Andrey's questions about poems (split from the intro thread)

[AndreyGaganov]

Can't even begin to comment on that.  If a colour-blind man sees only shades of grey, does that make the sky less blue to others?

Your reply has to do with a physical perception, a condition no one can do anything about (supposedly). My concern here is with the sonic/musical aspect of poetry. I really don't know how you can connect these two dots.

And thus you prove that due to your inability to understand metaphor, the fundamental building block of poetry, you probably should give up and go back to jingle writing or whatever is easier for you to manage.

Are you saying that it is an inherent inability that cannot be assisted with, and so I should be turned away without applying critical thinking to the essence of poetry and the use of metaphors?

If you couldn't understand metaphors, as well as comprehend the point to using metaphors just as I can't, would you really give up that easily? I wouldn't.

[Achebe]

Also, before I forget: rayheinrich mentioned the sound and the rhythm, the musical aspect of reading poetry aloud. Well, as someone who's been listening to music half his life, to me singing is musical; reciting a poem with a speaking tone isn't. You never see/hear someone telling a poet: "Jesus Christ, that was a horrible voice. Let this guy/girl do the reading." or someone telling a singer "Your voice stinks, but that was a great song. Here's your fifty bucks." I think I get the 'rhythm' part, but the 'sound' part ... not really. I suppose the logic here is: anyone can read poetry, no matter how good or bad the voice is. Well, where's the music in that?

Can't even begin to comment on that.  If a colour-blind man sees only shades of grey, does that make the sky less blue to others?

Your reply has to do with a physical perception, a condition no one can do anything about (supposedly). My concern here is with the sonic/musical aspect of poetry. I really don't know how you can connect these two dots.

What's a 'physical perception'? Language, music, and colour are sensory perceptions that are processed in different areas of the brain. The causes are physiological in both cases.
What are we trying to argue here? The possibilities are: i) Nobody can appreciate poetry. This is obviously untrue, so I won't bother to argue this one. ii) Andrey can't appreciate poetry. Why? This seems to be what the discussion has been about so far. iii) Andrey can't appreciate poetry. Can you please help him? Fair enough, and leads on from (ii)

Let's look at the first - why can't Andrey appreciate poetry?
It could stem from three causes:

1. You're autistic. This is not meant as an insult. You may be gifted in music (though we are yet to see any evidence of that), but face difficulties in understanding the written word and more generally, verbal communication. So far, you've been reasonably articulate, so it may be that you're on the mild end of the spectrum. (Note: Edited)

2. You haven't read good poetry, or have started with poetry that is meant for people who already have an appreciation of the basics.
The roots of poetry lie in oral traditions, in epics. At its most basic, poetry is about sonics and rhythm. Rhyme adds an extra layer of rhythm to the lines. Why do we like it? Because it's elemental, it's hardwired in our brains. Rhythmic poetry is something that our brains respond to. If you don't like the basic sing-song rhythm of https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-a...tail/50259 then your brain is wired differently, and just like some people can't see the colour blue or can't smell certain scents, you will not get poetry. There's nothing you can do or discuss.
Now note the above example - it's a basic Elizabethan song, sung by peasants. Nothing fancy.
But if you now move to https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-a...tail/45217
It's harder to appreciate, but the rewards are greater. The rhythm and rhyme scheme are more complex, and the last line almost sounds like it's being piped through a flute.
Of course, if you've read The Wasteland's Fire Sermon and are coming back to this poem, then you will have a second level of appreciation of this line, though not one that Spenser intended:

They gathered some; the violet pallid blue, 
The little daisy, that at evening closes, 
The virgin lily, and the primrose true, 
With store of vermeil roses, 
To deck their bridegrooms' posies 
Against the bridal day, which was not long: 
      Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song

As a note: it's easy to write like this today, because we have learned the tricks of the trade. But no one does it, the same way that no one tries to run the 4 minute mile anymore, or conduct research on optics with prisms.

3. You are not here to actually have a discussion, but an argument, and waste everybody's time. I am not saying that you necessarily are, but that it's a possibility. In that case, I'd recommend you watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnTmBjk-M0c

[RiverNotch]

I like stir fries.  They are quick, nutritious and delicious.  I also like slow-cooked lamb shanks.  They take a long time to fully develop flavour but are nutritious and delicious.  

