Poetry or Doggerel?

[oggbashan]

I have posted a couple of poems, most recently this one:

The Garderobe

but my fifty word items are not poetry, that was the only way I could get them posted in Literotica.

Am I writing 'poetry' or doggerel? What is the difference? Rhyming couplets appear in pensioners' magazines as poetry yet have as much (or as little) literary merit as The Garderobe.

So is it poetry? If not, what is it?

Over to the experts in this board.

Comments, criticism and even abuse gratefully received.

Og

PS. If the subject matter offends, look at the form not the function.

PPS. A garderobe is a private toilet built into a castle wall; a medieval en-suite for the upper classes.

 

[oggbashan]

Instead of a link...

Here is the full text in all its glory?


The Garderobe
by oggbashan ©
Invocation

Apollo strum your heavenly lyre
Send me some inspiring fire
Or better still the Muses nine
So that my poetry will rhyme.

But if you cannot spare the lot
I’ll make do with what you’ve got.
I rather not have Terpsichore
She needs a clear dance floor.

Erato would be really handy,
Her I’d buy a box of candy.
You can keep the other eight
Because my readers won’t wait.

If you won’t send the nine,
I’ll just lie and cry and whine.
…
…

You’ll grant my plea?
O praises be, now we’ll see
To what depths I can sink
In this chronicle of stink.

The Noble Garderobe

Garderobe of thee I sing;
Muses help my song to wing,
Flying from this wooden seat
Readers’ ears t’assoil or treat.

This garderobe displayed to view
Was built for the privileged few;
Not for folk like you and me,
Nor the jealous bourgeoisie.

To build one it is vital
To own both lands and title.
If you are a common chap
Use somewhere else to crap.

Retainers, both the short and tall
Do it in the corners of the hall.
To outside staff the hall is barred
They have to do it in the yard.

This song is all about the turd
You might think it quite absurd
But poets have to do their thing
And mine is crap. That I sing.

Watch it slither and slide
That helter-skelter ride
To land with a plop
At the end of the drop.

It adds to the heap
That never doth sleep
Watch it turn into ooze
The smell you can’t lose.

The flies and the stench
Help repel the French
Who’ll cross the Channel
To try their old flannel

On any girl who’d
Enjoy their ways rude.
She’ll say “Oui, maybe”
Then drench them with pee.

The smell we’ve endured
The French it deterred
We know that it works
No Frenchie here lurks.

The pile is immense
Last line of defence:
The French were last here?
T’was six hundred year.

But never mind, old chap,
I’ll just have a crap.
It kept off the Kaiser
He’s sadder and wiser.

As for that Hitler
Scared off by our shitter.
Now there’s the Euro –
Shit’ll keep our pound pure, O.

Crap and tell the story
Of England’s last glory.
We’ll keep our land virgin
By garderobes with turds in.

Now heaven forfend
Seems I’ve got to the end
To Apollo the paean:
Thanks, Muses, for peeing.

 

[Senna Jawa]

an exaggeratingly mild answer to your question:

        doggerel.


Regards,

 

[Icingsugar]

Missed this thread. Thx for bumping it up.

...............

I had to go look up the word Doggerel first...

Rhyming couplets can indeed be poetry. As well as a double inversed terzanelle can be doggerel.

Ask yourself, Og: What was your intention and ambition?

To write a piece of seriously intended poerty? (even humorous pieces apply, it's the ambition, not the content I'm talking about) Or just a hack, that was not done with your best efforts applied?

Reading this makes me think that it was submitted as just a gag. And then it's doggerel in my book.

It it wasn't a gag and you really poured your soul out into that poem, then you have a very interresting soul indeed, friend.

/Ice

 

[Senna Jawa]

Reading this makes me think that it was submitted as just a gag. And then it's doggerel in my book.

It it wasn't a gag and you really poured your soul out into that poem, then you have a very interresting soul indeed, friend.

/Ice

Ice, a poem is a poem. It doesn't matter whether it comes from the soul or from the left elbow. Only the text is what counts. (And if I comment about a poem I don't care neither about the author's soul nor about her/his elbow; her elbow and her poem are two separate things).

