(06-03-2016, 04:55 PM)billy Wrote:  doesn't this thread also beg the question; "is poetry anachronistic"?

I already addressed that the earlier in the thread.
I would say, yes, poetry is anachronistic. As is oil painting, opera, etc. Doesn't in any way change the enjoyment or value of either.

meh. Watch the news. Outside of cheap slogans life is anachronistic.

Oi! This is getting depressing.  

No worries, if you wait long enough it all comes back in style eventually.  So, it doesn't matter if it's what's done or if it's not.  At some point in time it will be deemed awesome by the mysterious declaring powers and then later rejected by their successors simply because every time power changes hands they have to stomp out the supporters of the old regime.

 Once everyone is officially on board with never rhyming again, some daring soul will do it ironically to prove a point and then everyone will copycat and that will herald in the next era of reinstating strict meter rules and complicated rhyme paterns and everyone will sneer at that "old fashioned free verse which is so anachronistic."  And then someone will write a poem with no rhymes, ironically, to prove a point ....

Anyway, so just write what pleases you and someday it will probably be cool.   At least that's my plan, but cool has never been my strong suit, so ... :p

I am waiting for wagons to come back in style to show off my slick wainwrighting skillz

^i got my speedo's laid out for the same reason. trying to get into modeling.

in a post-postmodern world there isn't much that's anachronistic; not much that doesn't fit in this time. i noticed they're selling walkmans and cassette tapes in the urban outfitters. £13 for nirvana's bleach on cassette! is nirvana's bleach anachronistic? well, i don't know, but paying £13 for a cassette seems all too present.
i mean, the concept of  the anachronism [over the last 20 or so years] has been woven into the very fabric of fashion. for example, when i was at university there was a young chap there, about 19-20, who would wear a bowler hat to class. now, despite what you foreigners think of english people, we generally don't wander about in bowler hats. it could have been perceived as old fashioned; but, far from that, he seemed like the coolest dude, on the cutting edge, in a class of, admittedly, shabby looking philosophy students. i suppose the, somewhat trite, moral of this story is: fashion is shite, style is everything - a fact that fashion has come to acknowledge [and try to capitalise on]. and along with what most others have said, as long as something is done well, it will always have a place in modernity.

(06-04-2016, 12:48 PM)shemthepenman Wrote:  £13 for nirvana's bleach on cassette! is nirvana's bleach anachronistic?

More anarchistic than anachronistic

(06-04-2016, 01:14 PM)ambrosial revelation Wrote:  

(06-04-2016, 12:48 PM)shemthepenman Wrote:  £13 for nirvana's bleach on cassette! is nirvana's bleach anachronistic?

More anarchistic than anachronistic

true  although 13 quid for a tape is more capitalistic than anarchistic.

you snob, you knew i'd pose the question so you had to do it first

(06-03-2016, 11:38 PM)milo Wrote:  

(06-03-2016, 04:55 PM)billy Wrote:  doesn't this thread also beg the question; "is poetry anachronistic"?

I already addressed that the earlier in the thread.
I would say, yes, poetry is anachronistic. As is oil painting, opera, etc. Doesn't in any way change the enjoyment or value of either.

I have Nirvana's Bleach on cassette tape I got in the very late '80s and most of the books of rhyming poetry I stole from the library over the last few weeks before they met their doom. If anyone ever comes to town, all the public library's poetry is in my room. I stole the nonrhyming poetry too. I also stole all the D.H. Lawrence and Dostoevsky which they actually just threw in a pile next to the trashcan. I was too late to save the Samuel Beckett, they shredded most of the Bs.

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It took a long time to get around to weeding out the poetry books because they all looked old and nobody knew what was worth keeping. They didn't know where to begin.

(06-04-2016, 01:58 PM)rowens Wrote:  I have Nirvana's Bleach on cassette tape I got in the very late '80s and most of the books of rhyming poetry I stole from the library over the last few weeks before they met their doom. If anyone ever comes to town, all the public library's poetry is in my room. I stole the nonrhyming poetry too. I also stole all the D.H. Lawrence and Dostoevsky which they actually just threw in a pile next to the trashcan. I was too late to save the Samuel Beckett, they shredded most of the Bs.

