what makes a poem good?

[lorencino]

The heart of wanting to express yourself, express something mysterious that you feel, is communication with other human beings--at-one-ment with being human. Writing poems alone in your room can only get you so far, the satisfaction is in knowing that other people feel the mystery and passion that you feel. Even for Emily Dickinson it wasn't enough just writing poems. She wanted them to be read, most likely got a couple dozen in print, and shared her poems throughout her life with mr./ms. mysterious.

If only Lenin had understood this before October 1917, Seriously.

 

[greenmountaineer]

The Poem as a Resevoir for Grief

Here is one of my favourite poets--Tess Gallagher (american)--she was the wife of Raymond Carver (American), one of my favourite short story writers, in the last 10 years of his life. She writes about an absence in our lives that can be filled in with poetry. Perhaps this is exploring mysteries, uncovering unconscious happenstances, discovering the immeasurable on our journeys through life, learning to love, to be fully open, to be present.

The Poem as a Reservoir for Grief (excerpt)

It is important that we be strengthened by the wisdom of our grievings. The scientists may tinker, the politicians may instruct us in the various ploys of unconsciousness, the physicians may delay death awhile with yet another cure, but until each individual maintains a responsible relationship to his or her own losses and changes, there will be no such thing as a hopeful future. For, as in the Taoist description of the wheel in terms of the strong, empty spaces between the spokes, one’s future depends not only on the visible spokes of the present, but also on those invisible elements from the past, those things we are missing, are grieving for, have forgotten and left behind, so that they may be recovered.

by Tess Gallagher

This is a wonderful excerpt. My only regret is that it starts with grief and ends with wisdom and a faint hope for the future. One the problems I have with much (not all) modern artistic expression is the tendency towards the morose. I'm as interested in the mystery that inspires awe. We moderns seem to enjoy telling others what's wrong more than what's right or, perish the notion, joyful. I'm as guilty as anyone when I do the male thing with my wife in conversations that begin "The problem is..." Usually, she'll put on a Mona Lisa smile, and then I have to laugh at myself.

I don't want to bifurcate the artist as either tormented or tiptoeing through the tulips, but I wouldn't mind seeing some more green sleeves from frolicking in the meadow. Maybe that's why I enjoy reading many of the poems here. There seems to be that nice balance.

 

[Palba_Noruda]

tell me.

for you, as an individual, how do you KNOW if a poem is good or not?

A poem is keeping your home tidy (or messy, if that's your thing). The right thing in the right place. A poem is good if it's the right thing in the right place at the right time on the right day.

I don't think a poet could write a good poem without feeling right and at home in the feeling they're trying to convey. If a poet's never felt passion for someone or something the reader won't feel passion when reading.

Wrong on both accounts.

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

There's a girl who's passion is the ocean.
Explain that, sucka!

 

[Epmd607]

A poem is keeping your home tidy (or messy, if that's your thing). The right thing in the right place. A poem is good if it's the right thing in the right place at the right time on the right day.


Wrong on both accounts.

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

There's a girl who's passion is the ocean.
Explain that, sucka!

Good job on the reading comprehension portion, lollypop. He said, 'passion for someone or something'. The girl who has never had a passion for the ocean would have trouble writing passionately about the ocean. Someone whose never had a real feeling of depression, anxiety, lust, love couldn't write competently about such things. It's embarrassing that you associate yourself with one of the finest poets ever, take their name as if you're their heir in spirit.

"I don't think a poet could write a good poem without feeling right and at home in the feeling they're trying to convey. If a poet's never felt passion for someone or something the reader won't feel passion when reading." This is my favorite description of how to write good poetry as of this hour. You could have passion and mania about something but you could also have zero ability to convey those feelings. Or you might just be slow like Palblalabalba, Cal Y. Pygia, so many others.

 

[bflagsst]

...
Wrong on both accounts.

wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

There's a girl who's passion is the ocean.
Explain that, sucka!