Ultimately I get the same out of both meals.  They are not the same.  One is not better than the other -- they are for different moods, seasons, situations.  

You can't slow-cook a stir fry.  It becomes tough and unpalatable, and loses its essence of freshness.  You can't stir fry a lamb shank.  Sinew doesn't break down and the fat has no time to render into flavour, so it just remains an unresolved pile of chunky, stringy goo.  

Novels and poems, while both written and ultimately delivering nutrition of similar value, are different.  This is not a competition.

What does a metaphor look like, to the metablind?

Maybe read the Metabarons? That book's the metashit -- I mean, from what I've heard, a father/mother taking the male brain of his child and stuffing it into the child's twin sister, forming the perfect androgyne!

Yeah, I couldn't resist. On a tangential note: anyone got a copy of that book? Really wanna read it.

---

^ Is that what you think of guys like novelists? Do you think they waste words?

I said that the difference between a poem and a novel is akin to a bullet to the head or cancer. They both kill you.

You've said more than that. You said: "In prose you sift through wasted words to get meaning, ... ." Hence the point I've made about novelists.

You said you can't get ANY meaning out of poems, eg, they are nothing but a waste of words.

These are not the words I used, nor do they precisely convey what I meant. What I had in mind was the perceived need to obscure the meaning of the poem. This does sound like an irrational stance, true (I should have thought it through the first time I posted on this forum). However, my main concern remains to be: why metaphors?

It's not so much a reading comprehension problem as it is my problem with what is at the foundation of poetry. My argument is this: why does a poet feel the need to use metaphors when we already have prose? Why contrive a confusing piece of literature and make the reader work hard on its meaning when it is only supposed to convey an idea? What practical  advantage do metaphors have over simple terms?

Gut punch, plus technical terms on how red something is are simply not literary, plus the idea of qualias and abstract thoughts being concretized for understanding. Even good prose has a tendency towards metaphor. And it's not contrived if it was considered literature before basically any other literary work. 

God, if you have to learn about the advantages of metaphor in the internet, then what the hell is up with the state of education today?

[Lizzie]

1. You're autistic. This is not meant as an insult. Autism is just a condition where a certain faculty does not develop, but others are heightened. It could be that the parts of your brain that respond to language AND parts that do so to music do not have enough active connections between each other. I am not a neuroscientist, so I couldn't tell you why or how. This will not be a unique condition, I'm sure.

Sorry, Achebe, but many autistic people and their high functioning neighbors the Aspie's (Asperger's) are beautiful poets. Metaphor and all.

Here's just one example:

[Leanne]

Metaphors are not exclusive to poetry. They are all around you, from the language employed by journalists and advertisers to the aphorisms of bumper stickers. They are written, verbal, visual - they are shortcuts to meaning, avoiding the need for longwinded explanations.

[Lizzie]

The way I understand it, metaphor enables poetry to speak succinctly and with complexity about things that are hard to define in prose. If you explicate a poem in prose, it loses its richness. Metaphor enables a poem to have multiple meanings simultaneously.

[Achebe]

1. You're autistic. This is not meant as an insult. Autism is just a condition where a certain faculty does not develop, but others are heightened. It could be that the parts of your brain that respond to language AND parts that do so to music do not have enough active connections between each other. I am not a neuroscientist, so I couldn't tell you why or how. This will not be a unique condition, I'm sure.

Sorry, Achebe, but many autistic people and their high functioning neighbors the Aspie's (Asperger's) are beautiful poets. Metaphor and all. 
Here's just one example:

I am not convinced that the link you shared is credible. The woman on it self declares her autism, which she then pushes as her USP. To me, she comes across as an attention seeker. 
Given how woolly and unscientific the classification of people with 'Aspergers' is, I wouldn't be surprised if half the world had Aspergers.

[AndreyGaganov]

If you don't find any music and sound in poetry, then yes, poetry is not for you. Fortunately, unlike in music, poetical tone-deafness has a cure: study.

Later on you make a good point about alliteration, assonance, and such as sound devices, though I wouldn't call it 'music' in the way I understand or used to understand it (melody, the vocal timbre, etc.). So, with that being said, that 'music' can be added as a dimension to poetry using the aforementioned sound devices, perhaps there's really no need for me to study as I understand the appeal of these devices. 