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It took a long time to get around to weeding out the poetry books because they all looked old and nobody knew what was worth keeping. They didn't know where to begin.

Wait, they shredded books, instead of even just sold them/gave them away to other libraries? Assholes!

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Is poetry anachronistic? As long as there's something, people would want to make that something look beautiful, or be novel, or, er, both --- that is, aesthetics as a, er, force, as an idea, will never go out of style.

(06-04-2016, 01:58 PM)rowens Wrote:  I have Nirvana's Bleach on cassette tape I got in the very late '80s and most of the books of rhyming poetry I stole from the library over the last few weeks before they met their doom. If anyone ever comes to town, all the public library's poetry is in my room. I stole the nonrhyming poetry too. I also stole all the D.H. Lawrence and Dostoevsky which they actually just threw in a pile next to the trashcan. I was too late to save the Samuel Beckett, they shredded most of the Bs.

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It took a long time to get around to weeding out the poetry books because they all looked old and nobody knew what was worth keeping. They didn't know where to begin.

cassettes don't last. i bet if you played it on a walkman now, it would sound like you were listening to it under water.
i have only stolen one book from the library. i've still got it somewhere. it was a book on buddhism. i launched it out the library window and scuttled round the back and made off with it. i remember my girlfriend dumped me shortly after that. in hindsight, maybe i should have had a quick flick through before nicking it. . . karma's a motherfucker.

All my cassette tapes work still, older ones than that one. Only the players sometimes rip them up. So I got a new player. And, I think mostly people just don't know how to write rhyming poetry so they don't like to read other people who can.

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Plus, Bleach always had a kind of warped, muddy sound to it.

(06-04-2016, 02:37 PM)rowens Wrote:  All my cassette tapes work still, older ones than that one. Only the players sometimes rip them up. So I got a new player. And, I think mostly people just don't know how to write rhyming poetry so they don't like to read other people who can.

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Plus, Bleach always had a kind of warped, muddy sound to it.

you must have kept them mint, because all my tapes sound like dog shit.
i love bleach. one of the best albums ever recorded, in my opinion. i could listen to it played through a potato.

i remember, when i was about 10-11, the teacher told us poetry didn't have to rhyme. and, i remember being cynical about this proposition for the very reason you just mentioned. it sounded like the kind of thing someone would say to make us feel better about writing crap poetry; or making it easier to swallow - poetry lite. like, 'there is such a thing as emotional intelligence'* was the teachers way of making the thick kids feel less thick. but we all knew what they meant. the teacher might as well have given us a big nod and a wink.
obviously this was the thinking of a child, but it is hard to shake the idea that rhyming poetry is 'proper' poetry. and let's face it, even if it is out of favour, most people still see it, and formally structured poetry, as the standard that one can transcend but not ignore. like for example, abstract painting. one of the many defences of, say, picasso is that he could 'really' paint. which although may have done picasso some good, it doesn't lend much credibility to the art form itself. it isn't the same now, of course. the art world doesn't seem to care about whether someone can actually draw or not. but, in a populist sense, this argument still carries weight. and, it is the same for writing. poetry is poetry, and most people tolerate this self-indulgence. but, what is really taken seriously is the novel or prose. i heard a few years back germaine greer reviewing Bob Dylan's biography, and she remarked something like 'it was a relief to see that he could actually write'. . . as if his lyrics weren't enough.
therefore, my view is, fuck rhyming if it's going to lord it over everything else. and the kickback is justified. it isn't undermining rhyming, but rather undermining the principle that rhyming and structure are the here-and-forever measure of quality. or something or other. i am tired, bored, and tired again.



*this term wasn't about when i was at school, but you get the point.

(06-04-2016, 12:48 PM)shemthepenman Wrote:  i despite what you foreigners think of english people, we generally don't wander about in bowler hats.

Damn.  This almost ruined my weekend.

Shem wrote:

Quote:i could listen to it played through a potato.