That's really rude, dude. I don't think I've ever even said anything to you, especially since you don't submit poems(unless you are in fact Cal Y Pygia!) I didn't see that one coming, Watson. We'll get on this case, make sure Palba pays his penalties for being such a rude dude. Who responds to a well put statement with 'wrong' a bunch of times? Answer: Uneducated Internet retards who write shit poems.

 

[Palba_Noruda]

That's really rude, dude. I don't think I've ever even said anything to you, especially since you don't submit poems(unless you are in fact Cal Y Pygia!) I didn't see that one coming, Watson. We'll get on this case, make sure Palba pays his penalties for being such a rude dude. Who responds to a well put statement with 'wrong' a bunch of times? Answer: Uneducated Internet retards who write shit poems.

It was a bit rude. What I meant to say is that I think a person can have passion for something that has nothing to do with the intention of the something's creator. Like a home. A person might have a feeling, a passion, for a home, that the home's designer didn't purposefully try to convey when designing the home.

Or the ocean. A person might feel deeply about the ocean, but a poet did not write the ocean.

I guess I don't think all poets are trying to move feelings around from themselves to others, that's all. Some poets do some poets don't.

Some poets might try to put so much of themselves into a poem that they try to create an ocean or a home and then walk away. Maybe in order to do that, they work with a goal that is different than the conveyance of emotion from one person to another. At some point, in some way, conveying emotions might have been (might be) important to the poet, but it does not always have to be the final goal of a poem, I don' t think.

 

[Epmd607]

It was a bit rude. What I meant to say is that I think a person can have passion for something that has nothing to do with the intention of the something's creator. Like a home. A person might have a feeling, a passion, for a home, that the home's designer didn't purposefully try to convey when designing the home.

Or the ocean. A person might feel deeply about the ocean, but a poet did not write the ocean.

I guess I don't think all poets are trying to move feelings around from themselves to others, that's all. Some poets do some poets don't.

Some poets might try to put so much of themselves into a poem that they try to create an ocean or a home and then walk away. Maybe in order to do that, they work with a goal that is different than the conveyance of emotion from one person to another. At some point, in some way, conveying emotions might have been (might be) important to the poet, but it does not always have to be the final goal of a poem, I don' t think.

A good poem makes the reader feel something, usually along the lines of the creator's intention. We're talking about human symbols, not fictional creators. People use symbols to convey ideas, poets use symbols to convey ideas by way of emotions. Good poems are universally translations of human emotion onto metaphor and symbol. Good poems don't have to make rational sense, they have to make emotional sense to the reader, if they don't they're probably rubbish. The final goal of the poet is to convey meaning, same as all the rest of the ways language is used. The final goal of all communication, speech, semaphore, or writing, is conveying something, a thought or idea. Poets convey thoughts and ideas by way of emotions, by making the reader feel one way or another after reading their poem.

 

[Palba_Noruda]

That's really rude, dude. I don't think I've ever even said anything to you, especially since you don't submit poems(unless you are in fact Cal Y Pygia!) I didn't see that one coming, Watson. We'll get on this case, make sure Palba pays his penalties for being such a rude dude. Who responds to a well put statement with 'wrong' a bunch of times? Answer: Uneducated Internet retards who write shit poems.

bflag, I apologize for being rude. I was very angry at your comments in 75, though in looking at them now, I can see they are not nearly as obnoxious as I thought they were last night. I appreciate that you qualified your statements with "I think", something that evidently escaped me last night, even though I quoted that part. I believe I was angry more at myself and feeling frustrated for other reasons.

A good poem makes the reader feel something, usually along the lines of the creator's intention. We're talking about human symbols, not fictional creators. People use symbols to convey ideas, poets use symbols to convey ideas by way of emotions. Good poems are universally translations of human emotion onto metaphor and symbol. Good poems don't have to make rational sense, they have to make emotional sense to the reader, if they don't they're probably rubbish. The final goal of the poet is to convey meaning, same as all the rest of the ways language is used. The final goal of all communication, speech, semaphore, or writing, is conveying something, a thought or idea. Poets convey thoughts and ideas by way of emotions, by making the reader feel one way or another after reading their poem.

