How original are you?

[Liar]

I scribbled this into the Passion thread, and thought it miight be a good topic for some poeterly discussion.

Intertextuality

Every nook and cranny
of this poem is a word
I sucked from someone
else's tongue. We spin
the same wheels over
and over, just tack on
shiny new rims in Pimp
My Poem style, but all
store bought glamour,
however fly that ice.
Every bell and whistle
sang the same old tune
before, in sonnets and
prose, juice ads and
newscasts, soaked into
grey matter. And still
we try to be inventors,
argonauts of concepts
never spoken of before,
or poets even, posing
smug before our scrap
yard assemblies like
parents to snowflakes.​

From wikipedia:
Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can refer to an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence”.

Ok, so what's my question to you, fellow poets?

Simply this: How original are you?

Do you go out of your way to find fresh metaphors or do you happily pick up a well used one if it hits the spot? Do you intentionally allude a lot, sneak in references, borrowed phrasing and already written ideas in your work? Or do they maybe seep into your poens without you realizing it until you actually read it afterwards?

Or do you not think about these kind of things at all when you write?

 

[The_Fool]

1. Some words/phrases are comfort food.
2. It's all been said, it's all been paraphrased.
3. The joy is to take something common and give it new meaning, new illumination.
4. How many different meanings can I give a set of words?
5. Why do I write? I always get stuck at "I write because..."

 

[Angeline]

I scribbled this into the Passion thread, and thought it miight be a good topic for some poeterly discussion.

Intertextuality

Every nook and cranny
of this poem is a word
I sucked from someone
else's tongue. We spin
the same wheels over
and over, just tack on
shiny new rims in Pimp
My Poem style, but all
store bought glamour,
however fly that ice.
Every bell and whistle
sang the same old tune
before, in sonnets and
prose, juice ads and
newscasts, soaked into
grey matter. And still
we try to be inventors,
argonauts of concepts
never spoken of before,
or poets even, posing
smug before our scrap
yard assemblies like
parents to snowflakes.​

From wikipedia:
Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can refer to an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence”.

Ok, so what's my question to you, fellow poets?

Simply this: How original are you?

Do you go out of your way to find fresh metaphors or do you happily pick up a well used one if it hits the spot? Do you intentionally allude a lot, sneak in references, borrowed phrasing and already written ideas in your work? Or do they maybe seep into your poens without you realizing it until you actually read it afterwards?

Or do you not think about these kind of things at all when you write?

I just wrote a sestina where I borrowed ideas/snuck in references from Yeats Sailing to Byzantium. I did it because I love the poem and the idea fit what I was writing about. I call that tribute. Anyway it's probably impossible to come up with some turn of phrase that hasn't been used somewhere, somehow in speech if not in writing.

Oh and King Lear. I had a King Lear reference in there, too.

 

[mojo_cat]

I don't know!

When I write poetry it kind of spills out, and then when I go back to edit I try to take out the doggerel and see what's left. If I like it, I arrange accordingly and maybe get an idea for a way to clear up my metaphor.
Other times, I get a scene or a picture in my mind and write a poem to explain the picture. Those I consider original because they're my own mind-pictures.

I also am shamefully influenced by Peter Gabriel and have written a novel, 5 poems, and a canticle (I don't include it in "poems" because it too more work than I ever thought I could do) about the various feelings and images that "Digging in the Dirt" conjured up for me. I can always go back to PG when I am feeling blah and some note or melody will conjure up a whole new batch of ideas. So I guess that is not very original, although I don't write about the song itself, just the vibes I get from hearing it.

So I guess not much!

 

[Liar]

Anyway it's probably impossible to come up with some turn of phrase that hasn't been used somewhere, somehow in speech if not in writing.

Uh-huh, somewhere, somehow by someone covers a lot of ground. if we limit that to written by someone famous in something your reader should know about, is the answer the same? Or are there still (reasonably) fresh angles to explore?



One day I'm gonna write a truly original poem. With all unique words. I'm gonna feel sooo artsy.

 

[champagne1982]

I am an unabashed cliché-ist who strives to make the surrounding metaphor or image so distinct that the old standby remains unnoticed in a first read. If it slips by the reader the first time, then I'm happy and consider the cliché as successfully integrated into the work.