... then there are other rhythms, too -- stress timed meter, for example, where you COUNT all the PUNCHy TERMS the AUthor USes, or syllabic meter, where you count the syllables. Getting used to those (I suggest starting with stress timed, since that's classic to English -- see Beowulf), you'll eventually learn how simply extending or shortening either can have certain, universal effects (see all the free verse shite of, well, I'll start with TS Eliot, actually) -- just like how Bob Dylan's songs get the point across better than most pop drivel nowadays, with the number of words he packs per line (I think he was inspired by Ginsberg).

It is nice to read something succinct, although I, as a reader, am more concerned with the originality and profundity of the main thought in a poem. That's beautiful to me, and making it all sound nice is just an extra. But if it's a song, then it's entirely different. 

... emphasis and emotion really don't matter when reading poetry aloud, if the poem's any good, as long as the pronunciation of the reader follows how the word is typically pronounced -- which, even with the separation of accents, is universal, unless dictionaries really are that useless), ...

Well, that's something for me to get used to. 

... then moving on to the classics, Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton and the Romantics and the Modernists and the postmodernists and you get the picture. By solid translation, I mean not the prose ones, duh -- I actually like the Gummere version, although its wordings are super old, but I suppose Heaneywulf could work, too.

Duly noted. 

---

Although to say that poetry to you seems like self-indulgent white tower bullshit in a forum that's explicitly all about poetry is like shouting "but this makes 0 sense" in a church/evolutionary scientists convention.

Well, this isn't a church, but make no mistake: that was just how I reflected my impression of how poets seem to treat the language I was taught to read in the prosaic way exclusively. I came here to learn, not to scold poetry.

[AndreyGaganov]

I find it difficult to believe that there's no poetry by anyone anywhere that you'd gravitate toward. Authors are so diverse. Personally, I had to get away from reading the classics, as weird as that sounds. I actually like the poetry of my generation (I'm 36 everybody! Now you know! As if anyone cares ), and I would recommend checking out some contemporary volumes from the library -- books of emerging poets and young poets.

I tend to be cautious (very often do I turn my back) when it comes to new music. I find myself reveling when getting into the classics. I suspect that I will develop the same kind of attitude towards poetry ... as soon as I figure out the whole "the need for metaphors" business (which so far seems to be about being succinct). 

I also find it incredible that you don't think that there's a musicality to poetry. Music is my primary form of artistic expression (I'm a pianist, as is my mother). I just read "The Raven" the other night by Edgar Allen Poe, and I read it through several times just to feel the pressure of the beats.

Well, as I've pointed out before (though I am responding kind of late to your post, to be fair), I get the 'rhythm' part. As I see it, I as a musician (who's trying to make it his living) and the people here (the poetry aficionados) understand the word 'music' differently in the context of this discussion about poetry.

[AndreyGaganov]

Also, a moment of insight: Sylvia Plath (yeah, Leanne, I love Plath -- but I really wish I had a copy of any of Ted Hughes' books, especially Tales from Ovid) once  noted how she was jealous of the novelist, envying the fact that the novelist can take literally the entirety of a moment, the moment spanning up to a century, and the entirety precluding every single detail and every single action and every single word, and use it for her piece -- whereas, by corollary, the poet can only take "about a minute". But, if your mind isn't so limited to your earlier stated opinion that poetry is a self-indulgent exercise in cryptology (and really, a lot of the better translations of the epics read practically like novels -- or even skipping the translations like say The Ballad of the White Horse, or the Idylls of the King, which I in my perennial laziness have yet to read), then you're bound to have read at least one poem that shot through your heart in less than ten minutes ...

Lower your expectations. There wasn't an inkling of interest in poetry that was within me when even up to this age (25), so there wasn't a poem that gave me an eye-/ear-gasm with all of its literary technicalities. My attitude here is this: like I said before (I think I did), the natural allure of poetry to a human mind still mystifies me. The singer-songwriter Julia Holter, who is a fantastic songwriter and producer, writes poetry for her songs. Nick Cave (of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) is also a poet. In fact, I've heard "The Secret Life Of A Love Song" and "The Flesh Made Word" in their entirety, although he couldn't quite make it clear how he found God or any kind of meaning/purpose in poetry. I'm just trying to figure out what their deal is. Just think of me as an ignorant neophyte.  

