Poetry and the Masses

[rowens]

Dead poets usually hog all the attention. I've known people that think of poetry only in terms of the past. It might surprise them to know that there are famous or well known poets these days.

[milo]

Dead poets usually hog all the attention. I've known people that think of poetry only in terms of the past. It might surprise them to know that there are famous or well known poets these days.

It depends, you have known them, do you consider them easily surprised?

[rowens]

I find people easily shocked and jaded at the same time.

And I think the best way to get people's attention on poetry is to release a mainstream movie where the main characters are poets. That makes people interested.

---

A movie where the characters stress working on poetry instead of rebelling against poetic conventions. Yes. That's the ticket.

[Truerenigma]

I find people easily shocked and jaded at the same time.

And I think the best way to get people's attention on poetry is to release a mainstream movie where the main characters are poets. That makes people interested.

---

A movie where the characters stress working on poetry instead of rebelling against poetic conventions. Yes. That's the ticket.

They already did that with the one about Poe. I actually enjoy a lot of plays and cinema, and I've been noticing a growing popularity for poetry among these other mediums.

[rowens]

Which one was it with Poe?

[Truerenigma]

Which one was it with Poe?

I think it's called the raven.

---

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1486192/

[rowens]

Oh. When I saw that trailer it looked like an action movie somehow. Like Poe was saving the day.

[milo]

Don't forget Sylvia.
Also, Leanne's favourite movie, dead poets society had something about poets in it.
Did you ever see the animated edition of Dantes inferno?

[Wjames]

There was also this movie starring Leo Dicaprio as Rimbaud that came out in the 90's (I think it was total eclipse), and those recent James Franco and Daniel Radcliffe movie's about Ginsberg. I also remember watching The Dead Poet's Society in several different English classes. I don't think more exposure in movies would really get that many more people into poetry.

[milo]

I think they made 3 different Kerouac films.

[rowens]

I don't think they count.

I just meant movies that "the masses" would find interesting about poetry. People that normally don't go looking for poetry. Some people I knew got interested when that movie came out about Perks of Being a Wallflower. I don't know if that has much about poetry in it, but it must have had something. In the '90s I knew people that got turned on to poetry through The Basketball Diaries.

I said people I "knew", I don't keep up appearances and neither do they.

[Leanne]

I'm with milo (not on the Dead Poets Society thing, I may punch him for that...) in that my favourite contemporary poets tend to be ones I've dealt with personally (which doesn't mean that I only like my friends, because I can tell you that some of my best friends write rotten poetry, and some of the people I've dealt with personally who happen to be brilliant poets still make me want to run over them in the street).

There is of course the incomporable Ms Mercedes Webb-Pullman, New Zealand's finest. Also Stephan Anstey from Lowell, Mass. -- a town that seems to produce well above its fair share of not-too-terrible poets. Then there's Jim Benz from Minneapolis, the delightful Canadian Ruth Day Elliott who seems to have been stuck in Chicago for a long time now, my fellow Aussie John Holland, Scotland's Gary Brown, Steve Meador from Florida, a terribly grumpy Irishman called Peter Dunne who now pollutes the streets of London... all of whom I would highly recommend reading, but not necessarily talking to

---

And a few of the critters in the Pig Pen, who know who they are and why I'm not singling them out for special attention, but I will read and have read with great pleasure any publication they care to produce.

[Truerenigma]

I'm with milo (not on the Dead Poets Society thing, I may punch him for that...) in that my favourite contemporary poets tend to be ones I've dealt with personally (which doesn't mean that I only like my friends, because I can tell you that some of my best friends write rotten poetry, and some of the people I've dealt with personally who happen to be brilliant poets still make me want to run over them in the street).

There is of course the incomporable Ms Mercedes Webb-Pullman, New Zealand's finest. Also Stephan Anstey from Lowell, Mass. -- a town that seems to produce well above its fair share of not-too-terrible poets. Then there's Jim Benz from Minneapolis, the delightful Canadian Ruth Day Elliott who seems to have been stuck in Chicago for a long time now, my fellow Aussie John Holland, Scotland's Gary Brown, Steve Meador from Florida, a terribly grumpy Irishman called Peter Dunne who now pollutes the streets of London... all of whom I would highly recommend reading, but not necessarily talking to

---

And a few of the critters in the Pig Pen, who know who they are and why I'm not singling them out for special attention, but I will read and have read with great pleasure any publication they care to produce.

Strange, small, creepy world.

[Leanne]

In what way this time? Besides the fact that milo's in it...

[clemonz]

Dead poets usually hog all the attention. I've known people that think of poetry only in terms of the past. It might surprise them to know that there are famous or well known poets these days.

i dunno... on the one side you've got to be optimistic, and there's a lot of people writing poetry now.

but also the achievements of modernism etc. are [aren't they?] more radical than new poetry, and maybe most important poets are dead just cos poetry's been written for so long.



what new poetry schools / movements are there?

[milo]

In what way this time? Besides the fact that milo's in it...

you have no proof of this, and if you did, i might deny it.

[just mercedes]

I'm with milo (not on the Dead Poets Society thing, I may punch him for that...) in that my favourite contemporary poets tend to be ones I've dealt with personally (which doesn't mean that I only like my friends, because I can tell you that some of my best friends write rotten poetry, and some of the people I've dealt with personally who happen to be brilliant poets still make me want to run over them in the street).

There is of course the incomporable Ms Mercedes Webb-Pullman, New Zealand's finest. Also Stephan Anstey from Lowell, Mass. -- a town that seems to produce well above its fair share of not-too-terrible poets. Then there's Jim Benz from Minneapolis, the delightful Canadian Ruth Day Elliott who seems to have been stuck in Chicago for a long time now, my fellow Aussie John Holland, Scotland's Gary Brown, Steve Meador from Florida, a terribly grumpy Irishman called Peter Dunne who now pollutes the streets of London... all of whom I would highly recommend reading, but not necessarily talking to

---

And a few of the critters in the Pig Pen, who know who they are and why I'm not singling them out for special attention, but I will read and have read with great pleasure any publication they care to produce.

Strange, small, creepy world.

[Leanne]

Oh, I forgot to mention the fact that Ms Mercedes is also a right grumpy bitch :p

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what new poetry schools / movements are there?

I'm not sure that we need schools or movements to label us anymore, do we? I hate the idea of any poet being restricted by a box.

[clemonz]

Oh, I forgot to mention the fact that Ms Mercedes is also a right grumpy bitch :p

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what new poetry schools / movements are there?

I'm not sure that we need schools or movements to label us anymore, do we? I hate the idea of any poet being restricted by a box.

i definitely got what you mean, but e.g. imagism was exciting, wasn't it - a new way of seeing / writing?

[Leanne]

I don't want to sound churlish, but Imagism to me is possibly the least interesting movement -- just after Modernism.