This last week I've ignored writing because I have the tendency to "try too hard". Like, get all manic and obsessive and "fuck-the-fucking-world"y. Now I'm wondering what is considered actual poetry? Nobody seems to know. I can't get a clear understanding about everything I've read and tried.

It feels like I'm disconnected, which ends up in self-depraving feelings of stupidity. What do others seriously get/understand that I do not? Or are poets just a bunch of opinionated narcissists with pretentious views that amount to nothing? Seriously. It seems like everyone's opinion of poetry is required to differ from another's, and it also seems like all poets are (by nature) "brilliant originals". Every single fucking published poet is a brilliant writer. What I don't get is why each poet, though vastly different from other writers, is somehow brilliant in his or her own respect-- when the things they write seem to equate to crap written by novices. 

I've been thinking of joining a literary arts class, or a poetry circle for hands-on critiques. I don't know if it'll help, but anything is worth a shot (I suppose).

"Or are poets just a bunch of opinionated narcissists with pretentious views that amount to nothing?" Yep

Seriously though -- generally I've found that the people who try to circumscribe poetry are the ones whose writing I enjoy the least. Anyone who thinks they're actually original is forgetting the entire back catalogue of humanity that they're drawing from and then adding into. Sometimes, the "new big thing" is decided by a committee of academics whose only real goal is to perpetuate they're own perceived brilliance (even though many said academics are not especially good writers themselves, but do want to have their name associated with posterity in some way).

So. Poetry, like all art, is subjective. Personally, I subjectively rebel against being told I must or must not like something. I like loads of uncool things, and despise many poems that others insist are super awesomely amazing and I'm "just not getting it". I'm pretty good at "getting it". Sometimes, I just have no common ground with the poet.

The poets I do like the most are those whose personality is evident in their poetry. Sometimes they're a bit cheeky, or irreverent -- sometimes they're just really damned thoughtful and give me a different way to look at things. Sometimes they're just plain silly. I never know what I'm going to enjoy, but when I find it I love it to death because it's a very rare thing.

I don't know if that answers any of your dilemmas, but at least you're not posting Facebook crap in discussions so massive high five to you!

(05-03-2017, 08:27 AM)burrealist Wrote:  I've been thinking of joining a literary arts class, or a poetry circle for hands-on critiques. I don't know if it'll help, but anything is worth a shot (I suppose).

Hmmmmmm, hands on poetry critique sounds.....interesting.

Hands on or hands off. Or just gently caressing...

It helps to bring the energy behind the poem to fruition.

I like poems that ooze.

Well, write what you know.

For me poetry is anything I can connect to that takes me in a different direction, that stands out for some reason, it could be a line in a book or just a particular phrasing or even my interpretation of a poem that makes it personal to me, right or wrong by the poets intention. What makes one person prefer rock music to soul, God knows it can't be the lyrics but why does it matter? Like what you like and write what you want, it's all flotsam on a sea of noughts and ones, but that's why there are beach comers, they see the ships sail in a piece of sea glass.

poetry is
poetry is not a luxury
poetry is as pointless as
poetry is as important as
poetry is.




Derp. Wrong topic.

Poetry illicits emotion in passing, without investment. It tastes cheap and looks easy, but ultimately it's satisfying. If a good novel is your wife, a good poem is your whore.

well, having been royally humbled by the first hand-on irl workshop i've joined, all i can add to this conversation is
nothing that hasn't been said before. poetry, like faith or beauty or love or orgasm, is a thing other people can't answer for you,
and somehow this essential subjectivity means it can imbue meaning in your life? that you defining it somehow adds meaning to your life?
and that to ignore it and just go about with the day to day in blissful ignorance is a massive act of bad faith for which you must stand judged in the end times?
in these end times? and for a more practical answer, again, nothing original: all aspects of life are fundamentally struggle, and anyone who claims to have some part of their life that isn't
is selling something. read, write, publish your writing, get royally humbled, read again, write again: eventually you'll find an answer, and maybe even a couple of friends who agree with you.

---all of this sent with love from the biggest tryhard (afaik) of this site.

(05-05-2017, 12:41 AM)RiverNotch Wrote:  well, having been royally humbled by the first hand-on irl workshop i've joined, all i can add to this conversation is
nothing that hasn't been said before. poetry, like faith or beauty or love or orgasm, is a thing other people can't answer for you,
and somehow this essential subjectivity means it can imbue meaning in your life? that you defining it somehow adds meaning to your life?
and that to ignore it and just go about with the day to day in blissful ignorance is a massive act of bad faith for which you must stand judged in the end times?
in these end times? and for a more practical answer, again, nothing original: all aspects of life are fundamentally struggle, and anyone who claims to have some part of their life that isn't
is selling something. read, write, publish your writing, get royally humbled, read again, write again: eventually you'll find an answer, and maybe even a couple of friends who agree with you.

---all of this sent with love from the biggest tryhard (afaik) of this site.

Isn't it a bit early in the pre-coffee morn to be thinking about how to appease angry gods with our poetic choices?

Fark.

Now you've got me all worried about whether he prefers iambs or trochees.....

I AMs, of course.

There is a bright God of Poetry,
sitting high in cerulean skies,
he is the Keeper of Meter and Rhyme,
he does not eat poems with fries.

He claps His hand and a poet is born,
fully formed, naked and new,
given a stick and a tablet of stone,
still he knows not what to do.

“I ask You, my Lord, to tell me Your will,
“oh, what shall I do with this stick?”
The Lord reaches out and fills it with ink
says “Behold, My Son:
I AM BIC.”

Allow yourself to play!

(05-05-2017, 06:21 AM)just mercedes Wrote:  Allow yourself to play!

YES! If you can't have fun with it, why do it? Poetry is for all occasions, and being silly is the most important occasion of all. Without it, we risk just turning into preachy wankers.

[quote="Leanne" pid='227963' dateline='1493929393']
I AMs, of course.

But I must disagree, all of God's favored feet
Have the holiest trinity rhythmically metered,
a dactyl is sweet, anapest can't be beat
and the poetry pleasantly will be complete.

For truly divine inspiration
an amphibrach brings you salvation
the rhythms compel us
though milo will tell us
it's merely a misappellation

Marshall McLuhan: "Art is anything you can get away with."
Ray: "In poetry, you don't even have to get away with it."

(05-07-2017, 04:13 PM)rayheinrich Wrote:  Marshall McLuhan: "Art is anything you can get away with."
Ray: "In poetry, you don't even have to get away with it."

Well, actually, you do have to get away with it, even if only by a hit and run thought.

(05-07-2017, 08:43 PM)ellajam Wrote:  

(05-07-2017, 04:13 PM)rayheinrich Wrote:  Marshall McLuhan: "Art is anything you can get away with."
Ray: "In poetry, you don't even have to get away with it."

Well, actually, you do have to get away with it, even if only by a hit and run thought.

"Don't even" means it can go either way.
And...
If you took that thought and used it to write a poem:
Every time someone read it, you'd be returning it.

It fills me with hot pleasure when my rants turn into everyone else's erections.

---

Forgive me.