Anti Poetry

[bogusagain]

I've always been interested in anti-art and have often wondered if there is a poetry equivalent. I've ofen tried writing what I consider anti-poetry, I find it far more interesting than just poetry. Well, it's amazing what you find if you google and there is a wiki page on anti-poetry, which is not exactly what I had in mind but knowing poets have thought about it, maybe there is a lot more ideas to find.

My own thoughts about anti-poetry have been the idea of destroying the aesthetic through unpoetic notions, disruptions in rhymes and rhythmes, awkward grammar to kill sentiment and induce an alienation we find in our urban landscapes. If poetry is to be relevant, surely it has to evoke the contemporary experience, not placate and anaethetize it with soothing somnambulant notions.

Anyway, I just wrote an anti-poem and I thought this thread could be used for experiments in anti-poetry if anyone is interested.

the wall

from the balcony where I now live
I can see the convent
where a group of pensioners are standing
chatting before prayer
but I am not interested in them
I'm interested in the wall against which they are standing
for that is where Ulrika who I met today
after so many intervening years
and who is now prim and proper
an upstanding member of the community
spent much of her sluttish teenage years
propped up by its support
as she accommodated yobbish youth
I am listing the boys in my head
who learnt so much about female anatomy
from Ulrika's need for popularity
a parody of Churchill springs to mind
"Never before in history of mankind
has one woman lost her virginity
so many times for the good of so many men"
our local Messalina was lust divine
but I simply knew her as Ulrika
and the wall was just something which I pissed against!

 

[Angeline]

Does this count?

 

[bronzeage]

Sorry.

Both are quite poetic. If one truly wants to explore anti-poetry, they must turn to works such as this:






The unspoken haiku, which consists of three lines of no syllables. The goal of unspoken haiku is to release the imagery caught in the spaces between the words.

A lighter form is this:





the unspoken limerick. The unspoken limerick maybe an anti-poem, but few anti-poets are able to finish one without working it into some clever lack of word play or pun.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

I think some of the submissions have got there before you miaowwww

 

[Angeline]

Sorry.

Both are quite poetic. If one truly wants to explore anti-poetry, they must turn to works such as this:






The unspoken haiku, which consists of three lines of no syllables. The goal of unspoken haiku is to release the imagery caught in the spaces between the words.

A lighter form is this:





the unspoken limerick. The unspoken limerick maybe an anti-poem, but few anti-poets are able to finish one without working it into some clever lack of word play or pun.

Do you hear me unlaughing?

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

There once was an old anti-poet
Who said "this ain't art and you know it
I tried going anti
to get in your panty
but wouldn't you guess that I'd blow it?"​

OUCH!​

 

[Palba_Noruda]

I've always been interested in anti-art and have often wondered if there is a poetry equivalent. I've ofen tried writing what I consider anti-poetry, I find it far more interesting than just poetry. Well, it's amazing what you find if you google and there is a wiki page on anti-poetry, which is not exactly what I had in mind but knowing poets have thought about it, maybe there is a lot more ideas to find.

My own thoughts about anti-poetry have been the idea of destroying the aesthetic through unpoetic notions, disruptions in rhymes and rhythmes, awkward grammar to kill sentiment and induce an alienation we find in our urban landscapes. If poetry is to be relevant, surely it has to evoke the contemporary experience, not placate and anaethetize it with soothing somnambulant notions.

Interesting idea. What do you mean by unpoetic notions?

"awkward grammar to kill sentiment and induce an alienation we find in our urban landscapes"

I guess writing in this way would run the risk of being hard to read. I think if you're going to challenge the reader, it should be done with the implications of the poem, not by giving them an ungrammatical poem.

the wall

from the balcony where I now live
I can see the convent
where a group of pensioners are standing
chatting before prayer
but I am not interested in them
I'm interested in the wall against which they are standing
for that is where Ulrika who I met today
after so many intervening years
and who is now prim and proper
an upstanding member of the community
spent much of her sluttish teenage years
propped up by its support
as she accommodated yobbish youth
I am listing the boys in my head
who learnt so much about female anatomy
from Ulrika's need for popularity
a parody of Churchill springs to mind
"Never before in history of mankind
has one woman lost her virginity
so many times for the good of so many men"
our local Messalina was lust divine
but I simply knew her as Ulrika
and the wall was just something which I pissed against!

I like this poem. I'm not sure why it would be an anti-poem. It's not particularly ungrammatical. Is it because of the subject matter?

 

[HarryHill]

Even sorrier

Sorry.

Both are quite poetic. If one truly wants to explore anti-poetry, they must turn to works such as this:






The unspoken haiku, which consists of three lines of no syllables. The goal of unspoken haiku is to release the imagery caught in the spaces between the words.

A lighter form is this:





the unspoken limerick. The unspoken limerick maybe an anti-poem, but few anti-poets are able to finish one without working it into some clever lack of word play or pun.

Two fine examples of your work. I especially like how you said something while saying nothing.

 

[twelveoone]

I've always been interested in anti-art and have often wondered if there is a poetry equivalent. I've ofen tried writing what I consider anti-poetry, I find it far more interesting than just poetry. Well, it's amazing what you find if you google and there is a wiki page on anti-poetry, which is not exactly what I had in mind but knowing poets have thought about it, maybe there is a lot more ideas to find.