A successful poem has a completeness to it. I think the reason forms, meter, rhyme maintain their interest for poets is that they are a beautiful set of bones. A strong skeleton under a piece can pull the reader along in a satisfying way. Ideally, the poem surrounds it and the reader only sees it when they think Why did this work so well? It's tough but fun to try, and when it works you have something stronger than its parts.

My tapes survive in a dark little room where sun rarely shines and pussy rarely gets exposed. The old white cassettes with the song titles smeared off last. Video cassettes of Return to Oz last. Cats and dogs come here to fuck and never get pregnant and most of all lizards and spiders. The eggs they lay never hatch. I have Bleach through Unplugged in New York on cassette tape. Never Mind and Unplugged in New York got tore up, I had to get them on CD. Never Mind on CD had a hidden track. When my tape player broke originally, I bought an In Utero CD. My In Utero tape said Waif Me on the song listing instead of Rape Me. The CD was made in Germany, said Rape me, and also had a hidden track. Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow and Perry Ellis with his broom. They hidden tracks were fun. In 1994 even that lame band Green Day had nice sounding cassette tapes I was in to and still have.

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Poetry, it never happened. You had every Nirvana album by '95, Bleach through Unplugged in New York and the singles and live imports, Green Day Slappy Days and Kerplunk, The Offspring Ignition. If you had Green Day Dookie or Offspring Smash you were a sellout, like the bands were. Me, I was still listening to Guns n Roses. I was still into Meat Loaf. I was into Poe, Byron, Baudelaire and Shelley. I bought the first The Presidents of the United States of America single, Lump. And was born into Neil Young and Tom Petty. It was easy where I grew up, because whatever you were into was rebellious, no one else knew anything in the late '80s but Bryan Adams, Garth Brooks, and Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band live.

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And Lynrd Skynrd. Or however it's spelled. Everybody knew Creedence Clearwater Revival, but they pretended like they didn't as excuse to beat you up. If you said you were reading Samuel Taylor Coleridge, they thought you meant your dad was a dentist or doctor or something and ignored you.

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The only reason they didn't beat me up was because I pretended like I liked it. I learned that from Lord Byron.

(06-04-2016, 09:29 PM)ellajam Wrote:  Shem wrote:

Quote:i could listen to it played through a potato.

A successful poem has a completeness to it. I think the reason forms, meter, rhyme maintain their interest for poets is that they are a beautiful set of bones. A strong skeleton under a piece can pull the reader along in a satisfying way. Ideally, the poem surrounds it and the reader only sees it when they think Why did this work so well? It's tough but fun to try, and when it works you have something stronger than its parts.

Hi Shem, I'm David, I'm new.

Often when I hear someone talk passionately and spontaneously about something that they care about I hear form and metre emerge naturally. And this form not always small. A drunken ten minute monologue can have more structure, symmetry and invention than a planned work.

I worry that when rhythm is rejected in favour of a series of declaimed images an important door has been closed. The one which allows poems to grow naturally into the world.

And sometimes another door opens. And from this door the poet, rapt, hopes to see themselves emerge, resplendent in the garb of fashion.

I prefer Mr Benn.

D.

(06-04-2016, 02:37 PM)rowens Wrote:  All my cassette tapes work still, older ones than that one. Only the players sometimes rip them up. So I got a new player. And, I think mostly people just don't know how to write rhyming poetry so they don't like to read other people who can.

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Plus, Bleach always had a kind of warped, muddy sound to it.

I bought some cheap cassettes from a side-of-the-highway shop in New Hampshire after I got my truck -- which is almost as old as myself. No CD player, just a radio and cassette player.

As far as rhyme goes, I think if rhyme is outdated, so is poetry. If poetry is outdated, I would say the same for art as a whole.
My question though: why do people think it's anachronistic? I can't think of any good reason.

It's the refinement, the advanced state of the art. You write something send it out into the world fifteen minutes later it's wrapped in the bubble of history and someone's safely an expert in it from outside the bubble's nook. Besides that, there was already an expertise ready for it. The refined, perfected formula is set, and people want to get to work, their custodian work. Historical custodians. Art custodians. Poetry custodians making these assessments and essays on the outmoded use of rhyme. I may be a custodian too, but at least I know my place. Nothing but a janitor closet.