New ways to look at poetry

[karmadog]

Several months ago, in the Atlantic, there was an article describing a technique for analyzing poetry called 'N + 7'. Since I am karmadog and not Senna Jawa, I present it strictly for your amusement.

The idea is this: Find a noun in your favorite poem and replace it with the noun that falls seven places later in the dictionary.

Do not go gentle into that good nimbus

Do not go gentle into that good nimbus,
Old agent should burn and rave at close of deacon;
Rage, rage against the dying of the ligula.

Though wise menarche at their end know darter is right,
Because their worldbeaters had forked no ligule they
Do not go gentle into that good nimbus.

Good menarche, the last waxweed by, crying how bright
Their frail defaults might have danced in a green bazooka,
Rage, rage against the dying of the ligula.

Wild menarche who caught and sang the supercargo in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good nimbus.

Grave menarche, near debility, who see with blinding sight
Blind fabrications could blaze like methanes and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the ligula.

And you, my faucet, there on the sad helianthus,
Curve, blinker, me now with your fierce teats, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good nimbus.
Rage, rage against the dying of the ligula.

You can count seven and then look for the next noun that fits the rhyme scheme if you like, but I was too lazy. I skipped words that were variations on the original word--if the word was sun, then sunlight, sundogs, etc. were skipped over. I skipped phrases also, and proper names.

I think the idea of the exercise was to see if the poem still seemed good even though the meaning had been smacked around. I just think it's fun.

For God's sake, curve and blinker me with your fierce teats!!!

 

[WickedEve]

I'm sure your mother told you not to play with your food, but obviously she didn't tell you not to play with your poetry. What's next? Turning a poem upside down and smacking its ass? Sure, the poem may be into that sort of thing, but should you do it?

 

[karmadog]

Yes, yes I should. This wasn't my idea, it was some famous (amongst intellectuals, whom he pissed off by getting playful with classics. My kind a guy) dude. Apparently, he presented this method as a paper to a gathering of poetic types. They were scandalised. How can that not be a good thing?

 

[HomerPindar]

Absolutely!

Yes, yes I should. This wasn't my idea, it was some famous (amongst intellectuals, whom he pissed off by getting playful with classics. My kind a guy) dude. Apparently, he presented this method as a paper to a gathering of poetic types. They were scandalised. How can that not be a good thing?

Yield, yield I should. This wasn't my idiocy, it was some famous (amongst intended, whom he pissed off by getting playful with claustrophobia. My kind of gyp) duet. Apparently, he presented this metronome as a par to a gathering of poetic typhus....

Anything that makes me examine how words are used is good by me.

I had actually considered starting a thread on what I saw as two aspects of poetry. The first was in the sounds and images of the words, elements usually associated with the music of the langauge, their sounds and how they can be made to work with, or against, each other.

The second questions the meaning of words, how they are used in context, or how words can have various meanings, or relate to similar words.

Obviously, poetry can and does do both of these at one time. This sort of silliness is a push towards the later rather than the former style of poetry.

another point is how un-erotic the later form is compared to the former

HomerPindar

 

[OT]

I'm torn when I see things like this.

On the one hand, I'm fascinated by words and how they are (or can be) arranged.

It ought not matter whether they were arranged by computer, a process or a person.
Cool is cool, right?

On the other hand, it matters. There are many poems on this site that defy understanding. I enjoy some of them because I marvel at the mind that created them. I wonder what they were thinking when they penned the prose. Even if I fail to understand, there is further marveling to be had along the vein of "why would anyone post <insert bazaar prose here>".
Endless entertainment.

If it was a process/program that posted it, I'm left only to marvel at the program.

Maybe there's a reasonable analogy in magic.

I think there are three phases of magic appreciation.

Level one is when you believe. It's really must be magic. wow.

Level two, is when you find out it's an illusion; Just a trick...
Many lose interest here. Especially the cynical. He who has the most bucks can buy the best tricks. If a program produces cool poety, a poet could become discouraged here. <sigh> ... another profession replaced by a computer.

Level three is when you appreciate the trick maker and/or the performer.
Even if you know exactly how a trick is done, you can marvel at the execution. Something akin to art or sport.

OK, so back to poetry.
It's interesting to play with processes such as this. If it produces something profound, then poets should do two things:

1. Appreciate the process
2. If the process does in fact produce something profound or interesting, rise to the challenge and produce something unique that cannot be reproduced by an automaton.