My own thoughts about anti-poetry have been the idea of destroying the aesthetic through unpoetic notions, disruptions in rhymes and rhythmes, awkward grammar to kill sentiment and induce an alienation we find in our urban landscapes. If poetry is to be relevant, surely it has to evoke the contemporary experience, not placate and anaethetize it with soothing somnambulant notions.

Anyway, I just wrote an anti-poem and I thought this thread could be used for experiments in anti-poetry if anyone is interested.

the wall

from the balcony where I now live
I can see the convent
where a group of pensioners are standing
chatting before prayer
but I am not interested in them
I'm interested in the wall against which they are standing
for that is where Ulrika who I met today
after so many intervening years
and who is now prim and proper
an upstanding member of the community
spent much of her sluttish teenage years
propped up by its support
as she accommodated yobbish youth
I am listing the boys in my head
who learnt so much about female anatomy
from Ulrika's need for popularity
a parody of Churchill springs to mind
"Never before in history of mankind
has one woman lost her virginity
so many times for the good of so many men"
our local Messalina was lust divine
but I simply knew her as Ulrika
and the wall was just something which I pissed against!

do you want my anti-fans?

"Me retracto de todo lo dicho"
("I take back everything I said") - Parra

Dee


Interesting example from Wikipedia
Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare "My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head ... And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare."

my advice keep your back to the wind when you piss, but never stand in front someone doing the same.

and make it anti-new

but if you are really interested

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_cancellation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_%28molecular_biology%29

both can be applied to language because of the fact that simple words have at least 2 spins, normal and ironic. the problem is the reader tends to the normal and must be pushed by misdirection. this is rare in a linear fashion, although both greenmountaineer and fridayam have do so, "screw" the grammar or double the irony; rather more common in non linear, most common in comedy, but here annaswirls, WickedEve and of course, your humble servant.

of course this can all be explained away by the word "popular" -right

yours functions primarily because of dissonance and contrast

and the things in your definitions have been done as SOP for years in GASP (generally acceptable standardized poetry)
disruptions in rhymes:
Lord Fucking Almighty Byron
Wilfred Owen

and ee cummings pretty much qualifies across the board

but yeh, I'm all for it. Lead on, although I see the irony in that Mr. Red and Black.
And will be happy to point out that it is often sentiment that kills poetry, so your proposal is not so anti after all.

To end on a question, are there enough colons in my prose, or is it bit colon-shy?

 

[twelveoone]

well I guess I killed that thread.

 

[HarryHill]

well I guess I killed that thread.

..
before a battle, first gather ammunition.

 

[twelveoone]

..
before a battle, first gather ammunition.

Harry Hill
Literotica Guru
twelveoone
ground zero
before a battle, know the terrain, I think some chinese guy said that

 

[HarryHill]

Harry Hill
Literotica Guru
twelveoone
ground zero
before a battle, know the terrain, I think some chinese guy said that

..
Hey, I'm a defender; All I have to do is sit behind these walls and lob mortars. I'm also wondering which side of the wall you're on; or, just enjoy the carnage. There's fodder.
..
Release the dragon softly
there's talk of insurrection
sparked by the anti-factions
thus: the Poetry Wars
..
Duck/Duck/Mortar

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Having read the Wiki article bogus supplied it seems to me it's the choice of subject and the way it is described, the words chosen, that puts the anti into the poem.

Haven't we all written an anti-poem? I challenge all poet herein to find their own anti poem.

 

[HarryHill]

Having read the Wiki article bogus supplied it seems to me it's the choice of subject and the way it is described, the words chosen, that puts the anti into the poem.

Haven't we all written an anti-poem? I challenge all poet herein to find their own anti poem.

..

&antipoem.

No​

 

[Angeline]

Having read the Wiki article bogus supplied it seems to me it's the choice of subject and the way it is described, the words chosen, that puts the anti into the poem.

Haven't we all written an anti-poem? I challenge all poet herein to find their own anti poem.

Mine is in the thread already.

I don't get all the label stuff, prose poetry, anti poetry, though I suppose if one is going to identify as writing a sonnet, why not a prose or anti poem? I'm just not sure I understand why a lack of sentiment (or standard grammar, etc.) necessarily makes for better poems. Overall, doesn't personal preference define what makes a poem better? Maybe I had a shitty day at work and now that I'm home what I really want to read about is some poet standing on a pavement dreaming about a lake where he finds peace. Why is that a bad thing?

I am all for breaking rules and trampling all over them if it produces a good poem, as it did in Bogus' example. I am not ready to buy into any label lock, stock and barrel though. I once was at a reading where two poets faced each other and one said A and the other said B, over and over like a ping-pong match. It was avant garde and performance artsy but, to me, not poetic in the least.

 

[bogusagain]

well I guess I killed that thread.

Not yet. It's just that we are in the middle of a heat wave here, with the odd torrential downfall. It's just too hot to spend much time on the computer but I've been doing a little reading up and discussing anti-poetry over a beer.

