Poem of the Week

I love it. . . I'm going to show it to Ed, who keeps harping on me to finish the novel-that-never-shall-be! :D

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

Good advice. :D

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Some of it is and some of it isn't. For instance, take the following:

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if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.

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Lot's of great writers did lots of re-writing. All good writing is re-writing. And this seems silly:

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if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

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What's wrong with reading it to somebody? And this is just down-right dumb:

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when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

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I have never liked Bukowski's work. There's hardly any poetry in this supposed poem. It's prose.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Lot's of great writers did lots of re-writing. All good writing is re-writing. And this seems silly:


What's wrong with reading it to somebody? And this is just down-right dumb:


I have never liked Bukowski's work. There's hardly any poetry in this supposed poem. It's prose.

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Is there anyone else out there who is wondering whether Virgil is having a bad day or not? :p

As I said in my initial post, I am not a fan of Bukowski; however, I like this one. I don't think this is prose. Guess this takes us back at 'what is poetry?' Why is it not poetry? Because it doesn't rhyme in the traditional sense? When read aloud, to me, it flows nicely and it has a rhythm.

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

Is there anyone else out there who is wondering whether Virgil is having a bad day or not? :p

As I said in my initial post, I am not a fan of Bukowski; however, I like this one. I don't think this is prose. Guess this takes us back at 'what is poetry?' Why is it not poetry? Because it doesn't rhyme in the traditional sense? When read aloud, to me, it flows nicely and it has a rhythm.

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;) I'm not having a bad day. I don't like Bukowski either, but every one seems to maker a big deal of him. As to what is poetry, I have always defined it as charged language, which is I admit somewhat vague and subjective. But do you consider this poetry:

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As I said in my initial post,
I am not a fan of Bukowski;
however, I like this one.
I don't think this is prose.
Guess this takes us back at
'what is poetry?'
Why is it not poetry?
Because it doesn't rhyme
in the traditional sense?
When read aloud, to me,
it flows nicely and
it has a rhythm.

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The above quote flows nicely and has a rhythm. But to me, even though i've shaped it like a poem, it's still prose. There is no charged language here, just a communication of statements. Charged language, and it doesn't have to be in the shape of a poem (the openning chapter of Melville's Moby Dick is charged language), requires a straining of the language through the use of conceits or imagery. The Bukowski I've read is pretty much flat prose with the only straining of language by the means of profanity.

Here's a poem by Sylvia Plath that those that like Bukowski would probably like. I consider this poetry unlike what Bukowski mostly writes. And it doesn't rhyme.

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Fever 103

Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple

Tongues of dull, fat Cerebus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean

The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.
The tinder cries.
The indelible smell

Of a snuffed candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora's scarves, I'm in a fright

One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel.
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,

But trundle round the globe
Choking the aged and the meek,
The weak

Hothouse baby in its crib,
The ghastly orchid
Hanging its hanging garden in the air,

Devilish leopard!
Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.

Greasing the bodies of adulterers
Like Hiroshima ash and eating in.
The sin. The sin.

Darling, all night
I have been flickering, off, on, off, on.
The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss.

Three days. Three nights.
Lemon water, chicken
Water, water make me retch.

I am too pure for you or anyone.
Your body
Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern ---

My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.

Does not my heat astound you. And my light.
All by myself I am a huge camellia
Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.

I think I am going up,
I think I may rise ---
The beads of hot metal fly, and I, love, I

Am a pure acetylene
Virgin
Attended by roses,

By kisses, by cherubim,
By whatever these pink things mean.
Not you, nor him.

Not him, nor him
(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats) ---
To Paradise.

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I must say that I agree with Virgil in as much as I've always wanted to give Bukowski the very piece of advice offered by the refrain of this poem. :lol: It's not great poetry, but it did give me a good laugh, since I think we've all known our fair share of people who consider themselves destined to be the next great writer. I feel a bit guilty about it, but there is a certain type I would love to recite these lines to some time when they're going on at length to me over a pint at the pub about their tortured failed writing career (usually due to the inability of others to recognize their "genius"):

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don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.

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I do agree with the premise of the poem, that you won't be a great writer unless you're someone who A) is compelled to write and does lots of it and B) has it, by which I mean some sort of inborn inspiration and/or talent to build on. People who try to make themselves writers without having this sort of inner impulse and inspiration, who try to beat a story or a poem into submission hoping to be paid or praised aren't going to be good writers. What I think Virg. is right about, and what's missing from Bukowski's poem is that it does not necessarily follow that someone who is inspired will be great either, and that writing does take work, even for those who have this sort of gift. Of course great writers revise and re-write, but that only really works if you've got at least a spark of the right stuff to begin with. In my opinion it takes both talent (over which a person has no control) and hard work (over which they have plenty of control) to be a successful writer.

This poem has had me thinking about a lecture I went to when I was a freshman in highschool (and, incidently, was still a bit delusional and insufferable about the extent of my own literary talents :lol: ) . It was Ray Bradbury talking, and he answered some audience questions afterward. A young woman asked him if he had ever had doubts about his writing, had to force himself to sit down and write or had difficulties being uncertain that it's what he really wanted to do. I remember being a little surprised that his first response was a flat "no." I think he realized that sounded a little harsh and explained that, while he did go through a lot to perfect his art, the impulse to write was always there. He seemed to think that his writing only came into its own when he stopped trying to force a story into some idea of what it should be and instead just "let it live" and do what it needs to do. I've heard similar things since form a lot of writers and I think it's true.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Charged language, and it doesn't have to be in the shape of a poem (the openning chapter of Melville's Moby Dick is charged language), requires a straining of the language through the use of conceits or imagery.