 

[oggbashan]

Ice, a poem is a poem. It doesn't matter whether it comes from the soul or from the left elbow. Only the text is what counts. (And if I comment about a poem I don't care neither about the author's soul nor about her/his elbow; her elbow and her poem are two separate things).

Thank you for the restraint.

Doggerel it is. A piece of fun to entertain, not deathless poetry. If it has any purpose at all it is to satirise 'poems' that appear in print in magazines for the elderly.

I wish I could write poetry that is precise, meaningful and lasting. The fact that I can't remember my own poems, even when I have spent days polishing them, tells me that I fail as a poet.

Judging a poem, or any work of creation, on just what you get and not what you assume or know about the creator is an admirable standard. It might not please teachers of literature.

Og

 

[dr_mabeuse]

First of all, I would just call it humorous verse.There’s nothing wrong with humorous verse, and it stands or falls on how witty and funny we think it is. Whether we think that this is good humorous verse is another matter. Personally, I’d like to see something a little more sophisticated than bathroom humor, which stopped being funny to me a long time ago, although to judge what’s in the movies these days, there’s still a huge market for it.

At the risk of being tedious about this, what it comes down to again is the “what is poetry” issue, and here I’m really divided. On the one hand I hate to come down as an elitist snob and discourage anyone from writing, but on the other, there is an awful lot of bad poetry out there, and I think there are a lot of people writing who really think poetry is no more than breaking your lines up in a lot of unexpected places. They just have no idea of what a poem’s supposed to do or how it does it. So the good stuff is drowning in a sea of mediocrity and standards go out the window. I don't believe that all poetry is equally good. I believe that there is something special about poetry.

I guess it comes down to an elitist approach as versus a democratic approach. An elitist believes in standards and better/worse; a democratist believes all poetry is equally worthy. For a long time now the Democratists have been in the driver's seat, and kids are taught in school to put their feelings into words and are told that it's poetry. I don't believe this.

I was thinking about this when jthserra came over to the Author’s Hangout to point out to some people that they were misunderstanding the haiku form, and rightly so in my opinion, because they really didn;t know that a haiku was more than just a metrical form. There was another example over on this board where someone had published a long poem about making love that, to my eye, was nothing more than prose divided up into sentence fragments and lines of three or four words each. No imagery, no attention to sound and meter or any lyrical element. He wanted to know if it was poetry or not. I said it wasn’t.

I have a working definition of poetry. It's not a hard and fast rule, but in general poetry to me is something that means more than it says, or that says something in an exceptionally beautiful way. I have feelings about the lyricism and music in a poem too, but that’s harder to define. Suffice it to say that it should have a musical dimension. You should have the feeling that the author paid some attention to the sound of the words in the poem.

That's my “poetic razor”, and it’s the standard I use when someone asks me whether a piece of writing is poetry or not. Is there meaning beyond the literal meaning of the words? And does it have music? There will always be exceptions—things that qualify as poetry that would have been shaved off by the razor—but it seems to me that the alternative to having some standard like this is just to say that poetry is anything the author says it is, which means that anything is poetry, and that in turn means that nothing is.

---dr.M.

 

[Icingsugar]

Ice, a poem is a poem. It doesn't matter whether it comes from the soul or from the left elbow. Only the text is what counts. (And if I comment about a poem I don't care neither about the author's soul nor about her/his elbow; her elbow and her poem are two separate things).

Yes, of couse a poem is a poem. A reader of it is not expected to know where or how a piece of text comes to be.

The writer however, is. What I was trying to say with my post was just that, that I think thit piece of poetry/doggerel/whatever was written with the intention of not being poetry. My question to Og was: What do you think it is? What was the purpose?

I don't see why there should really be a quality definition to poetry more them there is one to prose. Of course, there is a form to how poetry is constrcted (albeit a rather flucuating form), but within that frame lies the wrting style known as poetry.

If it is good poetry or if it sucks like a black hole, well, that is another question. The word "poetry" is not, as I see it, a badge of quality in itself.