Of course, I've written poems where you're supposed to notice the borrowed phrase, idea or theme. If you can pinpoint them in that case, I consider these successful as well.

Indifference

Like yesterday's bread,
best turned into toast,
taken with sweet, creamy coffee
and stirred with a silver spoon,
is a thought
best left unspoken
until tomorrow
then, taken with a grain of salt,
and seasoned with time's passage.

Ambivalence cannot be dropped
like Salome's seven veils,
instead it must be grabbed,
then shaken to wakefulness,
by the scruff of the neck.
So too, dislike;
like drops of water,
must fly off the hem,
of a quickly snapped towel.

Cry your tears of remorse,
bitter with regret
and dried in the heat of sorrow,
lamenting hasty hurt,
well deserved,
earned in those moments
of foolish insults
hurled, viciously, against
those deemed unworthy.

Dance the fool's dance,
your bell hat jingling
nonsense as your rhymes
spill off your lips,
thickened with drink
or slowed,
because your mouth is full of words
better left unspoken
and you've learned the painful lesson.

 

[Liar]

1. Some words/phrases are comfort food.

Good point. I have a bunch of phrases and modes of expression that keep popping up in my poems. I used to get annoyed by them, and tried to edit them out because I wanted to keep my poems original. But eventually I came to the conclustion that "this is how I roll" and decided to own it. IMO the quality of my writing took an immediate jump upwards after that.

 

[hmmnmm]

I think if something comes from your most you it can be considered original even if the ideas were covered or introduced or developed by another or even yourself.

I think the familiar and the new can mingle harmoniously, with no questions asked.

For instance: being a nicotine addict, I sometimes make an effort to cease or at least cut down. My latest strategy has been to keep the cigarettes in a shed that takes about twenty-eight steps to get to, so I have to get up, and go get one rather than unthinkingly reach for one. Now, the path I take to the shed is the same - the same route about fifteen times a day. BUT - the surrounding conditions are never the same: morning, afternoon, evening, midnight; clear skies, cloudy skies, muddy ground, snowy ground, birds in the bushes, birds in the trees; midday traffic, midnight quietude, and on and on...

 

[Angeline]

Uh-huh, somewhere, somehow by someone covers a lot of ground. if we limit that to written by someone famous in something your reader should know about, is the answer the same? Or are there still (reasonably) fresh angles to explore?



One day I'm gonna write a truly original poem. With all unique words. I'm gonna feel sooo artsy.

Yeah me too! And first I'm gonna make up my own language so all the words (if not the ideas) are unique! Of course no one but me will understand my poem at all but it's not a perfect world after all.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

These are excellent questions, ones we should be asking ourselves regularly as writers.

I do find that my idea of audience has shifted slightly, having found this particular group, and that it's a rather dangerous shift that I have had to keep an eye on. An audience with some classical education (i.e. Dead White English-Speaking Men and their Ideas) has an appeal for me because all that useless shit that I spent so much money to memorize suddenly has a certain validity that's hard to resist.

It will make him hot if I make a reference to Schopenhauer here, or use a complex set of metaphors about the physics of light and sound.

They will be so impressed with this allusion to Keats.

That's a very dangerous place for me to go as a writer, because if I start Dancing for Daddy that way I become too approval-oriented, too limited in scope, and I forget to honor my real audience. ("god", The Fat Lady, the polar bears at the zoo in San Diego, and shameless lovers in back alleys who will never actually read poetry).

As to originality in general, I have, as has been said already, "personal" cliches, images that I return to and explore repeatedly, and I also find myself strongly influenced by the images of others. However, once I've seen a metaphor or an image described in a particular way, I think of it as being off limits to me unless there's an acknowledged credit for it somehow.

There is nothing new, that is true. The only unique thing about anyone's writing is the fact that they are experiencing and describing it from inside a unique body and mind.

Of the two questions, "is it new?" and "does it do what it is supposed to do?" I find the latter the one that's more important to me. If one person in the world gets laid, or laughs, or cries, or thinks about something in a new way as a result of some piece of mine, that's a success, as far as I'm concerned.

