It's the beauty in the words, in the content? Why some people's name last and others not? Poetry is just expression with words? I read a lot of confessional poetry these days.
It's the beauty in the words, in the content? Why some people's name last and others not? Poetry is just expression with words? I read a lot of confessional poetry these days.
I think poetry consists of sound and meaning. If those two are done well, then the poem is good.
I know the names of many famous poets, but I do not know a single poem they wrote. Or if I know the poem, I don't like it. It has a negative influence on me. So, just having one's name known is not enough. Examples: Pound, Plath.
I also know many poems, and enjoy them, but I do not know the names of the author. The obvious example is a nursery rhyme. I have no clue who wrote "Mary had a little lamb". Other obvious examples are song lyrics.
Then there are poets who have written at least one poem that I have memorized. Here there is positive influence. Examples: Frost, Hopkins.
Last edited by YesNo; 12-02-2015 at 09:20 AM.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
I went to a poetry reading once and some of the people around me were in orgasmic delight, whereas most of it was lost on me.
I suppose im a troglodyte in this regard---all the other poetry writing rules out the window, I have a hard time liking it if it doesn't rhyme. there are a few exceptions to that, but boy, very few.
You said "confessional" and that's right, to confess in something is error and not error, to confess.
In meaning or other everyone has errs, then the poetry is the stage which exposing every hidden things.
For me I don’t give a value to poem just containing arranged musical dancing words but it does not include meanings.'
The most things making the poem stresses on value when it does go around a circulated concentrated idea, and if not what value of a poem is.
Of course any poet discriminating on his own style and will be recognized to people from his print he weaved on a poem.
Last edited by Mohammad Ahmad; 12-02-2015 at 12:32 PM.
My country is the Home of Honour And
Without honour I haven't Home
MMA
There is no guarantee decision to say this good for all people because one likes to read for a certain poet other dislikes
Last edited by Mohammad Ahmad; 12-02-2015 at 12:29 PM.
My country is the Home of Honour And
Without honour I haven't Home
MMA
It occurred to me that I didn't describe poetry so much as language. Words are meaningful sounds and they could be used in either prose or poetry or anything in between or outside of those two categories of language.Originally Posted by YesNo
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
The same as a photograph or a book: it has to move me.
Let's see: Tony Walt thinks the result of good poetry (that it "moves" him) is what makes a good poem. It seems to me that's like saying "What makes a good house is that it keeps me warm and dry", as if, first, a house that keeps someone else warm and dry doesn't qualify as "good", and, second, the result of good craftsmanship is the same as the craftsmanship. What makes a good house is good building materials, a good architectural plan, and good craftsmanship. The result: Tony (or someone else) is kept warm and dry.
Yesno, as is his usual wont, thinks good poems are made of sounds and meaning. Like his reductionist explanations of religion, this is reasonable, but utterly unhelpful. As he himself points out, all language involves sounds and meaning -- surely what makes (constitutes) a poem must differ from what constitutes other uses of language.
In addition, surely some "good poems" create an emotional responses in other people, but not in me. To define "good poetry" egocentrically seems silly --why bother defining it at all if nobody but you can understand the definition. The idea that Pound or Plath are not "good poets" because yesno (or, perhaps, Tony, or even I, who enjoy Pound but not Plath) doesn't like their poetry is ludicrous.
I have to go. More later.
For what it's worth, I don't like either Pound or Plath--or Neruda for that matter.
I think Tony Walt is on to something with his claim that a good poem is what moves the reader. Although that may be subjective, it is what counts. I am not interested in whether some artificial intelligence device thinks the poem is objectively good. Someone with a real subjectivity has to like the poem.
The subjective pleasure provided by a poem suggests that an objective market approach might be useful in valuing a poem. Those poems with the most likes win. Those poets who make the most money win. There may be other ways to value the poem, but that seems to be one that objectively works and is based on the subjectivity of a collection of readers.
Of course there is more to poetry than an unconscious robot's objective assessment or some market's objective assessment. I have to admit that since I don't like a bunch of objectively successful poets, namely, Pound, Plath and Neruda. What is my basis for disliking them? I don't have any objective basis for it that I can think of at the moment although I might be able to come up with something. The primary data point is that I don't like them.
Does a subjective liking or disliking something need to be objectively justified? I don't think so.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
Obviously. a good poem moves the reader. However, not all readers are Tony, or Yes No, or I. Plath, Pound and Neruda clearly move some well educated, discerning readers. The question of what makes a good poem (which I may try to answer if I have the time and energy) involves a discussion of the qualities in a poem that move readers. The essence of criticism is a discussion of art, not a discussion of oneself, just like the essence of architectural criticism is a discussion of architecture, not a litany of the extent to which you, yourself, are warm and dry.
If it is obvious that a good poem moves the reader then a poem that does not move the reader must not be good.
Although there are a lot of objective things one can know about a poem and the author, the experience of the poem is what counts and that is subjective, not objective. A computer reading the poem can record a lot of objective facts about the poem, but it does not have that subjective experience.
I doubt that a poem's "goodness" can be reduced to some objective criteria. However, I also agree the goodness of a poem is not an independent, solipsistic experience because we are able to communicate with each other. It makes me think that concepts like "goodness" are part of a larger subjectivity that we participate in.
A house has more objective criteria that we can use to judge whether it was made well than a poem has. Those criteria are useful to regulate the construction of houses for the common good. Ultimately the subjective experience of living in the house is how those living in it will judge the house.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
If we accept the premise that words and verbal constructs are not perfect representations of reality...