Is this the democratic approach that Dr.M shunned? Wel, maybe, but that doesn't mean that I have lower standards when it comes to judge the content and form. Lots of poerty does indeed suck. Lots of things labelled poetry is indeed not, like the "vertical story" mentioned.

Also, intention does matter. A monkey with a typewriter can theoretically type a novel. The monkey still didn't tell a story. Said monkey can also type a poem. Is he then a poet?

[note to self, write poerty from left elbow]

/Ice

 

[Angeline]

Hi there Og, and welcome to the poetry board.

All this discussion begs the question of perception. It takes two, ultimately, to make a poem--writer and reader. If you don't share it with anyone and you think it's a poem, who am I to argue? Of course, once you show it to others you run into all the rules of "poetry." And you'll also run into lots of folks who will be happy to tell you whether or not what you wrote is one.

I agree with Ice that couplets can be poems, but that's my perception (albeit widely held). To me a poem is distinguished from other writing (no matter how "poetic" it may sound) by two qualities: 1) the use of poetic devices (and rhyme is certainly one) and 2) the piece's ability to make the reader "feel" as well as--or maybe instead of--understanding in a logical, cognitive way. I think that latter is an important distinction--after all, I can feel something about an abstract painting without understanding what its creator intended--in a way that's the beauty of the art form. So it's perception--though I know there are people who would look at a Jackson Pollack painting and think it's utter crap.

So to answer your question, yes...and no. I admit your "poem" reads like doggerel to me--articulate, intelligent, quirky doggerel, yes, but not poetry. Having said that, I'd not argue with anyone who claimed that, for him or her, it's a poem.

And one last point--I think (and i've been vehemently disagreed with on this point) that one must keep an open mind about what can and can't be a poem. Yes, it's wonderful (and right to my thinking) to respect the traditional poetic forms, but experimentation and imagination are what create new forms and techniques. Here's a poem I wrote about *that* a few years ago:

Sonnet: On Writing

Be not afraid to write in verses free,
To chance in words upon disfavor’s way,
To take a stand upon which none agree.
Fear not the maxims others might inveigh.

True freedom lets imagination soar.
Uncensored thought does honest work create.
Avert your senses from the critics’ roar.
Make art whilst those of little vision prate.

In all things life anew is born of change
In art, too, difference lets new forms arise.
Revere the old, move on, then rearrange.
To not evolve condemns one’s words to lies.

In verses of persuasion rhymed or free,
Experiment and give rise to poetry.

 

[Rybka]

Like most of us I suspect, I know and use the word, but wasn't sure of the definition. So I looked it up and found:

GLOSSARY OF POETIC TERMS
"DOGGEREL
Originally applied to poetry of loose irregular measure, it now is used to describe crudely written poetry which lacks artistry in form or meaning."

This definition at least says that doggerel is poetry, so this renders your question somewhat meaningless. Something like, "Is this poison ivy or a plant?"

Since you didn't ask for critique I will not comment on the "artistry in form or meaning" of your creation.

Regards, Rybka

 

[dr_mabeuse]

While we're talking about doggerel, it might be nice to resurrect the word "poetaster": An inferior rhymer, or writer of verses; a dabbler in poetic art. (from the 1913 Webster)

A word about "rules" in art: there are none. As soon as anyone comes up with one, someone else strives to show that it doesn't work. Art (thankfully) is not science. There are no universal laws.

Still, if you believe in values, if you believe that some poems are better than others, it's kind of important to try and discern the basis upon which you base your judgement, otherwise the whole effort is hopelessly subjective and idiosyncratic. That's where the "rules" come from. I guess that's where critical theory comes from too, only to be overturned as soon as they're formulated.

The dicta that critical theory come up with should be treated more as observations than as laws or pedictions. It's more like biology than it is like physics. As soon as someone makes the observation that all organsims are such-and-such, someone else comes along with an exception. Some things just don;t hold still long enough to be defined.

---dr.M.