In making art, do you think there are satisfactions besides the communicative aspect? For example, let's say you decide to paint a room in your home. It takes you a few days, but at last you make the last few strokes, and you peel all the tape off, get rid of the drop clothes, move the furniture back, and bask in the satisfaction of a job well done. Do you think that satisfaction you feel is valid? Maybe now the room is more comfortable. Can there be satisfaction in having made that room more suitable for your needs? Or do you not feel satisfied when you finish? Do you only feel satisfied when your friends come over and feel a bit of what you felt when you selected the color and did the painting?

 

[lorencino]

snip

In making art, do you think there are satisfactions besides the communicative aspect? For example, let's say you decide to paint a room in your home. It takes you a few days, but at last you make the last few strokes, and you peel all the tape off, get rid of the drop clothes, move the furniture back, and bask in the satisfaction of a job well done. Do you think that satisfaction you feel is valid? Maybe now the room is more comfortable. Can there be satisfaction in having made that room more suitable for your needs? Or do you not feel satisfied when you finish? Do you only feel satisfied when your friends come over and feel a bit of what you felt when you selected the color and did the painting?

When I paint a room I get satisfaction out of successfully achieving what I set out to do without ruining my clothes etc. The intention when I paint is not to communicate something to others and, though it will feel good if someone passes a remark about how nice the room looks, I will be quite happy if nothing is said by anyone. When I write a poem, however, I am searching out the freshest and most succinct way to communicate something I feel some degree of passion about. I search my mind testing word combinations until I think I have achieved the best that I am capable of. Then I can't wait to see if I can trigger an emotional response in someone else with my poem. It is a form of communication about something passionate inside me that I long to use as an instrument to attempt connection with that same emotion in others through the channels provided by their mind. Ultimately each poem creates a community of those who respond to the poem's message and thus it is a tool of communication intended to create the communities that give meaning to my life.

 

[butters]

... a poet did not write the ocean.

...

they didn't?

no. the ocean wrote the poet.


some poets create for the satisfaction they receive in creating something that appeals directly to something in them. I'm not sure, but from all the poets I've read over the years in differing stages of experience it would appear that those more inclined to feel that way are those newer to writing. That's not intended as a slur to anyone still in those first throes of passionate outpouring; when I first wrote there was so much needing to get out, words tumbling and playing and demanding - like a dam breaking. Discipline was a word alien to my vocabulary I most certainly didn't EVER think about pleasing another person or communicating emotions or thoughts to them. It was good if someone liked them but I basked quite happily in my own little world of contentment. Now, as I have got past that stage (as most do, I'd imagine), I control the words instead of being their tool, and the physical and mental acts needed to make a piece 'right' for me are important; by the same token I enjoy hearing if others can be touched by something I've written. It's not the ultimate goal for me - not yet. I believe, in some warped way, that might be the final steps along the way to becoming an ego-less writer By making something purely for the pleasure of others means leaving self out of things BUT it garners more positive feedback. Does that even make sense? For now I'm happy where I am along the path, writing to suit me but happy it suits others too, and being prepared to revisit a work to see where it might be improved if others suggest it rather than thinking 'this is great, if they don't like it, that's a problem on their part' Of course, with the best will in the world you can't edit to suit everyone's taste, and you have to keep edits within the parameters of the voice of the poem. Which is why I always, always think writers need to consider the source of any suggestions.

