What is your opinion on poetry? Do you think it is of value to the world? What kind of poetry do you like? Are you a fan of Shakespeare? Dr Seuss?
Poetry - Fancy writing
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I love it. Sadly, a lot of current stuff has been sjw-ed and the usual suspects are blarting their woes awfully in semi-rhyme, while no-one is allowed to say anything other than 'so brave!' because that would be something-phobic.
Here lies Lester Moore
Took a shot from a .44
No Les
No More
Took a shot from a .44
No Les
No More
To be fair, that sort of slam poetry's funny as fuck. It's so unsubtle in their virtue signalling, it makes you why they ever thought they were good writers.
I wish there were modern poets on the level of the great masters like Yeats, Donne etc but have not encountered any, certainly none that capture love on their level. Yeats' great muse was sexual rather than romantic, but his When You Are Old is a lovely instance of enclosed rhyme love poetry, accessible albeit a bit saccharine; poetry for drunk love.
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
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I used to really dislike poetry on the basis that it all seemed very flowery and the way it was taught to us in school made it all very irritating. I do like a comment one of my middle school teachers made about it, he said if you don't know what a poem is about just say that it's about death and you're probably right. It wasn't until my high school Latin class that I learned that poetry can be awesome. My teacher went on one of his random yet always interesting tangents that lead to him playing a tape of Catullus poems as read by Allen Ginsberg or some other beat poet with a really goofy voice. I loved it enough to look up Catullus online and lo and behold I found a poem he wrote about this dude who sucks so much dick that he's got permanent cum stains on his face. I was on to something alright. This is no fruitcake writing pretty verses about seasons changing and other shit, this is a man that considered "I will sodomize and facefuck you" a good opening line.
Obviously since the original is in Latin you're going to have a lot of different translations. Of all the ones I've read, this particular one is my favorite. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520253865/the-poems-of-catullus
Roman epigrams tend to be hilariously blunt. The Priapeia is practically a collection of shitposts about a cartoonishly well-endowed fertility god.
Obviously since the original is in Latin you're going to have a lot of different translations. Of all the ones I've read, this particular one is my favorite. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520253865/the-poems-of-catullus
Roman epigrams tend to be hilariously blunt. The Priapeia is practically a collection of shitposts about a cartoonishly well-endowed fertility god.
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It is of no value to the world in so far as it now barely exists outside of academia and people are no longer made to feel that they should engage with art culture as a necessary part of their self-education. Even if a person makes a conscious effort to explore beyond the high school favourites (Shakespeare, Blake, Dickinson...), they will probably only encounter tired collections of early-mid 20th century figures at the latest unless they become entangled in the hackwork of Rupi Kaurs that fill new releases shelves. Much contemporary poetry is written by professors and published in journals only read by other professors, and consequently is not only difficult to find but also drily pandering and uninteresting.
An individual can easily attune themselves to a poetic sensibility if they want to, but it takes more effort than a lot of other media, and online documentation is abysmal compared to other art forms. Education in form or context isn't nearly as important as a general interest in language, abstraction, and sentiment, and the single time when most people are exposed to poetry (high school) is a terrible one, as it's unreasonable to expect children to be invested in these qualities at that point of their lives.
Volumes are printed in small numbers and often out of print, sampling a writer's work can be very difficult, meaning potentially many purchases are required in order to read what intrigues you - this being just the acclimatising phase, as when you find subtypes that particularly appeal, you will be travelling even further from the affordable collections of the established names and deep into isolating territory of authors that are impossible to find discussion of online in any specific detail, and even when you do, they are only mentioned in context of whatever homework assignment some student is doing. This whole situation leads to it becoming a solitary exploration, which may be demotivating for some, but can be personally enjoyable and rewarding if you're looking for some me-time.