Excellent topic.

bijou

 

[TheRainMan]

. . .
Simply this: How original are you?

i think originality is, above all else, the quality that can make a poem stand out, so i try to be as original as i can possibly be.

my success rate at it is spotty, i think.

Do you go out of your way to find fresh metaphors or do you happily pick up a well used one if it hits the spot?

Do you intentionally allude a lot, sneak in references, borrowed phrasing and already written ideas in your work? Or do they maybe seep into your poens without you realizing it until you actually read it afterwards?

yes, to all of those.

Or do you not think about these kind of things at all when you write?

i do think about them. i try to achieve 4 things in my writing, in this order of importance (i think):

1. originality of expression
2. clarity of expression
3. ease of expression
4. economy of expression.


thought-provoking thread, Liar. kudos.

 

[hmmnmm]

Sometimes I wish there was a way to do a monthly exercise in amnesia.
Everything always as new.

 

[wildsweetone]

Sometimes I wish there was a way to do a monthly exercise in amnesia.
Everything always as new.

take one blade of grass and write a minimum of ten lines containing something different about it each day for 31 days in a row.

(heck, i think even ten days in a row might work)

 

[hmmnmm]

take one blade of grass and write a minimum of ten lines containing something different about it each day for 31 days in a row.

(heck, i think even ten days in a row might work)

You know, come to think of it, I tried something along that idea back in the summer, except with an orange. Only made it for two days, but it was a really beneficial exercise - and if I'm not mistaken, you were an inspirational source. I thank you for the reminder (how about a fir cone instead?)
This could be a flipside to the originality question - meaning the near impossibility of duplicating one's strokes since none of us are the same as we were a moment ago, a moment that no longer exists, so each new moment is an original moment.

 

[wildsweetone]

You know, come to think of it, I tried something along that idea back in the summer, except with an orange. Only made it for two days, but it was a really beneficial exercise - and if I'm not mistaken, you were an inspirational source. I thank you for the reminder (how about a fir cone instead?)
This could be a flipside to the originality question - meaning the near impossibility of duplicating one's strokes since none of us are the same as we were a moment ago, a moment that no longer exists, so each new moment is an original moment.

you can use it any way you like... i.e. write a poem without using the same word twice.

it helps us get out of our ruts and to write past the cliche.

as for me and originality, i'm not original enough. not yet. but i will be. i intend working at it until i am.

 

[Liar]

as for me and originality, i'm not original enough. not yet. but i will be. i intend working at it until i am.

Ok. One more topic for pondering before I go to bed.

Why?

As in: what is the worth of originality? Does it have intrinsic value or is it a means to an end?

 

[wildsweetone]

Ok. One more topic for pondering before I go to bed.

Why?

As in: what is the worth of originality? Does it have intrinsic value or is it a means to an end?

for me it is a personal thing. i want to be able to say exactly what i need to say and the language that i currently have does not cover what i know needs to be said. nobody else in the whole world can say something with the same baggage that i can bring into what i am wanting to say with my writing. i want to be able to say it to the very best of my ability.

so, intrinsic value or means to an end? for me, both. purposely.


sleep well.

 

[Senna Jawa]

Google on horrizonm. You get nothing. Use it and you're original. It is enough to make a silly typo or two to be original. Often intentional originality, when it becomes a goal on its own, is that shallow and silly.

Originality has value only when it is profound, when it is based on deep insight. Originality is just a bonus of deep insight (when you see what others don't, and it counts). Originality is a side effect.

Some of the truly musical people still are unable to create a new tune. Only known tunes come to their mind. Thus originality is not a simple issue. Possibly, when you are fortunate to have certain abilities, then you pay for them by not having originality. And the opposite, as a part of the package, originality comes with certain pain, with discomforts.

My advice is: don't try to be original (you'll end up with cheap stuff). Be authentic! Don't try to get something for nothing. Pay! (It's hard but unavoidable).

I mean profound originality, as opposed to being weird (or stupid ).

 

[Tzara]

Simply this: How original are you?

Not very.

Do you go out of your way to find fresh metaphors or do you happily pick up a well used one if it hits the spot?

Well, I try to be original, of course. Does someone confess to working at being unoriginal? If so, my blessings to them. Honesty is always the best, you know...

