The problem with ornate, poemy, and/or arched language

[matsunosuperfan]

It's not that it's bad in itself PER SE
Admittedly that's a matter of taste, to some degree

But I think the real, more objective issue is that to write like this, and have it really land, *you have to command the authority of the old masters*

Like sure write like Dylan Thomas if you want, it better goddamn feel like I'm reading Dylan Thomas level craft. Otherwise the predominant impression will be one of imitation by a less skilled amateur. The ostensible goal of the poem will be lost in unavoidable comparison and questioning of "did they say it that way because that's how this speaker talks, or because they think that's what a poem should sound like?"

It is very hard to write outside one's own contemporary vernacular without sounding like you're "putting it on"

[busker]

Dylan Thomas was great, but not uniformly so. His earlier work, such as “The force that through the green fuse” etc is unreadable though nice sounding gibberish.

I can only speak for myself, and my tastes are fairly catholic. I dislike pretentious, pseudo intellectual purportedly academic garbage. I can’t fathom why anyone will like Anne Carson as a poet outside of a small bubble of American leftist artsy types who have a very narrow view and experience of the world.

Ocean Vuong, Joy Harjo, Ruth Stone, Henry Vaughan, Ted Kooser - now I’m not widely read, but that’s a range, and they all write it wrote well. Sans gimmicks.

The main reason why I don’t think highly of modern poets is that they are the same shallow, artsy types with no life experience, writing endlessly about the trivial problems of their modern American urban existence. Earlier western poets weren’t such useless pansies. Poe died of rabies and Marlowe got stabbed. Goethe was an administrator. Shakespeare was a wily businessman first and a writer of comedies second. Radnoti was killed by the Nazis.

Ted Kooser was at least a farm boy. Geoff Hill was British. They had real lives. And that reflects in their poetry.

If you don’t love palaeontology, you can’t be a poet.
If you don’t like spreadsheets, you’re a poser

---

This was a reply to the wrong thread - it was meant for your other post and got mixed up

[RiverNotch]

The problem in part is assuming that normal English is even one's own vernacular. 16th century English, 18th century English, 20th century English---and I spend a lot of my time speaking, writing, even thinking in English---but all of that is technically not my native language. I was born speaking Tagalog, and I couldn't care less if some of my pieces seem particularly dated, at least as a general principle: I just want to write what sounds good to me, what fits my immediate purpose. And oftentimes my purpose is to mock at the language's ancients, to doggedly say, "Not only is this my language, but I am steeped in its history better than you, who would scorn me for not being white or native enough to fit your canon. I am more English than you, and I was born speaking something else."

[busker]

The problem in part is assuming that normal English is even one's own vernacular. 16th century English, 18th century English, 20th century English---and I spend a lot of my time speaking, writing, even thinking in English---but all of that is technically not my native language. I was born speaking Tagalog, and I couldn't care less if some of my pieces seem particularly dated, at least as a general principle: I just want to write what sounds good to me, what fits my immediate purpose. And oftentimes my purpose is to mock at the language's ancients, to doggedly say, "Not only is this my language, but I am steeped in its history better than you, who would scorn me for not being white or native enough to fit your canon. I am more English than you, and I was born speaking something else."

I would go further and question what “normal English” is.
It’s certainly not the crap that necessarily infests Netflix

[Luckieman]

[quote="busker" pid='283676' dateline='1793337939']

The main reason why I don’t think highly of modern poets is that they are the same shallow, artsy types with no life experience, writing endlessly about the trivial problems of their modern American urban existence. Earlier western poets weren’t such useless pansies. Poe died of rabies and Marlowe got stabbed. Goethe was an administrator. Shakespeare was a wily businessman first and a writer of comedies second. Radnoti was killed by the Nazis.

---

 
At last someone with the guts to state this out loud! Regardless of form, the subjects of most modern poems are alternatively utterly banal or artificially obscure, and thus uninteresting to most 'ordinary' folk (i.e. non-poets). I strongly suspect a poets' cult has developed, the members of which, write, share, criticise and publish each others' work regardless of its interest to the population at large. Which is why the poetry section of most bookshops is a pure token gesture. If we want public to read and remember our poetry, we should write about things that have perennially interested them.