Then poetry is the use of words to indirectly infer the nature of what is unspeakable.
EDIT Nearly forget, its degree of success in doing this is what makes it 'good' or not.
Also, what makes somebody's name 'last' is marketing.
J
Last edited by Jack of Hearts; 02-01-2016 at 05:42 AM.
Good grief! This discussion has taken a turn for the ridiculous!
No, yesno, it is not true that "If it is obvious that a good poem moves the reader then a poem that does not move the reader must not be good." A poem might have emotional resonance for some readers, but not others, as I thought I made clear in my previous posts. Given your reductive analyses, yesno, this should be obvious to you. Language (as you state) consists of sounds that have conventional meanings. However, Chinese doesn't have conventional meanings TO ME. The conventions are understood only by those who speak the language. Yet I wouldn't suggest that this means that Chinese is a bad language.
Therefore, if (which I haven't done) I were to read Li Po's poem "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter" in Chinese, I would probably not find it emotionally "moving". However, when I read Ezra Pound's (loose) translation, I do find it moving.
Would yesno or Tony insist that the Chinese version is a "bad poem"? That would be silly. As with language, knowledge and appreciation of poetry can be learned. A very young English speaker might enjoy nursery rhymes, yet fail to find "Ode on a Grecian Urn" moving (despite knowing the words). This hardly proves that nursery rhymes are better poems than "Ode".The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
Ezra Pound, 1885 - 1972
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
By Rihaku
Why do I like "River-Merchant's Wife"? I like the poignancy the wife feels in her separation from her husband. She was very young when she married him, and feels herself growing older. The butterflies have turned yellow, and this "hurts" her, reminding her of the ephemeral nature of her own life. Is the noise of the monkeys really "sorrowful", or is that how she interprets it in her loneliness?
I like the matter-of-fact conclusion: she will come to meet him where the river narrows. She is too shy to say all that she is thinking and feeling, so she hints at it. The moss has grown, and cannot be cleared away, and the history of marriage and separation cannot be cleared away, either. The wife "desires (her) dust to be mingled with yours forever and forever and forever." Is this a preference for eternity, instead of for the temporal separation? I she saying she wants death and togetherness more than a life of separation?
The structure of the poem is that of a journey from childhood (stanza 1), to adult marriage (stanza 2), to eternal love and death (stanza 3). The last two verses are a reflection on part of that journey, and an offer by the wife to journey herself (a hundred miles or more) to meet her returning husband. The offer reflects (in a reserved, Chinese way) her love, and it also suggests her despair at the passing of time, and the fact that nothing can stay the same (butterflies were once caterpillars, after all). So the poignant sentiments of the poem are enhanced by it's structure.
This is a spur-of-the-moment analysis, and not a very good one. But I'm trying to suggest that when we talk about what makes a good poem, we can talk about poems, instead of talking about ourselves. Of course criticism ALSO involves the critics reaction to the art (whether it "moves him"), but that alone is insufficient for a decent discussion.
Huh? Words imply, people infer.Then poetry is the use of words to indirectly infer the nature of what is unspeakable.
Last edited by Ecurb; 02-01-2016 at 12:30 PM.
I do admit there are good poems that do not personally move me for the same reason that I accept the existence of other people who have different subjective experiences than I have. I don't want to imply solipsism which I think is refuted by the fact that we can talk to each other and we have different points of view.
On the other hand, being subjectively moved by a poem is what counts, not anything objectively known about the poem.
What do I conclude? Our subjectivity changes. There are also many different subjective experiences which are somehow linked together enabling us to talk to each other. We can also be wrong about our assessments of a poem and change our minds later.
I don't find Pound's poem moving. What does that statement imply? Is Pound's poem objectively bad? Am I insensitive because I am not moved? Are you hypersensitive for being moved?
We don't even know what makes a poem "good" let alone "better" than some other poem. I suppose we could say for the young reader that the ode was not good because the young reader was not moved. Is that something wrong with the ode or with the reader or with neither?
All I can conclude is that some readers find a poem moving (good) and others don't. Is there some way to make a judgement about a poem without referencing specific readers in such a way that even readers who are not moved would have to acknowledge that they should be moved? I don't think we can.
That's my problem. To what extent can we actually claim that a poem is good without referencing someone's subjectivity?
If we could get far with talking about poems without talking about ourselves, then we should be able to objectify what is good about a poem so that we don't have to actually read the poem and find out for ourselves. Being moved would have been objectified. In other words, a computer, which can never experience the poem subjectively, would be able to discriminate enough to declare that a poem is good.
There might be a way out of this by going further into subjectivity, but I don't think going further into objectivity helps.
Last edited by YesNo; 02-01-2016 at 02:18 PM.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
That makes sense.
However, there are people who don't believe in the existence of the "unspeakable". They would claim that everything eventually can be spoken or digitized or objectified in some way. An example would be those who think in the future we will be able to download our subjectivity into a computer.
There are others who think this is impossible. I am reminded of Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like To Be a Bat?": http://organizations.utep.edu/portal.../nagel_bat.pdf
Although the unspeakable is often imagined to refer to something exotic and difficult to understand requiring years of meditation in a Himalayan retreat, if Nagel is right, the unspeakable is right in front of us in our day-to-day, ordinary, taken-for-granted experience of being who we are. Taking something for granted does not mean it has been spoken.
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
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