 

[Angeline]

While we're talking about doggerel, it might be nice to resurrect the word "poetaster": An inferior rhymer, or writer of verses; a dabbler in poetic art. (from the 1913 Webster)

A word about "rules" in art: there are none. As soon as anyone comes up with one, someone else strives to show that it doesn't work. Art (thankfully) is not science. There are no universal laws.

Still, if you believe in values, if you believe that some poems are better than others, it's kind of important to try and discern the basis upon which you base your judgement, otherwise the whole effort is hopelessly subjective and idiosyncratic. That's where the "rules" come from. I guess that's where critical theory comes from too, only to be overturned as soon as they're formulated.

The dicta that critical theory come up with should be treated more as observations than as laws or pedictions. It's more like biology than it is like physics. As soon as someone makes the observation that all organsims are such-and-such, someone else comes along with an exception. Some things just don;t hold still long enough to be defined.

---dr.M.

Well doc I agree with you, but whether one agrees with adhering to a dictum or not is a) a matter of choice and b) one with passionate advocates for and against the notion that the "rules" can't be broken.

There are folks who'll say a haiku must be about nature (that is, something natural) as well as those who'll say a sonnet must have x lines, rhyme scheme, and meter (and even that of course varies depending on the type). This is my point about perspective. And yet one can construct a piece of writing following the dicta and produce something not remotely poetic--or, conversely not follow them, say "here's a sonnet" (for example), and serve up something wonderful.

And my experience when they do--here at Lit and elsewhere--is that narrow minds will rush to point out that it's not iambic pentameter or such...

 

[Icingsugar]

Well doc I agree with you, but whether one agrees with adhering to a dictum or not is a) a matter of choice and b) one with passionate advocates for and against the notion that the "rules" can't be broken.

There are folks who'll say a haiku must be about nature (that is, something natural) as well as those who'll say a sonnet must have x lines, rhyme scheme, and meter (and even that of course varies depending on the type). This is my point about perspective. And yet one can construct a piece of writing following the dicta and produce something not remotely poetic--or, conversely not follow them, say "here's a sonnet" (for example), and serve up something wonderful.

And my experience when they do--here at Lit and elsewhere--is that narrow minds will rush to point out that it's not iambic pentameter or such...

It seems to me that there are as many different views on this as there are odd socks in my drawers. I agree with Doc and Angeline here. Poerty is art, and there are no rules, although I hope that we all can agree with that it has something to do with text. Right? But I'll once again go back to my point about intention. Poetry to me indicatres a certain level of ambition, that it's writer intended the piece to be precieved as poerty. Apart from that, no reins, no boundaries.

Then it's the matter of the reader. If criteria A is fulfilled (the writer delivers what he think is poetry) we come to criteria B, the reader has to read, and react. If an unbiased reader reads and reacts as the writer intended, there be poetry. So, poetry to me is not the text itself, but the connection between the reader and the writer, the writer serving up an experience, and the reader recieving it.

However, my view on those labels are pretty strict. They are little pieces of structure in a sea of "no rules", designed to help the poet or the reader by serving poetry a recognizable form. One label has a certain form, one has another, and that's that. If you want to use them, do. When it comes to haiku, sonnets, villanelles, riubiyats and all the other stuff that I've come to try my wings at through this forum, I'll have to disagree with the notion that those are up for debate.

On the other hand, I constantly disagree with the notion that they are all that useful.

You say that one can construct a sonnet following exact guidelines and the result can be unpoetic? Well of course. That would be a bad sonnet, only because it fills a form factor does not make it good.

But can you construct a sonnet without following the guidelines for a sonnet? Nope. Of course, you can call it a sonnet if you want to, but a sonnet it ain't. It will still be poetry, and does in no way diminish it's value as a piece of language art.

To sum it up. I recognise that there are rules attached to certain labels of poetry forms. But I don't do labels. If it swings better if you bend the rules, bends the rules. But toss the label. Becusethen it don't assist niether you nor the reader anymore.

end
of
/Ice
rant

 

[Senna Jawa]

Sonnet: On Writing

Be not afraid to write in verses free,
To chance in words upon disfavor’s way,
To take a stand upon which none agree.
Fear not the maxims others might inveigh.

