Are Poets Born Not Made?

I think Nirvana has made a huge impact. And I'm sure many would agree. It's just that, there's not enough substance. I think they made 3 albums. That's hardly enough to make a lasting impression. They do have sort of a cult following. But in the long run? I can't say. It seems they fall short. Perhaps mid-teens in terms of importance.

Again, as for the poet statement. That's true obviously that no babies poll-vault out of their mother's womb. But isn't it fascinating that the human DNA seems to determine many things you or I will be stuck with.

For instance, getting a disease. It's pretty proven that some people are susceptible to certain illnesses, i.e. cancer, at an earlier age than say someone who may have the same exposure to its causes. Some people may get a certain cancer when they are relatively young, while other's may smoke away until they are 70. That tells me, genes play a huge roll. So why should that be different with the mind? Yes you can train the mind, but you can't really make someone smarter, only more informed. How many of these poets were writing at the age of 7? I bet many of them.

I hope the Stones don't last that long, but they probably will.


Accck!!! Aaacckk!!!

First it's beer... and now the Stones!!!

Blasphemer!!! Away I say!!! Away!!!

Get thee to a nunnery!!!




Oh, the shame... the shame of it all!!!:frown2::eek:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3rnxQBizoU

Me in a nunnery? That would be fun. Poor nuns.

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Originally Posted by ShadowsCool

I think Nirvana has made a huge impact. And I'm sure many would agree. It's just that, there's not enough substance. I think they made 3 albums. That's hardly enough to make a lasting impression. They do have sort of a cult following. But in the long run? I can't say. It seems they fall short. Perhaps mid-teens in terms of importance.

Again, as for the poet statement. That's true obviously that no babies poll-vault out of their mother's womb. But isn't it fascinating that the human DNA seems to determine many things you or I will be stuck with.

For instance, getting a disease. It's pretty proven that some people are susceptible to certain illnesses, i.e. cancer, at an earlier age than say someone who may have the same exposure to its causes. Some people may get a certain cancer when they are relatively young, while other's may smoke away until they are 70. That tells me, genes play a huge roll. So why should that be different with the mind? Yes you can train the mind, but you can't really make someone smarter, only more informed. How many of these poets were writing at the age of 7? I bet many of them.

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Yeah, but what were they writing at 7?

I'm not disputing that some people are born with minds more inclined to the arts. That's been all but proven. My assertion is simply this: anyone can be a poet, but being a good poet is going to take practice, no matter what kind of mind.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

Yeah, but what were they writing at 7?

I'm not disputing that some people are born with minds more inclined to the arts. That's been all but proven. My assertion is simply this: anyone can be a poet, but being a good poet is going to take practice, no matter what kind of mind.

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Crap I'm sure. But they were inclined. And for what else you just said. I agree. Practice, Practice, Practice.

As for the poet statement? I don't know about that. Aren't some athletes born to be great?

Actually, Howard Gardner's studies on the human brain and the different "intelligences" would counter this. Where traditional IQ tests focused upon verbal and mathematical thinking and problem solving, Gardner's studies of the brain (with stroke patients) discovered different zones effecting skills ranging from spatial thinking to visual thinking to collaborative thinking, etc... Gardner's and later studies in education and intelligence recognized that intelligence is far more complex than originally thought and that the mastery of skills such as the performance of music or playing basketball are just as much the result of intellect as brilliance in science. Artists, musicians, and athletes have long been spoken of as "talented". While on one level this conveys a certain awe for their ability, on the other hand it undermines it as well by suggesting that the brilliant musician, artist, or athlete was merely blessed by nature or God. What these studies have shown is that an athlete like Michael Jordan was certainly not endowed with some inherently superior physical capabilities. Rather he was able to out-think his opponents... to envision what an opponent might do, process this, and respond far more rapidly than another. In other words... he was a "genius" at basketball... talented. This "genius", however, needed to be developed through practice and study.