... unlike a novel, or a short story, which obviously have to be so long, or if they're not much longer than a poem, have to be so detailed, taking you through the logic of things rather than getting straight to the "aha!". 

Well, a poet's efforts to compress words and pack a punch, which is what metaphors seem to be, don't seem to get me straight to the 'aha!' unless I go to the Web and read an explanation of the poem on hand. Then you have to do research for some of the poems, which makes poetry feel like something to labor for rather than enjoy, which seems to be the poet's own undoing of what he was working for, thus failing to fulfill his objective: make an impact on the reader/reciter.

[QDeathstar]

Maybe Andrey is a Vulcan....

where is the jacking off smiley when you need it.... I mean, I could have sex... but jacking off serves the same purpose.. busting a nut. Metaphors....

[Achebe]

Maybe Andrey is a Vulcan....

Half - Vulcan, or you don't get full points.
It's always a good idea to post the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqQeXkGosbs

[QDeathstar]

We don't need a like this button for poems, but I'd take one for generally useful comments.... ^

[Leanne]

This: 

We call it the likeon.

[AndreyGaganov]

Can't even begin to comment on that.  If a colour-blind man sees only shades of grey, does that make the sky less blue to others?

Your reply has to do with a physical perception, a condition no one can do anything about (supposedly). My concern here is with the sonic/musical aspect of poetry. I really don't know how you can connect these two dots.

What's a 'physical perception'? Language, music, and colour are sensory perceptions that are processed in different areas of the brain. The causes are physiological in both cases.

My point here was this: I was questioning the musicality of poetry (which is an ongoing debate here), but color-blindness a condition in Leanne's scenario isn't questionable. That's why I've pointed out at the time that her comparison of (1) relativity due to a physiological condition with (2) relativity of musical perception of poetry makes no sense. 

Anyway, I feel like this portion is getting much too convoluted for everyone's good and will achieve nothing but exasperation for everyone involved. 

ii) Andrey can't appreciate poetry. Why? This seems to be what the discussion has been about so far. iii) Andrey can't appreciate poetry. Can you please help him? Fair enough, and leads on from (ii).

Yes. Thank you. Let's work with (ii).

2. You haven't read good poetry, or have started with poetry that is meant for people who already have an appreciation of the basics. 
The roots of poetry lie in oral traditions, in epics. At its most basic, poetry is about sonics and rhythm. Rhyme adds an extra layer of rhythm to the lines. Why do we like it? Because it's elemental, it's hardwired in our brains. Rhythmic poetry is something that our brains respond to. If you don't like the basic sing-song rhythm of https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-a...tail/50259 then your brain is wired differently, and just like some people can't see the colour blue or can't smell certain scents, you will not get poetry. There's nothing you can do or discuss.

That's very unfortunate ... and discouraging, though it may mean nothing to you. I thought there was a stronger attraction to poetry then that of just mere rhyming and rhythms. Having sounds and rhythms that stick in your poem seems neat to me at best, but how you get an ear-gasm from the cold mix of vowels, consonants, and rhymes alone is beyond me. Based on what you've said, it appears that one must have a very strong passion for any kind of sound to appreciate poetry. Correct me if I'm wrong. 

On an additional note: You seem to be insinuating that someone who gets poetry can at the very least derive pleasure from vowels, consonants, rhymes, and rhythms. By that logic, with some effort I could passionlessly write a poem that features alliteration, assonance, rhymes, and rhythms, and thus score really high in the mind of the reader/reciter. Correct me if I'm wrong. 

But if you now move to https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-a...tail/45217
It's harder to appreciate, but the rewards are greater. The rhythm and rhyme scheme are more complex, and the last line almost sounds like it's being piped through a flute.

Honestly, I really don't know where you got the idea for the flute. I've never heard words being piped through a flute. And I've heard some mean flute playing; never heard a single progressive rock flautist do what you've just described. 

Of course, if you've read The Wasteland's Fire Sermon and are coming ... 

