What’s wrong with poetry?

[escorial]

evolution i believe is about moving forward

[Leanne]

devolution might be the word you're looking for.

Probably closer to "persistent throwbacks"

[escorial]

i often think what would Mozart think of Johnny Rotten or Shakespear of Larkin...i would suggest the later would appreciate the work more.

[rowens]

Poets live too long these days, that's it.

[Leanne]

Robert Frost was 89 when he died... and he could use a comma properly.

[shemthepenman]

I really would like to comment... but you're all doing such a fine job, I think I may sit this one out.

[rowens]

I don't like all the intellectual talk. I think a poet only becomes an intelligent craftsman by accident.

[newsclippings]

something about putting a comma before "and" -- it's usually not appropriate, but sometimes necessary. I get a little vexed by the whole situation.

[Leanne]

So by that logic, anyone who has followed a process is not an intelligent craftsman?

---

something about putting a comma before "and" -- it's usually not appropriate, but sometimes necessary. I get a little vexed by the whole situation.

Oxford commas are for people who can't reorganise their sentence structure to avoid ambiguity

[Todd]

My question about evolution in poetry or art:

What is it that makes a particular poem (since that's what were discussing) a forward step from what has come before?

What is it about this "new" thing that makes it so original and good?

Often, I see new attempts as the same old repackaged crap. Nothing really new at all. Just a bundle of feelings that the writer superimposes upon the poem, but doesn't actually convey in the poem.

[rowens]

I think that someone that has followed a process can become an intelligent anything, but it's not enough.

[serge gurkski]

I must confess ( a lie) that I just write. If you guys prefer to endlessly discuss the criteria, the shibboleths that inform you re what text qualifies and what text not, I can only retreat. Have fun. See, in the meantime a new poem whispered into my ear: let me, let me out!
And it sat and waited on the wing of a butterfly. This butterfly wing was a tiny sheet of paper I carried around with me and took to a Turkish pharmacist 10 minutes away from me. I needed the "real" (authentic Turkish word for red evening sky (sunset) but not: sunset but instead: red evening sky. (in German there is a word: Abendrot.) So she was busy but scribbled the red evening sky down on the wing of that butterfly on which my poem would fly: kırmızı akşam gökyüzü. I could not read (was in a hurry too) the heaven-word (gök...)
so at the place I buy my booze I asked around. Finally (within 3O secs!) another Turk appeared. "what's going on?- I showed the undecipherable last 2 syllables of the heaven that woman had painted on my wing to him and he spelt it out to me. So my heaven was complete and I got out of this mall and lit a cig and had a bottle o' beer and held this butterfly wing thing in my evening hands and kissed it, closed my eyes, and then another epi-phany: a gang of German words to embalm my butterfly evening showed up: Are you ready, they asked, and me: no pencil, guys. But, said I, let me gift you a lift and I'll fix you down. Back home they fell out of my fingers and they looked like this: Auf einem Schmetterlingsflügel fing sie mein
atemloses Gestammel ein und kritzelte: (She caught my breathless babble on a wing of a butterfly and scribbled down this: ) kırmızı akşam gökyüzü.
And then the left hand of my brain took a big gulp of the Rum I had bought to water my thoughts to let them smoothly flow out and they explained the poem in my head to me teasing me a bit: Who is the Turkish poetical mirror of Neruda? Easy enough, I replied, Nâzım Hikmet? -   . Evet (yes), so them and asked again: and who is the poet mirroring Hikmet in Tang China? - Easy, my friends, that would be no other than Li Po. - Think again, they insisted. - Li Bai. - Tamam, so them, ok, and he just invited you, a poet drunk to spent some full moon time with him on the big river and they handed over to me the other wing of my butterfly on which engraved was this:

Rather than to drink alone,
I’ll make bold to ask the moon
To condescend to lend her face
The hour and the scene to grace.
Lo, she answers, and she brings
My shadow on her silver wings;
That makes three, and we shall be.
I ween, a merry company
The modest moon declines the cup,
But shadow promptly takes it up,“

So the established drunken poet in a Rimbaud-like gest navigated his bateau ivre along the line on the river the moon had laid out for us and leaning forward whispered the next poem I will write into my yawning ear. ----

„When the dusk glows red ...“

[serge gurkski]

evolution i believe is about moving forward

What do you mean by "forward"? Improving, progressing? Because that is a common but wrong assumption and exactly not implied. All that biologists say is that evolution is change but if to the better or to the worse is only in hindsight (and of course on our human evaluation). I am not a biologist but believe in Richard Dawkins here.

It is really tricky.

[newsclippings]

...

this whole discussion seems stupid.

---

there's just some obvious regurgitation of "yes, people are stupid.. yes."

and we're going from biology to poetry?
meh.

[serge gurkski]

I write a poem. and yes, news, evolution is abused as a metaphor. Obviously. And not for the first time (social darwinism). Logically: if evolution is used in the most anarchic way, it follows devolution cannot make sense either. etc yaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwn. Need a drink. I am all for Dada but not if it is not even funny. ,-)

And yes this whole pseudo-poetological babbling makes nothing less than sense.

