Poetry and the Masses

[rowens]

I don't know anything about anything.

[clemonz]

i hope i'm welcome...

[rowens]

I'm an American Pragmatist, I never learn or know anything but on accident.

[clemonz]

so.. you seriously never read the so called avant garde, let alone the current ones, nor thought about reading anything about them, but you're an expert to that extent

?

i dunno, sorry if i'm being slow, but idgi

[Leanne]

You really don't do irony well, do you?

Rowen is one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever met -- very well read and able to synthesise new with old in fascinating ways. He clearly just doesn't feel obligated to brag about everything he's ever discovered. In many ways, Rowen's writing IS avant-garde (which is not a period in history or a group of poets, but a concept).

[rowens]

Rowen is one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever met -- very well read and able to synthesise new with old in fascinating ways. He clearly just doesn't feel obligated to brag about everything he's ever discovered. In many ways, Rowen's writing IS avant-garde (which is not a period in history or a group of poets, but a concept).

Is that an example of being ironic?

[Leanne]

Ha, no, not today. Don't worry, you still irritate the living shit out of me

[clemonz]

You really don't do irony well, do you?

Rowen is one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever met -- very well read and able to synthesise new with old in fascinating ways. He clearly just doesn't feel obligated to brag about everything he's ever discovered. In many ways, Rowen's writing IS avant-garde (which is not a period in history or a group of poets, but a concept).

well how the hell am i supposed to know that, it's absurd. moreover however well qualified he is, to say what he did is pretty unreasonable. however good a writer he is or people perceive him to be, that doesn't mean you can just dismiss all poetry that came before you, on a whim.

[Leanne]

Absurdism is a perfectly acceptable form of communication. Sometimes, purple antelopes.

[clemonz]

i guess... but annoying is still annoying

[rowens]

Usually if someone told me I'd done something avant-garde, I'd assume they were simply telling me I was a pervert or a weirdo in a nice way.

[Leanne]

You know better than that. I'm happy to tell you you're a pervert or a weirdo in a perfectly nasty way. Doesn't change the fact that you still write some pretty good poems.

clemonz -- the only thing I find truly annoying is ignorance, or ignorant people assuming that everyone else is as ignorant as themselves. True understanding doesn't come from books, but from applying learning in new ways. Those who manage to do this become the vanguard for real change.

[abu nuwas]

Getting back to the masses, I bought a Philip Hegley book to-day, where he links one little poem to another with tales of spectacles, and dogs-- mostly his spectacles, and his dog. If the masses had not fallen away from religion, they might appreciate:

My dog my dog why hast thou forsaken me?

I think a kind of modified masses would be the first target, then the whole shoot.

[clemonz]

You know better than that. I'm happy to tell you you're a pervert or a weirdo in a perfectly nasty way. Doesn't change the fact that you still write some pretty good poems.

clemonz -- the only thing I find truly annoying is ignorance, or ignorant people assuming that everyone else is as ignorant as themselves. True understanding doesn't come from books, but from applying learning in new ways. Those who manage to do this become the vanguard for real change.

wait are you saying i'm ignorant

i'm not ignorant, i just don't understand who is being sarcastic.

---

i am a bit ignorant i guess, but not THAT badly. what gives?

[rowens]

I'm happy to tell you you're a pervert or a weirdo in a perfectly nasty way.

As long as you don't tell me I'm both a pervert and a weirdo.

i'm not ignorant, i just don't understand who is being sarcastic.

Beyond sarcasm there are also lies.

[Leanne]

Getting back to the masses, I bought a Philip Hegley book to-day, where he links one little poem to another with tales of spectacles, and dogs-- mostly his spectacles, and his dog. If the masses had not fallen away from religion, they might appreciate:

My dog my dog why hast thou forsaken me?

I think a kind of modified masses would be the first target, then the whole shoot.

What kind of modification are we talking about? I tend to prefer mutants. I shall begin writing poetry for X-Men.

[clemonz]

I'm happy to tell you you're a pervert or a weirdo in a perfectly nasty way.

As long as you don't tell me I'm both a pervert and a weirdo.

i'm not ignorant, i just don't understand who is being sarcastic.

Beyond sarcasm there are also lies.

so you were calling me ignorant? not with a capital I anyway.

---

Pam Ayres... brilliant

really? better than ezra pound??

[rowens]

Why do you think you're ignorant?

[Leanne]

Is chocolate better than an ocean breeze? You still don't get it. "Better" implies a relationship between two similar things -- just because two people write poetry, they are not necessarily similar. W.H. Auden's "Letter to Lord Byron" and Marriott Edgar's "Asparagus" both make me laugh when I read them, but I don't consider them similar or even comparable. Both are examples of excellence in matching form, subject, purpose and audience. Poetry is not a small term to be confined to a hierarchy of perceived quality.

[clemonz]

Why do you think you're ignorant?

cos i've not read much.