Sorry, ... never read it. It's never been taught to me. 

You are not here to actually have a discussion, but an argument, and waste everybody's time. I am not saying that you necessarily are, but that it's a possibility. In that case, I'd recommend you watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnTmBjk-M0c

(Before I forget: a truly hilarious video.) I see your point (now that I'm looking at this post of mine in its entirety). So, I suppose that in order for me to explore the full potential of the basics of poetry without crossing into the 'argument' territory on this forum, I should find good poetry, the right literature for poetry initiates. Not that I have a choice. I just hate giving up on something that promises intellectual/cultural growth of a human mind.

[Lizzie]

 Based on what you've said, it appears that one must have a very strong passion for any kind of sound to appreciate poetry. Correct me if I'm wrong. 

On an additional note: You seem to be insinuating that someone who gets poetry can at the very least derive pleasure from vowels, consonants, rhymes, and rhythms. By that logic, with some effort I could passionlessly write a poem that features alliteration, assonance, rhymes, and rhythms, and thus score really high in the mind of the reader/reciter. Correct me if I'm wrong. 

I'm an imagery girl myself. Rich metaphor and simile -- that's what does it for me. I know others that are about the sounds primarily and the content second. I'm all about the visual that I can create in my mind. What's challenging and amazing about poetry is it's ability to conjure scenes and evoke emotion with so few words. And, actually, I think the fewer words the better. More active involvement on the part of the reader is required to fill in the details than with a story that's all spelled out for you.

[AndreyGaganov]

What I had in mind was the perceived need to obscure the meaning of the poem. This does sound like an irrational stance, true (I should have thought it through the first time I posted on this forum). However, my main concern remains to be: why metaphors?

It's not so much a reading comprehension problem as it is my problem with what is at the foundation of poetry. My argument is this: why does a poet feel the need to use metaphors when we already have prose? Why contrive a confusing piece of literature and make the reader work hard on its meaning when it is only supposed to convey an idea? What practical  advantage do metaphors have over simple terms?

Gut punch, ...

Sorry, I don't know what that means in this context. What am I fighting back here with a metaphor?

... plus technical terms on how red something is are simply not literary, ... 

... not literary but technical. I'm sorry, but how does this concern metaphors? 

... plus the idea of qualias and abstract thoughts being concretized for understanding.

Can't the qualias and abstract thoughts be expressed and understood without concretization?

... And it's not contrived if it was considered literature before basically any other literary work.

Why would contrivance (or the lack thereof) be used as a criterion for determining whether something is literature or not? 

God, if you have to learn about the advantages of metaphor in the internet, then what the hell is up with the state of education today?

LOL. Now you know how it is, not only with the Nevada public school education, but also the Russian public school education. (I was born and partly raised in St.-Petesburg, Russia, so ... I know.) They don't really seem to care about teaching the substance that is at the core of culture; they are just people on a payroll.

[AndreyGaganov]

Metaphors are not exclusive to poetry. They are all around you, from the language employed by journalists and advertisers to the aphorisms of bumper stickers. They are written, verbal, visual - they are shortcuts to meaning, avoiding the need for longwinded explanations.

Well, who is to say what is long-winded? I for one would certainly care for some expansion on what 'the State' is and what the 'hunching in the belly' means. (Not that you have to do it now. After the poet has convinced me that the poem has to be one with research and the prosaic addendum he wrote for it, I got the gist of it in its entirety.)

I suppose it's more of a matter of how loaded with shortcuts your poem is and how you choose or craft your metaphors. This altogether makes poetry for me more difficult to read and understand. Question: why? Couldn't the author fulfill his objective in a way that would make more sense? Couldn't he get his message across more effectively? (These are just questions for understanding; I'm trying not to make an argument of it.)

[QDeathstar]

Andrey, what is your favorite kind of cheese?

[AndreyGaganov]

The way I understand it, metaphor enables poetry to speak succinctly and with complexity about things that are hard to define in prose.

I'm sold on the 'succinct' part, but what does the presence of complexity promise as a reward? Got an example?  

If you explicate a poem in prose, it loses its richness.

How do you understand 'richness'?

Metaphor enables a poem to have multiple meanings simultaneously.

... as long as that's what the poet wants, right?