---

what's wrong with poetry?

in nutshell...nothing, the problem lays with the would be poet. the fuss always seems to be about what the poet who wrote it meant, how they suffer for their art. on a site like this i#m really only interested if the poet is trying to improve, i'm long past anything impressing me, be it poetry or anything else. i love seeing someone do an edit or think about how they can improve. what for me defies logic, is someone posting a poem then after getting feedback asking if uch and such is allowed here. they ask because people leave feedback as to why something doesn't work. write any crazy way you like but don't then question whether or not you're allowed to. write as you will and give feedback as will. wehn you don't do or allow either you create the wrongness in poetry.

we should all be allowed to dislike something in your poem, don't be so fucking shocked if someone gives feedback about the silly fucking ideas you experiment with. who knows some may think what you did works. it's a lottory don't cry if you don't win.


think skin is what's wrong woth poetry...too many poets have thin skin and an elevated idea as to their own greatness.

Now that's what I call "case closed". Amen to that , too, billy.
Worryingly, though (to me) is the never ending (hopefully) stream of mixed ability contributors in Serious who ask for crit, post once, get crit...then vanish. I envisage a kind of Elephant's Graveyard full of souls dispossesed of all reason to live..who abandon poetry and take up butterfly collecting or needlepoint. That is not a measured response to crit and indicates to me an ulterior motive for posting...the wish for respect, recognition and self-aggrandisement is high on their agenda. I would be kind to them all but that reeks of positive discrimination. I would not wish that on anyone, particularly me...which is why I am here and not in another place. To improve in poetry is the reason we post...not praise: though faint praise is fiendishly effective...most do not see it and those who do keep quiet and keep posting.
Best,
tectak

To cut it short, Tom. I can tell you why they run away but you know that by yourself: your tone pisses them off. Who was it again just yesterday I think, who wrote that she was afraid of posting and if you and I could relate? (it was on the snower thread). Please reread.

You make valuable comments but sabotage yourself. I told you that in pm. By all means just keep cool. The fact that some or many people are vainglorious does not entitle you to (to quote myself) knock them out tysonishly. Who the fuck do you think you are?

So you write your poems for 50 years? So I shit and pee since I was born almost 50 years ago. Qualifies me how? Does that prove that my turds smell, or if you are so inclined, taste better than yours? Would not bet on it. ,-).


Once again: write your stuff.


cheeze meek and mild!!!!!

[rayheinrich]

Nope, nothing wrong with poetry.
In fact, logically, 'poetry' can't be wrong.
Can a rock be wrong? A sunset?

But what do I think is wrong with what 96%
of the people I read write?:

Too long.

No reason for any poem to have more than 80 words,
no reason at all.

[serge gurkski]

Nope, nothing wrong with poetry.
In fact, logically, 'poetry' can't be wrong.
Can a rock be wrong? A sunset?

But what do I think is wrong with what 96%
of the people I read write?:

Too long.

No reason for any poem to have more than 80 words,
no reason at all.

I want the cheese please.

[Leanne]

To cut it short, Tom. I can tell you why they run away but you know that by yourself: your tone pisses them off. Who was it again just yesterday I think, who wrote that she was afraid of posting and if you and I could relate? (it was on the snower thread). Please reread.

You make valuable comments but sabotage yourself. I told you that in pm. By all means just keep cool. The fact that some or many people are vainglorious does not entitle you to (to quote myself) knock them out tysonishly. Who the fuck do you think you are?

That's what Serious Critique is about. It's not touchy feely. It's the kind of critique I need and many others desperately appreciate -- the kind of critique you don't find on many other sites, if any. Just as we don't encourage cookie-cutter poems, we don't want every critic to be exactly the same, without personality and the freedom to express their honest opinions.

If people don't like it, there are many other forums on the site that may suit them better. I don't post in all forums -- I never venture into haiku, for example, except to read. I used to post in Mild Critique occasionally but found it inadequate to my needs, so I don't go there either.

The whole point of the site is to learn about poetry, through immersion in the work of others and through honest constructive criticism. There are a million poetry showcase sites out there, the ones that claim to offer critique but really only give you the occasional tentative "forgive me if I make a suggestion" and the rest is backpatting and glory seeking. Personally, I would mourn if we ever lost that edge that occasionally pisses people off, but that is so incredibly helpful to those who are -- as the forum name suggests -- serious. After a moment of mourning, I would down tools, never to return.

Now, there is no excuse and indeed no reason to continue on a "let's all attack Tom for expressing his opinion" vendetta. He's only saying what I and several others have said before and will no doubt continue to say in the future. We're here to encourage poets of all skill levels, but we're not here to swoon over mediocrity and call it a revelation.

---

No reason for any poem to have more than 80 words,
no reason at all.

"No reason at all" is the best reason to write poetry. In fact, it may be the only acceptable reason.

I also would like the cheese.

[shemthepenman]

now forgive me if I am wrong (and I’m kinda joining this a bit late in the day), but this whole discussion was set in motion by a few innocuous comments made by a couple of people about [forgive me] a rather poor poem [to be polite] and the spaces after the commas. And although there have been some interesting questions raised in this thread [particularly Todd’s about what originality is and why some good others not etc.] , it seems to me if one bases the great originality of a poem and evolution of language and poetry etc. on where one puts a fucking comma that’s what magicians call misdirection. There is a simple scientific process that one can adopt called ‘experimentation’. Instead of pissing and moaning that, oh no one understands me, rather try out the suggestions. Put a space there does it take anything away from the poem, does it add anything. Oh look, it does both, takes away you looking like a silly sod and adds a bit of readability. done.

[newsclippings]

I never said we shouldn't give harsh critiques, I say we stop bitching about it and hop to it.