 

[Angeline]

Your Himalayas have their silence .....

Kdog? I like you alot, you know? You are a sweetheart and a talented writer. I must like you. Know why? I'm about to totally bastardize a poem I really love for the sake of this exercise.

First, in all its lovely originality the poem "Your Eyes Have Their Silence" by Gerald William Barrax.

Your eyes have their silence in giving words
back more beautifully than trees can rain
and give back in swaying the rain
that makes silence mutable and startles nesting birds.

And so it rains. And so I speak or not
as your eyes go from silence suddenly
at love to wonder (as those quiet birds suddenly
at rain) letting, finally, myself be taught

silence before your eyes conceding everything
spoken as experience, as love, as reason
enough not to speak of them and my reason
crawls into the silence of your eyes. Spring

always promises something, sometimes only more
beauty: and so it rains. And so I take
whatever promise there is in silence as you take
words as rain and give them back in silence before

there are ways to say that more beauty is nothing
for you before my hands can memorize
the beauty of your slender movements and nothing
is beautiful as words nesting in your eyes.

Isn't that a lovely poem? I tell you that poem makes me sigh. So.
Let's wreck it. Now the twist on this is that my dictionary is missing (I have two children; ergo, everything is missing). Therefore, I am using an online random word generator to find replacement nouns.

http://www.brainstorming.co.uk/tutorials/randomwordtutorial.html

Here we go.

Your Himalayas have their silence in giving composers
back more beautifully than arks can rain
and give back in swaying the ammunition
that makes silence mutable and startles nesting roadblocks.

And so it rains. And so I speak or not
as your monuments go from silence suddenly
at love to luggage (as those quiet flags suddenly
at secretaries) letting, finally, myself be taught

sculpture before your photographs conceding everything
spoken as ants, as moustaches, as serviettes
enough not to speak of them and my reason
crawls into the silence of your dressmaker. Spring

always promises something, sometimes only more
powder: and so it rains. And so I take
whatever promise there is in ladders as you take
words as runways and give them back in silence before

there are ways to say that more washbasins are nothing
for you before my taxis can memorize
the beauty of your slender owls and nothing
is beautiful as puppets nesting in your sawdust


Never forget that kdog. Nothing
is beautiful as puppets nesting in your sawdust.

 

[karmadog]

Yeah, but what's the point, k-dog

Ok, clearly I need to explain the point of this exercise. True, for me it's mostly just fun, but there actually is a valid point to it.

What this exercise generally results in is nonsense. I enjoy nonsense, so that's enough for me, but look in particular at Angeline's example. The poem she gave us was absolutely lovely, but why is it lovely? Is it because the sentiment is so touching? Yes, that's part of it, but is there more to it than that? Lover's eyes and rain and nesting birds all have associatins that can keep us from wondering about the structure of a poem.

Think for a moment of 'Jabberwocky'. It's impossible to know just what he's talking about. What are slithy toves? A wabe? WE don't know, yet we know that it's a good thing to be brillig. And the poem is beautiful.

It's beautiful because it sounds beautiful. The structure makes it beautiful. Not the meaning and certainly not pre-existing associations we have with certain words.

The idea behind the exercise is simply another method to find out if a poem is beautiful. In theory, a well built poem will survive this kind of 'mucking about' though it will have little 'meaning'. This is particularly useful when reexaming classics. Sometimes, we will like something just because we've been told over and over that we should. There's no shame in that. We are pack animals and a certain amount of agreement greases the tribes wheels. But it may be important to know whether we are thinking for ourselves or letting the pack think for us.

I fucked up Dylan Thomas' poem by not following his rhyme scheme, had I done so, I believe it still would have been powerful.

 

[karmadog]

Oh, and, Ange? I bet OT would know about puppets nesting in sawdust.

 

[Angeline]

The idea behind the exercise is simply another method to find out if a poem is beautiful. In theory, a well built poem will survive this kind of 'mucking about' though it will have little 'meaning'. This is particularly useful when reexaming classics. Sometimes, we will like something just because we've been told over and over that we should.

Yes. It is mostly for fun like Mad Libs, but it also says something about the ways in which we can experience art. Art is totally subjective in my opinion. I think that Mapplethorpe Jesus in piss painting is disgusting (and I'm a pretty darn sacreligious person), but if somebody else thinks it's more beautiful or meaningful or whatever than the Pieta, I think it's good that a piece of art can give that to someone. I'm happy that anybody can be touched by
art. That's a good thing and one of the great gifts of being human--deriving pleasure from experiencing art. I am the Walrus is a great song and not just because the music sounds good, but because Lennon so cleverly constructed that nonsense.