True freedom lets imagination soar.
Uncensored thought does honest work create.
Avert your senses from the critics’ roar.
Make art whilst those of little vision prate.

In all things life anew is born of change
In art, too, difference lets new forms arise.
Revere the old, move on, then rearrange.
To not evolve condemns one’s words to lies.

In verses of persuasion rhymed or free,
Experiment and give rise to poetry.

An excellent illustration for this thread and a perverse achievement, because this piece is a sonnet and still not poetry.

 

[Angeline]

An excellent illustration for this thread and a perverse achievement, because this piece is a sonet and still not poetry.

Thank you; I know you don't necessarily think of sonnets as poetry (though I doubt your definition of "poem" would rule out the possibility that a sonnet could be poetry, right?). Funny thing though, two years after writing that I tend to agree with you.

 

[thenry]

I do not think it possible to write a good definition which excludes bad poetry as well as good prose. Good prose, especially varieties of flash fiction and the short story, have a lot in common in content with the needs of poetry.

When I have to decide on the character of poetry I look for a distillation of experience. By explaining an aspect of an experience the whole is created in the reader's mind. Narrative is optional, but the creation of complexity through simplicity, by line, stanza, or poem, is necessary. The poet should be like an architect making with words a structure around the space where he found his epiphany, even if he realized only the delightful arrangement of sound. Poetry takes work, and while I doubt any poetry which sprung fully formed from the subconsious of the author so do I doubt modern poets who hide within elaborate form and rhyme (Now there's the Euro - / Shit'll keep our pound pure, O." ~far above).

Then again I had a long discussion with someone last week about the nature of the short lyric poem. It was interesting, but afterward I realized that though I knew exactly what he was talking about, he never explained how else one picks the short lyric from the pack. That, and once the terms are appropriately defined the conclusions are self evident. But the may be the point of a good argument.

So despite my need to cover abstractions in words, poetry and art have an "it." ("Though they are / only breath, words / which I command / are immortal." ~Sappho) I do not think "it" requires an appreciative viewer in order to exist, however, if no one but the author can find "it" I am tempted to follow my intinct that the work is not art.

In conclusion, it can be seen I have no difficulty "finding" ideas for others to use in making this decision. I, however, reserve the right to read it myself and decide afterward.

 

[Angeline]

I do not think it possible to write a good definition which excludes bad poetry as well as good prose. Good prose, especially varieties of flash fiction and the short story, have a lot in common in content with the needs of poetry.

When I have to decide on the character of poetry I look for a distillation of experience. By explaining an aspect of an experience the whole is created in the reader's mind. Narrative is optional, but the creation of complexity through simplicity, by line, stanza, or poem, is necessary. The poet should be like an architect making with words a structure around the space where he found his epiphany, even if he realized only the delightful arrangement of sound. Poetry takes work, and while I doubt any poetry which sprung fully formed from the subconsious of the author so do I doubt modern poets who hide within elaborate form and rhyme (Now there's the Euro - / Shit'll keep our pound pure, O." ~far above).

Then again I had a long discussion with someone last week about the nature of the short lyric poem. It was interesting, but afterward I realized that though I knew exactly what he was talking about, he never explained how else one picks the short lyric from the pack. That, and once the terms are appropriately defined the conclusions are self evident. But the may be the point of a good argument.

So despite my need to cover abstractions in words, poetry and art have an "it." ("Though they are / only breath, words / which I command / are immortal." ~Sappho) I do not think "it" requires an appreciative viewer in order to exist, however, if no one but the author can find "it" I am tempted to follow my intinct that the work is not art.

In conclusion, it can be seen I have no difficulty "finding" ideas for others to use in making this decision. I, however, reserve the right to read it myself and decide afterward.

I read your post with great interest because you contructed a logical argument that I would have expected to conclude empirically. You end not with empiricism though, but instinct, which is an individual thing. I agree with your conclusion, and I see in it a larger argument for why there is no single "right" way to produce good poetry.

