture maximum impression with the least amount of words. There is a militaristic and political edge to this--intimations of how our culture is built on the foundations of Greco-Roman culture and the European tradition, and how we've inherited the plagues as well as the blessings of empire-building. There is definitely an implication here that this is not and 'Enlightened Age', while holding out hope that it may yet become one. Also there's a faith in the power of the word.[could you fix the last Stanza for me? Line break after 'cliff]

#5.This is an example of Extreme Condensation (EC)in haiku form. In light of the previous pieces, and with the title, it should speak for itself. I don't think it succeeds particurly well as a poem on it's own though.

 

[KatPurrs]

WHOA!

Dear Ded Poet,
With that explanation I've come to find
your poems too cerebral for my little mind.
Wouldn't ya know it?

I've read to the point it's become a real project
and I still don't know, just what was the object?

*giggling, blushing, hiding*

Kat~

P.S. If it's not a lamp, just shoot me and put me out of my misery. (KM's a good shot) Thank you.