[matsunosuperfan]

Dylan Thomas was great, but not uniformly so. His earlier work, such as “The force that through the green fuse” etc is unreadable though nice sounding gibberish.

I can only speak for myself, and my tastes are fairly catholic. I dislike pretentious, pseudo intellectual purportedly academic garbage. I can’t fathom why anyone will like Anne Carson as a poet outside of a small bubble of American leftist artsy types who have a very narrow view and experience of the world.

Ocean Vuong, Joy Harjo, Ruth Stone, Henry Vaughan, Ted Kooser - now I’m not widely read, but that’s a range, and they all write it wrote well. Sans gimmicks.

The main reason why I don’t think highly of modern poets is that they are the same shallow, artsy types with no life experience, writing endlessly about the trivial problems of their modern American urban existence. Earlier western poets weren’t such useless pansies. Poe died of rabies and Marlowe got stabbed. Goethe was an administrator. Shakespeare was a wily businessman first and a writer of comedies second. Radnoti was killed by the Nazis.

Ted Kooser was at least a farm boy. Geoff Hill was British. They had real lives. And that reflects in their poetry.

If you don’t love palaeontology, you can’t be a poet.
If you don’t like spreadsheets, you’re a poser

---

This was a reply to the wrong thread - it was meant for your other post and got mixed up

How can you claim to value writing without gimmicks and praise Ocean Vuong, the sitting president of the "tossed off vaguely woo metaphor" club?

What is with this insistence that only certain lives are "real." Please show photos from last African rhino hunt.

[RiverNotch]

I think also that the vast majority of poetry is quite frankly terrible, or at least terrible-to-just-okay, and writing with an affected, old-fashioned voice is a great way to tell if you're writing shittily or not. With contemporary diction it's very easy to delude one's self into thinking one is writing well, in part because there is no established canon for poets past, idk, TS Eliot, so the standards for what's good and what's bad are yet to be fully defined; and also because one can have so many more excuses for when one is writing badly, such as that one is simply "pushing the boundaries of the language" or one is "speaking as naturally as they could", when writing in a contemporary voice, whereas old-fashioned or ornate voices are far more exacting. That's not to say that we should always be writing in old-fashioned styles, but, like, Spenser had a damn good reason to imitate Chaucer when he wrote The Faerie Queene: it's just another device, one poets should be well acquainted with if they're going to be any good.

[wasellajam]

It's not that it's bad in itself PER SE
Admittedly that's a matter of taste, to some degree

But I think the real, more objective issue is that to write like this, and have it really land, *you have to command the authority of the old masters*

Like sure write like Dylan Thomas if you want, it better goddamn feel like I'm reading Dylan Thomas level craft. Otherwise the predominant impression will be one of imitation by a less skilled amateur. The ostensible goal of the poem will be lost in unavoidable comparison and questioning of "did they say it that way because that's how this speaker talks, or because they think that's what a poem should sound like?"

It is very hard to write outside one's own contemporary vernacular without sounding like you're "putting it on"

I don't mind the occasional archaic word when it's right on the money in meaning and/or sonics, but I think it's important to speak to the reader. The point of the poem is communication, what does that best is preferred. I have no problem with having to search a word that's new to me but I can't see using out of date language unless the poem wants to take the reader into the past.

[purplie]

I'm amused to have been (apparently, judging by the timing) the novice whose pretentious poem prompted these comments.  

You are perfectly right, of course. 

Novices do need to stretch beyond their ability, and fail frequently, to learn. I'm sincerely appreciative of your having taken time to comment on it anyway.

[matsunosuperfan]

I'm amused to have been (apparently, judging by the timing) the novice whose pretentious poem prompted these comments.  

You are perfectly right, of course. 

Novices do need to stretch beyond their ability, and fail frequently, to learn. I'm sincerely appreciative of your having taken time to comment on it anyway.

Actually no this is an old hill for me to repeatedly die on <3 glad you found the discussion useful either way!