 

[bflagsst]

I think what I said in post 75 was right on. maybe I could be even clearer about it, but when talking about poetry I don't think you can avoid the spectre of communication, emotions. Writing devoid of emotion is usually just called prose or technical writing.
-----
I don't think a poet could write a good poem without feeling right and at home in the feeling they're trying to convey. If a poet's never felt passion for someone or something the reader won't feel passion when reading. Most readers of your poem, here or anywhere else, will never respond to you, you won't see or taste their reaction to your poetry, but the reader's reaction isn't a small part.

The heart of wanting to express yourself, express something mysterious that you feel, is communication with other human beings--at-one-ment with being human. Writing poems alone in your room can only get you so far, the satisfaction is in knowing that other people feel the mystery and passion that you feel. Even for Emily Dickinson it wasn't enough just writing poems. She wanted them to be read, most likely got a couple dozen in print, and shared her poems throughout her life with mr./ms. mysterious.
------

I say communication with other human beings and also atonement with being human, which can be read in two different ways. You can keep your poems secret, never intend to show anyone, but you're still having a dialogue with 'being human', if not with an actual reader. The poems someone writes for themself and the poems a person writes for others really shouldn't be any different in character--that is something that is emotion filled and communicative. The only difference would be what you chose to communicate to yourself and what you choose to let others in on.

The writing of good poems is about revealing something of yourself, whether to another person or just to yourself, usually both, but you don't have to share with anyone else. After a while of writing poems by herself, Emily Dickinson seemed satisfied with not sharing anything new. She made her early attempts at getting published, was published, but she stops trying after a while. If you read her poems, she's trying to describe life's mysteries, stuff she never really engaged in outside of her pen and paper. She's explaining, communicating the beauty and mystery of love, death, and life to herself, what it all means to her. Really though, she desperately wanted other people to read her work, was just too scared of sharing with too many people.

 

[Jumper33]

"The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person"

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.

 

[Palba_Noruda]

...I get satisfaction out of successfully achieving what I set out to do...

Yes, that's how I feel about writing! I think we are on the same page, Lorencino.

some poets create for the satisfaction they receive in creating something that appeals directly to something in them. I'm not sure, but from all the poets I've read over the years in differing stages of experience it would appear that those more inclined to feel that way are those newer to writing. ...

It could also be that people who are writing more for themselves (or whatever) are less interested in the publicity and marketing side of things LOL. In my opinion, a lot of "good" art comes and goes without very many people ever noticing it.

I control the words instead of being their tool,

This is a beautiful thought, Chipbutty. It reminds me of something I learned in college. The teacher was saying that conventional wisdom suggests individuals acquire language and mold it to their will; that people use language as a tool to express something that lies deeper. But then she said some theorists think that language is actually more powerful, more of a master over the individual, that the language that existed before the individual was born is so powerful that is shapes the individual's thoughts and feelings.

That part of the class always tripped me out
It's neat that you identified that struggle here.

the final steps along the way to becoming an ego-less writer By making something purely for the pleasure of others means leaving self out of things BUT it garners more positive feedback. Does that even make sense?

Yes it does make sense. This is really a great comment. I hadn't thought of becoming an ego-less writer -- surprise surprise And this is a great point next time I try to defend genre fiction to a bunch of literary fiction people The genre writer as ego-less giver, I love it!

Wow, you have really changed my idea of why people try to garner positive feedback.

It sounds like a poet trying to satisfy a need to give or a need to please, whereas a poet whose goal is to transmit feeling sounds like a poet who is trying to satisfy a need to feel understood.

For now I'm happy where I am along the path, writing to suit me but happy it suits others too, and being prepared to revisit a work to see where it might be improved if others suggest it rather than thinking 'this is great, if they don't like it, that's a problem on their part'

I'm happy that you're happy! And thanks for acknowledging the point that I was trying to make...

The writing of good poems is about revealing something of yourself

I agree that communication is important in poetry. I have worked very hard on poems with that goal in mind and I have had great satisfaction and learned much from presenting poems to people and feeling the energy in the room while something I wrote was being read.