The idea of anti-poetry sprung to mind because the concept of anti-art has been around in the visual arts for over 100 years now. It just struck me poetry/literature must have a similar concept.

Now most European languages seem to have the concept anti-poetry, particularly Latin American Spanish. The idea took a strong hold in Chile where the idea was to publicise socio-policial concerns with metaphor but using irony, parody and colloquial language. One of the points it seems was to dump literary affections.

As for English, there was a significant movement in the UK in the 60s as a movement to popularise poetry, politicize it and reconnect it with the public. Adrian Mitchell was one such poet, though he never described himself as such but to quote him "Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.' He and pop poets/dadaists, sold poetry books in the thousand when top academic poets could only sell a hundred or two hundred books.

Still researching because anti-poetry appears to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. However, according to some definitions, I've been writing anti-poetry for quite awhike because this fits many definitions.


surgery

choose a politician, any politician
one you know who has lied (easy huh?)
you could use an ex-lover
if you are sadistically inclined
for the sake of this demonstration, this is one of mine
yes, she is a little apprehensive
a little anxious about the unknown
but she need not be alarmed
this doesn't have to be a bloody affair

what better than to assemble
the nuts and bolts of their lies
than into an apparatus to cause them pain
a clamp gripping their tongue, drawn through jaws
braced against their mouth like pulley tackle
elongating the slither of meat into the snake it is
a junket of contagion, diseased with deceit

the offending organ stretched in the assemblage
is in an ideal position to make a precision cut
so take a scalpel and make an incision
not too deep but enough to relieve the pressure of pus
(it’s best to hold your breath at this point)
with the infection released make the decisive cut
letting the stump of the tongue twang back
and lodge firmly in the throat

let them choke a little on their lies
before resetting the assemblage with half truths
fitted with a pliers accessory
grab the remnants of word muscle and unblock the air way
allow the patient a little recovery time
then holding the stump in position
take a needle tempered with pointed truth
thread with a twine of honesty
proceed to apply the sutures to the open wound

this remedial action cannot guarantee
a patient free of risk from further infection
so reconstruct the apparatus into a vice
placing one jaw under the chin and the other on the crown
tighten slightly until you hear the gnashing of teeth
checking the subject’s jaw is free from movement
before tightening until you hear teeth crumbling
then leave the patient to suffer in silence

 

[darkerdreamer]

I'm a huge fan of antipoems. I spent a fair amount of time with form poetry, trying to find something that feels right for me, but came up lacking. Eventually I decided to toss form out 95% of the time and just get words on a page that doesn't immediately get thrown in the trash. This approach has led to the garbage I regularly produce, but it at least keeps me interested and happy. Not to say I don't dabble in conventional poetic devices, but I find more pleasure when I don't worry about them, regardless of how good or bad the outcome is.

That's the ultimate point, right? Poets don't do it to make money, don't do it to be famous. We do it because we have no choice, it scratches an itch worse than chicken pox. I have been ashamed of my writing for nearly a decade, but not nearly as much as I was when I tried to make the definition of a poem match with what scratched me right.

 

[twelveoone]

Not yet.

good,
I was beginning to think it was either my overwhelming intelligence or my unbearable personality.

let the carnage continue

reading with interest, and speaking thereof, it was probably you that pointed me in the Latin American direction. What, nine years ago?

 

[rotsak]

good,

reading with interest, and speaking thereof, it was probably you that pointed me in the Latin American direction. What, nine years ago?

It could have well have been, I was really into Latin American poetry around that time. I think I can remember mentioning Ernesto Cardenal to you. How's that for a memory!

 

[twelveoone]

It could have well have been, I was really into Latin American poetry around that time. I think I can remember mentioning Ernesto Cardenal to you. How's that for a memory!

rotsak? think about the play in that if you add 47 at the end.

Anyway there is a problem with anti-poetry in that if you can't define poetry except to your own personal satisfaction, how will the prefix anti function as a label, by extrapolation, WTF would anti-prose poetry be?

Question withdraw. Prosecution is just stirring shit.

 

[twelveoone]

the prince of hell awaits me
chamber pot on his head
oh, a caldron, excuse me
but who is he to fuck with
half fish half duck out of water
the one who holds the script

to the left and on the bottom_
Damn you, bog, I'm in it


half fish half duck out of water -looks like a cliche, is it? rising from the pond. (so alone... and probably cold, too)

 

[bogusagain]

It could have well have been, I was really into Latin American poetry around that time. I think I can remember mentioning Ernesto Cardenal to you. How's that for a memory!

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?????????????????????????????????????????????

 

[bogusagain]

the prince of hell awaits me
chamber pot on his head
oh, a caldron, excuse me
but who is he to fuck with
half fish half duck out of water
the one who holds the script

to the left and on the bottom_
Damn you, bog, I'm in it


half fish half duck out of water -looks like a cliche, is it? rising from the pond. (so alone... and probably cold, too)

I thought we had decided that was Bosch?

 

[twelveoone]

I thought we had decided that was Bosch?

you where right, you would not see it as a cliche, so of the rest is anon bait
who or what is this rotsak?
assumed it was you, as it was that you mentioned Ernesto Cardenal