Old versus new?

[billy]

which is best, or should i ask; which do you prefer, things like a good sonnet from bygone times, a decent piece of archaic rhyme, or modern stuff. it's not really about rhyme or non rhyme, it's about era, what flavour do you like. it may be hall mark or the style spike milligan, marlow or shelly. don't worry if we slip off topic with this one, it's a pretty broad question.

[Leanne]

Poetry that does what it sets out to do, regardless of form or era. I have a particular fondness for poets who use irony well -- Larkin, Wilde, Byron, Auden. Lots of others, but it's got to be poetry that has a distinctive flavour -- I like to see the personality of the poet in the poem. I hate cookie cutter crap.

[billy]

i'm not keen on cookie cooker either though it's what i usually end up writing

while i do like some of the classic rhyming stuff i find a lot doesn't work for this era (why should it, i agree) because of that i sort of struggle to want to read more.
for me good poetry is timeless, it ravels time well and works in any era. while i like Carroll's nonsense poetry, i think stuff like poe's "the raven" (thank's jack) is one of those pieces. some of the modern bird shit i see dropped on the page really turns me off, little spattering of nothing that have no soul. i think that's one of the biggest crimes of modern poetry. my flavour is fun, humour, nostalgia. preferably all 3 in the same poem. those poems with a twist that leave you smiling.

[Indie]

Both classic and modern poetry have there place. I can appreciate the styles of the greats and the era they wrote in, even if I don't wish to write like them. It comes down to personal taste, in what we enjoy reading and writing.

[Erthona]

I like parts of Ginsburg's "Howl", a lot of Whitman, most of Dickinson, Elliot's Prufrock, a poem or two of Yeats, Coleridge's big three, Milton by Blake, and on and on. Most modern poetry I can do without, and post-modern seems to lack depth. Contemporary or continued post-modern seems generally to lack honesty and seems to be engaged at peering at it's own reflection, or seeing how much it can expose itself in an effort to appear emotionally honest. I think the better poetry always tells us something important about being human, that is it has a universality that transcends the common boundaries we erect, such as gender, religion, or political viewpoint. Overt religiosity does not work for me, but then neither does overt atheism. There are certain spiritual qualities in man that cannot be proved, but that only a fool stuffed full of his own self would try to deny. However it's not like in the Faery Queen where there are stated morals we should value and uphold, it's not allegorical, nor is it instructional. It is in the epic of Gilgamesh, and in El Grecco's the beggar. The style doesn't matter, except the writer has mastered it. I would say we have lost the quality of it, but people always say that in each generation, and someone eventually comes along to prove them wrong. I don't even know if poetry will continue as an art form, but something will. Ultimately the form is unimportant. So not only do I not prefer a certain type of poetry, I don't really prefer a certain form of art over another. Which is best Billy? What an outrageous question to ask!

Dale

[billy]

it got an excellent answer from you

dickinson isn't my cup of tea, she's like a feather in my throat. my taste when i can't get smile generating is as eclectic as dales. no specific poets though, more individual pieces. some of the classics are pure and will hopefully stay that way as the cornerstones of poetry. post modern poetry seems to have none or very few of those, maybe in a few hundred years. some modern poets are getting good stuff out but in the main i think a lot of what's published now days as crap. i've seen a few poems on this site that i'd pay for if published. modern poetry often doesn't feel like poetry. i wish it would.