I don't reject logic any more than I do the natural world. It's a waste of time, to me, to try to construct an argument that denies something real. However, I cannot experience a poem--a collection of images and ideas--in the same way I can something tangible--say an apple, for example.

I can't eat a poem. I can have a sense memory of an apple if a poem describes its taste--it may be a vivid sense memory if the poem is really good at evoking that from reader me. But a poem about an apple is no more an apple than a shadow is a person.

There may be empiric evidence for an apple's "taste" based on a formula of texture, sweetness, whatever. But one's memory of an apple's taste does not follow a formula; and your memory of it may be very different from mine. So why should we both be expected to experience the apple poem in the same way? Why would any two people be expected to meet a common standard for liking a poem. Why should any one poem be held up as equally good for everyone?

I know there are common characteristics of good writing--I would never argue against a writer in any genre needing to convey meaning in a way a reader can understand, but I have yet to hear the explanation--here or elsewhere--to justify why the poem "she" thinks is good should necessarily be perceived as such by "him."

Pardon the lengthy muse. You got me thinking.

 

[Rybka]

How Does Doggerel Differ From Caterwauling?

. . .
I don't reject logic any more than I do the natural world. It's a waste of time, to me, to try to construct an argument that denies something real. However, I cannot experience a poem--a collection of images and ideas--in the same way I can something tangible--say an apple, for example.

I can't eat a poem. I can have a sense memory of an apple if a poem describes its taste--it may be a vivid sense memory if the poem is really good at evoking that from reader me. But a poem about an apple is no more an apple than a shadow is a person.

There may be empiric evidence for an apple's "taste" based on a formula of texture, sweetness, whatever. But one's memory of an apple's taste does not follow a formula; and your memory of it may be very different from mine. So why should we both be expected to experience the apple poem in the same way? Why would any two people be expected to meet a common standard for liking a poem. Why should any one poem be held up as equally good for everyone?
. . .

Can an apple be a poem? Could a good enough poem become an apple? . . Or at least the essence of apple?

 

[Angeline]

Can an apple be a poem? Could a good enough poem become an apple? . . Or at least the essence of apple?

As I was writing it, I thought "Damn! There's a poem in this!"

 

[thenry]

I have yet to hear the explanation--here or elsewhere--to justify why the poem "she" thinks is good should necessarily be perceived as such by "him."

[/B]

Yet there is something. T.S. Eliot for instance, some of e.e. cummings, and Elizabeth Bishop (whose poems stayed upon her refrigerator for 6 months before she announced them complete) are all "good." While one must have at least a lick of talent to recognize it in others, it cannot be denied that there is an "it."

On the other hand, half of my favorite poems are those I read in just the right mood. The entire reason I still enjoy them is the memory of how well they fit the first time I read them. I still remember discussions in poetry reading groups where I was defending the value of a poet I'd previously known and was the only person who saw her value. Granted, in retrospect, she wasn't very good.

The point is that for every poem I enjoy for its perfection there is one I enjoy for the memory of the first time I read it. In that spirit:

"Anna Imroth"
_
Cross the hands over the breast here - so.
Straighten the legs a little more - so.
And call for the wagon to comes and takes her home.
Her mother will cry some and so will her sisters and brothers.
But all of the others got down and they are safe and this is the only
___ one of the factory girls who wasn't lucky in making the jump
___ when the fire broke.
It is the hand of God and the lack of fire escapes.
_
~Carl Sandburg

"hand of God and the lack of fire excapes." struck me so strongly the first time I read it. I remember every detail of the room in which I saw the peom even though I remember little of the poem's original appeal. The pleasure is in the memory.

Anyway, the empirical conclusion, if any, of this post, Angeline, is that the rule of poetry can at most apply to half of your favorite poets. Though I cannot stop believing in a rule which would describe the boundaries of poetry, anything I created now would still require a variable for the reader's experience. And that is not acceptabie.

Harder still is believing so much in a rule that it validates one's own work. The taste of an apple is good, and you will just have to believe me.

The question should not be whether the poem good for "she" is good for "he," rather whether what really reaches you also reaches another. Good is relative.

T. Henry