My favourite thing about the medium is that it does not make demands of your time. It's not like a novel which can require a lengthy sitting to gain value from, or other linear media such as theatre or film which benefit from being experienced unbroken. You can browse at will, disregard the order of printing by the editor, work from the middle to the front of the volume. You can skim read while noting down favourites to check back later, or spend a long time on a couple of pages. Like viewing a painting, the more time to spend, the more value you can glean, although unlike painting I find poetry to offer a more direct line of engagement as it is built from synonyms, allusions, and phrasings on a small-scale similar to our everyday conversation and scattered thoughts. You can copy a poem that you enjoy, dissect its lines, reshape it, and adapt it with a casualness that doesn't apply to visual art or prose, which require some skill to successfully parody.
This openness of the medium doesn't override its core inaccessibility which is a lack of interest or perceived value in abstract musings versus the prostate-tingling twists and turns of conventional drama. For the same reason that a person might have a Turner painting as a desktop wallpaper but be unable to look at his work in reproduction or person for more than a minute at a time without zoning out, poetry requires you to meet it on its terms, as it can't possibly hope to live up to expectations of other mediums serving charms that it does not seek to provide. It requires one to consciously make room for it and allow it to become of value to you rather than it beating you over the head with something you've always needed but never knew. No revelations or complex narratives to pick apart, just pleasing turns of phrase that worm into your imagination, appreciation of an individual collection is a subjective experience beyond other already abstract art forms. With a poem there can be a literal or alluded meaning or narrative, but it can often be secondary to every other element of its construction, leading to a personalised way of reading that further enhances the sense of the reading being an act of self-exploration rather than conventional entertainment (and enjoyable in being this way).
This post came out fruitier than expected.
An individual can easily attune themselves to a poetic sensibility if they want to, but it takes more effort than a lot of other media, and online documentation is abysmal compared to other art forms. Education in form or context isn't nearly as important as a general interest in language, abstraction, and sentiment, and the single time when most people are exposed to poetry (high school) is a terrible one, as it's unreasonable to expect children to be invested in these qualities at that point of their lives.
Volumes are printed in small numbers and often out of print, sampling a writer's work can be very difficult, meaning potentially many purchases are required in order to read what intrigues you - this being just the acclimatising phase, as when you find subtypes that particularly appeal, you will be travelling even further from the affordable collections of the established names and deep into isolating territory of authors that are impossible to find discussion of online in any specific detail, and even when you do, they are only mentioned in context of whatever homework assignment some student is doing. This whole situation leads to it becoming a solitary exploration, which may be demotivating for some, but can be personally enjoyable and rewarding if you're looking for some me-time.
My favourite thing about the medium is that it does not make demands of your time. It's not like a novel which can require a lengthy sitting to gain value from, or other linear media such as theatre or film which benefit from being experienced unbroken. You can browse at will, disregard the order of printing by the editor, work from the middle to the front of the volume. You can skim read while noting down favourites to check back later, or spend a long time on a couple of pages. Like viewing a painting, the more time to spend, the more value you can glean, although unlike painting I find poetry to offer a more direct line of engagement as it is built from synonyms, allusions, and phrasings on a small-scale similar to our everyday conversation and scattered thoughts. You can copy a poem that you enjoy, dissect its lines, reshape it, and adapt it with a casualness that doesn't apply to visual art or prose, which require some skill to successfully parody.
This openness of the medium doesn't override its core inaccessibility which is a lack of interest or perceived value in abstract musings versus the prostate-tingling twists and turns of conventional drama. For the same reason that a person might have a Turner painting as a desktop wallpaper but be unable to look at his work in reproduction or person for more than a minute at a time without zoning out, poetry requires you to meet it on its terms, as it can't possibly hope to live up to expectations of other mediums serving charms that it does not seek to provide. It requires one to consciously make room for it and allow it to become of value to you rather than it beating you over the head with something you've always needed but never knew. No revelations or complex narratives to pick apart, just pleasing turns of phrase that worm into your imagination, appreciation of an individual collection is a subjective experience beyond other already abstract art forms. With a poem there can be a literal or alluded meaning or narrative, but it can often be secondary to every other element of its construction, leading to a personalised way of reading that further enhances the sense of the reading being an act of self-exploration rather than conventional entertainment (and enjoyable in being this way).