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Can you explain ‘conceits’ Virgil? Just for my own edification; I haven’t learnt as much about poetry so far as I would have liked.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

As to what is poetry, I have always defined it as charged language, which is I admit somewhat vague and subjective.

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“Most contemporary poets agree with Ezra Pound’s definition of poetry as ‘intense language.’ Brian Brett, another well-known Canadian poet, says he has gone through many definitions of what constitutes poetry over the years, but ‘none ever equalled Pound’s in its impact and sneakiness. I always add the caveat that poetry is where the language is as important as the story (which means that Finnegan's Wake could also be called poetry), but in prose you only note the story and not the language (song). This allows us to differentiate between the broken prose lines that pretend they are poetry, and the lines that should break and float where they float because they shine.’”


Norton Introduction to Literature – “(Poetry) is an experience of words, and those who know how to read poetry can easily extend their experience of life, their sense of what other people are like, and especially their awareness of personal feelings. Poetry can be the mouthpiece of our feelings when our minds are speechless with grief or joy.”


Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - “As to your question, well, there is no dividing line between prose and poetry unless you dwell on line as a difference, the line ending before it gets to the edge of the page, which isn't enough to command an absolute difference given 'prose poetry,'" wrote Patrick Lane. “Poetry is merely highly charged language in a compassed space where repetition, rhyme, rhythm, and cadenced speech command attention through the use of sound alone.”

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

I've heard similar things since form a lot of writers and I think it's true.

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I think it's just a conspiracy by the writers to keep the common people from learning all their secrets. :D

From Poetry glossary:

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conceit
A fanciful poetic image or metaphor that likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different. An example of a conceit can be found in Shakespeare's sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” and in Emily Dickinson's poem “There is no frigate like a book.”

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http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0903237.html

Intense language or charged language, both Pound and I mean the same thing. I prefer charged.

I'm with Virgil on Bukowski - and I remember why I don't much like Sylvia Plath :lol:

My initial impression of this poem is that there’s movement from “want” in the title, to “don’t do it” in the first stanza, to “be patient” in stanzas 2 and 3, to what happens when words are forced, to when it’s time for the words to be written.

Bukowski seems to be stressing right from the title that to be in “want” or need to become a writer is not the way of approaching becoming a writer. Rather, the words, or “it”, which is what I think the words are referred to as in this poem, has to be allowed to have it’s own life – separate from the writer. Look at stanza 5 where Bukowski writes:

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

The person has in a sense almost become like a vessel for “it” - and that’s it. The words seem to be instilled with their own life with the phrase “or it dies in you”, which denotes the words must have been living at one point in time. I think something else in the poem that supports the previous sentence is the repetitive use of the phrase “don’t do it”. To me there is weird syntax in these three words, as if he’s telling the reader to not do “its”(the words) job for “it”, that only “it” knows when and the proper way to express itself. The phrase “don’t do it” also seems kind of vulgar to me when you think about it literally. Please don’t make me do it! Explain it, that is.

Also, in stanza 4, there seems to be this play on the title “writer” as being the thing that is unoriginal, debased(I don’t think this is the right word), and it is the “it” that is the original in this poem, even though “it” is mentioned so many times throughout(I’m too tired to expand on this, does anyone else care to?)

I think there’s a lot to be said about writing in this manner…I do this myself. It’s all about penning down on paper what strikes you at the moment – that is part of creating something original, and when given time for careful thought, I think there is a tendency for other’s works that have influenced you to creep into your own work.

ktd may have found a positive spot or two in the poem, but it hardly changes my reaction to it. Actually isn't this all cliche, especially the openning:

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if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.

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I've heard this before and it's said in reference to people who want to go to Holywood and become actors or actresses. Not only don't I see great poetry, I also don't see anything profound or original.

Sorry for the negativity.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Not only don't I see great poetry, I also don't see anything profound or original.

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Not having read much Bukowski, I can't comment on his collection, but I do agree with you, Virgil, that this is not necessarily great, profound, or original.

This poem appeals to me as a "surface" poem . . a light airy bit of fluff similar to a merangue. Basically, I appreciate the humor in it - as PL pointed out:

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It's not great poetry, but it did give me a good laugh, since I think we've all known our fair share of people who consider themselves destined to be the next great writer. I feel a bit guilty about it, but there is a certain type I would love to recite these lines to some time when they're going on at length to me over a pint at the pub about their tortured failed writing career (usually due to the inability of others to recognize their "genius"):
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don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.

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Also, the lines

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if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.

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crack me up. I don't know many women that seek out writers to bed. :lol:
I think that taking this poem seriously creates a problem. When doing so, Bukowski becomes that dull, boring, filled with self-love author he despises. By letting the poem be something humorous and almost self-deprecating, it becomes a bit of chocolate - a brief moment of pleasure that melts away.

I don’t find this poem that horrible, Virgil. I think a lot of what’s said in this poem is direct, forward, and relatable to me. We’ve all done some of the things he’s mentioned during the writing process. I think he’s aware of what’s in the poem; so for him to write down words that had been reiterated before doesn’t bother me. There seems to be a greater purpose for these reiterations…maybe as a way to help us move away from the cliché and into the individuality? I think there is a lot of Bukowski’s style that comes out of this poem as well: with the abrupt line breaks, stanza breaks, use of lower case.

Does anyone else, other than the usual people, want to post a poem to be discussed this week? Come on, lets get this thread rejuvenated with some poetry discussion.