I guess now I'm more interested in using the interaction between poem and reader as a way to inform the next moment or poem or whatever. (Just because I'm not trying to pass a feeling from my self to the other, and just because I'm not trying to purely pleasure the reader doesn't mean that I'm never showing work to people. On the contrary I share quite a bit.)

When writing more for myself, all of that reading I've done in front of other people is very much at play in my little internal editor, that's a very important part of writing, as many other people have mentioned.

What I want to know now is what is that little self-editor? When you write and revise, do you basically imagine yourself as a different person reading that poem?

If so, is that self editor a way we process and express the influx of culture around us?

Is that self editor an expression of how we perceive our surroundings?

If so, can sharing work be a way to tune that self editor?

Can sharing poetry and gauging reaction be a form of biofeedback?

If you tune that self editor well enough, will you get better at understanding other people?

Will you get better at feeling your life in terms of other peoples' visions?

A lot of people have expressed their purpose in writing poetry is to get the reader to understand them, their purpose is to pass a feeling from the self to the other. But can't it be the other way around? Can the prolonged writing and sharing of poetry be a way to learn to more fully receive and understand the culture and the self?

*****
*****
*****

Here's a bunch of quotes belaboring my point that the purpose of art varies from artist to artist:

"The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers." --James Baldwin (1924-1987)

Alain Arias-Misson – Belgian-born thinker, artist, writer, and sculptor:
“The purpose of art is not a rarified intellectual distillate – it is life, intensified, brilliant life"

Carl Andre – American minimalist sculptor and poet:
“Art is an intersection of many human needs.”

Marc Chagall – Russian-born French painter and stained glass artist:
“Art seems to me to be a state of soul more than anything else.”

Paul Cezanne – French impressionist painter:
“Art is harmony parallel with nature.”

The object of art is to give life a shape. (Jean Anouilh)

Art has no other purpose than to brush aside... the conventional and accepted generalities, in short everything that veils reality from us, in order to bring us face to face with reality itself. (Henri Bergson)

Our primordial purpose is to respond to the impulsion from within to solve the mystery of our individual existence, to find and be the authentic Self that is, has been and ever shall be. (Dr. Michael Beckwith)

If art takes up much of the artist's time, then it makes sense that she/he be "lost" in the euphoria of creating. Isn't that one of our ultimate purposes in life? (Harley Brown)

The purpose of art is to pass the time
-Palba_Noruda

 

[lorencino]

Quote:
Originally Posted by lorencino
...I get satisfaction out of successfully achieving what I set out to do...
Yes, that's how I feel about writing! I think we are on the same page, Lorencino.

Yes, that's how I feel about writing! I think we are on the same page, Lorencino.

When I wrote that, I was talking about painting a room which is in sharp distinction to what I said about writing poems. When I write, I am setting out to communicate and I'm afraid that satisfaction for that depends on whether the communication engages others. I get no satisfaction, if others ignore what I write, and certainly no satisfaction from any idea that my genius will be realized for the first time after I am dead. No, the reality is that unless my contemporaries are turned on by my writing, my writing is nothing more than the excreta of my mind. It just a personal thing with me and I'm not dictating what pleasure you derive from your poetic output.

 

[butters]

I'm happiest when I hear something I've written has made someone think. Or seen things they've not seen before or in a different way, thought thoughts not thought before, or if they feel a part of the poem - like they were there.


but to be honest, I don't think about any of that when I write stuff.

that's a whole other process. But in the reading and critiquing of others' work I find out more about how my own tick - or not - from the pov of an outsider. And another thing, lol, it means more to me to get a good response from a smaller group of peers than from an extensive group of people who 'lurve' almost any kind of drivel calling itself poetry. And I guess that's about ego, too.