Do you intentionally allude a lot, sneak in references, borrowed phrasing and already written ideas in your work?

Uh, yeah. I do. Sorry.

Or do they maybe seep into your poens without you realizing it until you actually read it afterwards?

Maybe. I wish I could write poens. Much easier than, you know.

Or do you not think about these kind of things at all when you write?

God. Finally a question I can like answer straightforwardly, like. Writing is play for me. I've said this before.

I write because it is fun. I want to write well, make art, all that artsy stuff, but I write because I enjoy it.

Hey. I'm almost retired. I need something to do.

 

[hmmnmm]

I recall a local band in a place I once lived, who performed a cover of a Carpenter's song (I can almost but not quite remember the title - it's quite well-known). The band's sound was clangy and noisy and punkish and acid, loose and bitchy. However, they also had an incredibly gifted vocalist who could go from the most gutteral gravel to the clearest soaring highs with no noticable effort.
She sang in such a way in front of a noisy clangy version of an old carpenters song and I still remember it - I can still hear it, I can still bring it up from my memory and listen to it. I still remember the rash of chills that poured down my spine - and this was a three minute span of time back in 1990. This was an oddity for them because they played mostly their own material, which was quite good, but I don't remember their songs like I remember their cover of that Carpenter's song.
Of course, it was a risk for them to try such an original idea...
Don't know why that particular moment comes to mind - maybe it does or doesn't apply to the topic.

 

[Tzara]

I recall a local band in a place I once lived, who performed a cover of a Carpenter's song (I can almost but not quite remember the title - it's quite well-known).

This is a common problem with Carpenters' songs: I can almost but not quite remember....

Don't worry about it.

 

[Tzara]

Google on horrizonm. You get nothing. Use it and you're original. It is enough to make a silly typo or two to be original. Often intentional originality, when it becomes a goal on its own, is that shallow and silly.

Originality has value only when it is profound, when it is based on deep insight. Originality is just a bonus of deep insight (when you see what others don't, and it counts). Originality is a side effect.

Some of the truly musical people still are unable to create a new tune. Only known tunes come to their mind. Thus originality is not a simple issue. Possibly, when you are fortunate to have certain abilities, then you pay for them by not having originality. And the opposite, as a part of the package, originality comes with certain pain, with discomforts.

My advice is: don't try to be original (you'll end up with cheap stuff). Be authentic! Don't try to get something for nothing. Pay! (It's hard but unavoidable).

I mean profound originality, as opposed to being weird (or stupid ).

Thank you, SJ. You so much make sense, oft times.

Well, perhaps usually. But I don't want you to have a swelled head. Or neck. That would be unseemly, and make buying shirts a problem. (What do you mean, you don't carry size 45-34?!)

 

[hmmnmm]

This is a common problem with Carpenters' songs: I can almost but not quite remember....

Don't worry about it.

but the melody gets stuck in your head. I can sort of hum the chorus, not necessarily because I want to

 

[Senna Jawa]

Ok, so what's my question to you, fellow poets?

Simply this: How original are you?

Do you go out of your way to find fresh metaphors or do you happily pick up a well used one if it hits the spot? Do you intentionally allude a lot, sneak in references, borrowed phrasing and already written ideas in your work? Or do they maybe seep into your poens without you realizing it until you actually read it afterwards?

Or do you not think about these kind of things at all when you write?

Liar, you questions, "how original are you?" and the rest, induce the audience to think and talk about themselves ( "I am this... but I am not that, I am almost..., I..., I..., I...."). We had many threads on this forum about "I this..., I that..., I usually..., I always..., when I was not experienced..., but now I know...". (Even one such thread is one too many).

Thus this time let's modify your request. Let the audience present (specific) examples from their (or of anybody) poems of their (or of anybody) originality. That's all we need on a poetic forum.

Regards,

 

[Senna Jawa]

no contradiction

There is no conflict between originality and relating to the art of the past or of the peers. Including elements of the work of others (in a clear way, with giving them the whole credit) is a way to honor others. One may play on the "to be or not to be" phrase, or on "I think hence I am", etc. One may also adopt certain artistic devices of others in a creative way. It's possible to do all these things and still be highly original.

Consider my post to be just a formal point.