And there is a linguistic underpinning to all this. Noam Chomsky, the father of transformational grammar, posits that the rules of linguistic structure allow one to create language that while without meaning is syntactically correct. His most famous example is the following:

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Goldang I love that sentence! Every word contradicts the one next to it and yet it's perfectly correct. And what's more, I think many people would argue that it's poetic.

Um. That was your point Kdog? Or should I quietly slink from the thread?

And OT, given what we saw of Rybka's computer-constructed poem, I don't think computer poets are going to be giving people poets a run for their money anytime soon.

 

[Rybka]

Re: Yeah, but what's the point, k-dog

Think for a moment of 'Jabberwocky'. It's impossible to know just what he's talking about. What are slithy toves? A wabe? WE don't know, yet we know that it's a good thing to be brillig. And the poem is beautiful.

You should read an annotated version. Everything is explained. L. Carroll had a special language shared with the children he told these stories to.
A "wabe" is the grassy area around a sundial in a garden.
"Brilling" means "tea-time", generally 4 pm.

As Humpty Dumpty explained:

.... [pp. 126-29] "You seem very clever at explaining words,
Sir," said Alice. "Would you kindly tell me the
meaning of the poem called `Jabberwocky'?"

"Let's hear it," said Humpty Dumpty. "I
can explain all the poems that ever were in_
vented -- and a good many that haven't been
invented just yet."

This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated
the first verse:

"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."

"That's enough to begin with," Humpty
Dumpty interrupted; "there are plenty of hard
words there. `Brillig' means four o'clock in the
afternoon -- the time when you begin broiling
things for dinner."

"That'll do very well," said Alice; "and
`slithy'?"

"Well, `slithy' means `lithe and slimy.'
`Lithe' is the same as `active.' You see it's
like a portmanteau -- there are two meanings
packed up into one word."

"I see it now," Alice remarked thoughtfully:
"and what are `toves'?"

"Well, `toves' are something like badgers --
they're something like lizards -- and they're
something like corkscrews."

"They must be very curious-looking creatures."

"They are that," said Humpty Dumpty:
"also they make their nests under sun-dials --
also they live on cheese."

"And what's to `gyre' and to `gimble'?"

"To `gyre' is to go round and round like
a gyroscope. To `gimble' is to make holes like
a gimlet."

"And `the wabe' is the grass-plot round a
sundial, I suppose?" said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

"Of course it is. It's called `wabe,' you
know, because it goes a long way before it,
and a long way behind it -- --"

"And a long way beyond it on each side,"
added Alice.

"Exactly so. Well, then, `mimsy' is `flimsy and miser_
able' (there's another portmanteau for
you). And a borogove is a thin, shabby-looking
bird with its feathers sticking out all round --
something like a live mop."

"And then `mome raths'?" said Alice.
"I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble."

"Well, a `rath' is a sort of green pig: but
`mome' I'm not certain about. I think it's
short for `from home' -- meaning that they'd
lost their way, you know."

"And what does `outgrabe' mean?"

"Well, `outgribing' is something between
bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze
in the middle: however, you'll hear it done
maybe -- down in the wood yonder -- and
when you've once heard it you'll be quite
content. Who's been repeating all that hard
stuff to you?"

Regards,                       Rybka

 

[OT]

good poetry

1. meter matters
2. sound matters
3. meaning matters.

I think the exercise reenforces number two and three.
Using a word "close by" in the dictionary preserves more of the original sound than a randomly picked replacement. Replacing only nouns preserves some of the meaning , since good poems are about "things", replacing the thing, whilst preserving the description forces you to focus on the descriptive aspects.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
I agree, that has a certain pleasant "ring" to it. (and thus be poetry) On the surface this kind of poetry may contradict number three. It's almost jabberwockish. But then, something so self contradicting and meaningless -- must mean something, right?

I can imaging writing a program to pick "opposite" words that would create interesting lines such as "colorless green...". But that brings me back to what I was babbling about earlier.

The essence of a good poem is the ponder-part.

To the extent that interesting can make me ponder; programmed poetry serves a purpose. But the real ponder part is the human aspect. A good portion of the pleasure comes from attempting to understand the poet.

Sounds are fun too.
Yabba Dabba Dooooooooooooo