 

[Epmd607]

The first poems were about communication, before there was writing there was the passing on of oral tradition by way of verse. The legend is poetry/verse was born as a means of memorization, stories existed as long as there was language, but patterned stories with loaded symbols was loftier, more emotive, easier to memorize and therefore communicate, it caught on. Poems written today aren't epics, but they have the same basis in metaphor, emotive communication. If you don't accept the small things about what poetry is, you can't hope to explain what 'good poetry' is.

 

[twelveoone]

Obviously. It says I love poets who use semiotics. Poetry isn't so much a linear story in my POV as it is an emotional one, and emotions are never linear. More than any other form, poetry speaks symbolically.

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=187488

Oh, well, what makes a poem good? The person who made it, of course! Sorry, Charley, couldn't resist. Hard to believe I got an "E" for that one, I could tell you why, but I just stopped in to put a little X in your Xmas, and if you pardon the semiotic pun, I'm signing off.

ho, ho, ho and seasoned greetings to all

 

[bflagsst]

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=187488

Oh, well, what makes a poem good? The person who made it, of course! Sorry, Charley, couldn't resist. Hard to believe I got an "E" for that one, I could tell you why, but I just stopped in to put a little X in your Xmas, and if you pardon the semiotic pun, I'm signing off.

ho, ho, ho and seasoned greetings to all

That one and Undo Ki are my two favorite 1201 poems.

 

[XXplorher]

tell me.

for you, as an individual, how do you KNOW if a poem is good or not?

I don't!!

None of us do!

A worthy poem is one you believe in.

What are your set conditions? Do we have to like it? Why do you write it?


You might give it to 10 of the wrong people... and it will vanish.

Or you'll read it to a fuckin' coffeehouse in San Francisco and be Howl!


Who can tell, mate?

Make it. Create. Be you.

 

[butters]

I don't!!

None of us do!

A worthy poem is one you believe in.

What are your set conditions? Do we have to like it? Why do you write it?


You might give it to 10 of the wrong people... and it will vanish.

Or you'll read it to a fuckin' coffeehouse in San Francisco and be Howl!


Who can tell, mate?

Make it. Create. Be you.

Merry Christmas, XXplorher

There's nothing in your post I disagree with, and have highlighted what, to me, sings out.

However, the whole point of this question was to try and see what made a poem 'good' to the individual. As far as I can tell, it's mostly about whether or not it makes an impact on us, as individuals. That doesn't necessarily transfer to group recognition, nor - for the purpose of this thread - does it even need to. Of course we can then go on to extrapolate, consider the question in terms of the masses/publication/posterity, but that's all just trimmings imo. A poem that smacks me upside the head in some way or another, or places a finger straight on my heart or inside my thoughts, to me - an an individual - that makes a good poem. My personal take. It doesn't matter to me if others disagree and find otherwise since I've already made that interface with the author via their words.

 

[rrnadal]

it doesn't matter that poem is large or small, but the meaning or you can say the soul should be inspiring, whatever that is a small poem but it meaning or inspiration should be unique, these things are making a good poem.

 

[Epmd607]

annaswirls is shutting down her poetry magazine.

 

[phoenixangel]

i believe good poetry comes from passion. it doesnt matter what you write but the feelings you put into it.

 

[champagne1982]

i believe good poetry comes from passion. it doesnt matter what you write but the feelings you put into it.

With all due respect, unless you use good words to describe that passion, your passion is better written on the crotch of your panties.

 

[butters]

it doesn't matter that poem is large or small, but the meaning or you can say the soul should be inspiring, whatever that is a small poem but it meaning or inspiration should be unique, these things are making a good poem.

to be unique is something to aspire to, indeed

annaswirls is shutting down her poetry magazine.

I don't know her magazine, but that is sad news.

i believe good poetry comes from passion. it doesnt matter what you write but the feelings you put into it.

passion, expressed badly, is as useless as toilet paper trying to launch a rocket. words without passion are dry, passion without the words to engage the reader is a wasted emotion.

With all due respect, unless you use good words to describe that passion, your passion is better written on the crotch of your panties.

absolutely.