This post came out fruitier than expected.
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I just like poetry cause reading it makes me feel like I ain't no basic bitch.
I love poetry. William Blake, Byron, Federico Garcia Llorca, even Jim Morrison had compelling imagery. My all-time fave is the poetry of the Great War. Doesn't get much better than Siegfried Sasson or Wilfred Owen for my money. Also adore Kipling, but my all-time favorite poet is the Breaker: Lt. Harry Harbord Morant.
Even some dudes you wouldn't have thought of, such as this gem from a great under-appreciated genius:
I'm not a butcher, I'm not a yid, nor yet a foreign skipper;
I'm just your old light-hearted friend, yours truly, Jack the Ripper.
Even some dudes you wouldn't have thought of, such as this gem from a great under-appreciated genius:
I'm not a butcher, I'm not a yid, nor yet a foreign skipper;
I'm just your old light-hearted friend, yours truly, Jack the Ripper.
Cinderblock
kiwifarms.net
A brief amount of poetry in forums is always to be found and appreciated imo. Think about it, as Man vs Persistent Rat said "Language, abstraction and sentiment". Dynasia reads Sheakspeare and he's a great poster. I quote from him "As flies to wanton boys we are to the mods."
I haven’t seen any recent poetry I find at all interesting. There’s no craft to it, as 99% of it has no rhyme, no meter, it’s just somebody writing a paragraph and hitting the return bar at random points afterwards. I’m looking at you Maya Angelou/anybody who’s gotten the Poet Laureate in the past 50 years/Nobel prize winners for poetry.
I did enjoy watching a performance of Shakespeare by a group that was researching the actual accent of the time, and how things that don’t rhyme now, did with that type of pronunciation.
Then again I am a filthy pleb who likes Shel Silverstein and Ogden Nash.
I did enjoy watching a performance of Shakespeare by a group that was researching the actual accent of the time, and how things that don’t rhyme now, did with that type of pronunciation.
Then again I am a filthy pleb who likes Shel Silverstein and Ogden Nash.
I have written a lot of poetry (you can actually see all that autism on the "poetry thread") and I do believe it is cathartic for the soul to express itself in that format: it makes your brain really think what you have to say about your emotions and thoughts about some subject that is important to you using only a small amount of rhyme and syllables in order to produce it. Prose can flesh out an idea, but poetry is what makes you really FEEL the idea that is in your mind.
I do really think that anyone who wants to become a writer or even just a reader must become an adept at poetry; it is the raw, musical essence of the soul-- it is the pure definition of an "emotional idea" when you want to write some sort of "theme" in long prose. Poetry really makes you think on how you write and how you think about your writing; and I always say, no how fucking gay it is, that it is important to both read and write your thoughts and others' thoughts no matter what age you are at.
I do really think that anyone who wants to become a writer or even just a reader must become an adept at poetry; it is the raw, musical essence of the soul-- it is the pure definition of an "emotional idea" when you want to write some sort of "theme" in long prose. Poetry really makes you think on how you write and how you think about your writing; and I always say, no how fucking gay it is, that it is important to both read and write your thoughts and others' thoughts no matter what age you are at.
I always recommend T.S. Elliot's "The Hollow Men"
Or "Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas
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I read a poem called "From His Coy Mistress" by Mallory Ortberg, I don't think I have to tell you what it's about considering how famous the original is. It was fucking awful as a parody and it's written by a dangerhair homo. That's all you need to know about that.
I'm a big fan of contemporary, free-verse poetry. This below is a favorite:
"To Have Without Holding"
Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.
It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.
It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch ; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.
I can’t do it, you say it’s killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor’s button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.
by Marge Piercy
"To Have Without Holding"
Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.
It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.
It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch ; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.
I can’t do it, you say it’s killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor’s button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.
by Marge Piercy
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