~"This "genius", however, needed to be developed through practice and study."~

The study seems to make sense on the surface. I or anyone not involved with the study could not know what went into the study to determine the results. We have only the results they provided. Yet such a study requires certain imputes, which mean everything to an outcome. Though I am not disputing such a study on a first glance, just aware of how studies work. Because I've been involved with many studies myself and are familiar with the very process. You can almost make a study say what you want them to. I'm not saying that was done here at all. Just a reminder when I see such a study done. Okay now my head is shaking LOL.

Common sense should also be a determining factor when coming up with a plausible answer. How one uses that is important too. The rule stick should be all things known and the possible unknowns. Then a determination can be made.

No matter how vigorously I apply myself to the mastery of certain arts, I find that I am genetically predisposed to succeed at some and fail at others.

Likewise, I am certain that many potentially great artists have faded into oblivion with talents unrealized for lack of application.

So, in answer to the original question, both: some poets are born and others made, but the best are those who apply themselves to the utmost realization of innate aptitude.

My "hunch" unscientific theory in spatial terms.

Let's say an average Joe has a writing ability (or any talent) of a 20 out of 100. Let's say that is the lowest limit of the ability of an average human being in the gene pool. Now let's take an exceptionally "gifted" writer like (fill in the blank) and say he has a 80 out of 100. Let's say that is the upper limit of human writing ability you are born with.

Now if example B, just applied himself 40% in terms of developing his craft, and say example A, applied himself 100 percent in terms of developing his craft, then both come out to a 120. But if (B) applies himself 80% of full ability then you got a master genius in that field.

That's just a "hunch" I have with the human gene pool. This seems very plausible because it pools together many evidences acquired.

I don't want to come across as a smart-person, cause I'm not:lol:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Of course the very notion of a "born artist" in any genre is naive... if not sophomoric... The idea that one might become "too learned"... "too well practiced" etc... is simply moronic... and in all likelihood based in a degree of envy... and/or laziness.

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Indeed. I can do little but: :iagree:

As another example, I always loved Mozart's quote on his art (considering Mozart is thought of by many as a "born composer," someone who "had it" since birth): "People are wrong who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I."

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

The idea of a "contemporary classic" or the "contemporary canon" is an oxymoron.

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What some call the "contemporary classic/canon" is what I call the "potential canon," simply works and artist that have the potential of one day being considered amongst the best.

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Originally Posted by ShadowsCool

Top 10 Artist of the Rock era:

1. Beatles**
2. Dylan**
3. Presley*
4. Stones*
5. Hendrix
6. James Brown
7. Ray Charles
8. Bob Marley
9. Michael Jackson
10. Led Zeppelin

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Can't really disagree with this list in terms of historical influence/importance. I do hope Hendrix is remembered, as after Beatles and Dylan he's my favorite from the list.

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Originally Posted by ShadowsCool

Top Poets of all time:

1. Shakespeare
2. Dante
3. Chaucer
4. William Wordsworth
5. John Keats
6. T.S. Eliot
7. John Milton
8. William Blake
9. W.B. Yeats
10. ?

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Wordsworth, Keats, and Eliot before Milton? BLASPHEMY! Personally, I'd have Milton ahead of Dante and Chaucer, but he at least deserves to be in that quartet. Although, if we're including foreign writers, how does one not have Homer and Virgil in the Top 10?

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

miyako73- born poets fvck me up awake, made poets fvck me up asleep. Boredom is what separates the two.

MorpheusSandman- So you get to arbitrarily decide based on subjective reaction of what is 'exciting' and 'boring' whether a poet was born or made? So, if I think your poetry is boring, then I get to call you a 'made poet'?

Well... actually it would seem that if her poetry is boring then we simply must assume that she's not a born poet... and as poetry is something either one was born with or not... then it seems obvious that she's simply not a born poet and thus never has the least chance of becoming a poet... regardless of effort, education, etc...

Of course the very notion of a "born artist" in any genre is naive... if not sophomoric. All art forms involve a language... and all languages must be learned. Certainly, studies of the human brain have proven that certain individuals are more predisposed toward rapidly mastering a given set of skills or knowledge than another... but to rise to the level of true mastery in any art form a degree of discipline... study and practice is involved.

The idea that one might become "too learned"... "too well practiced" etc... is simply moronic... and in all likelihood based in a degree of envy... and/or laziness. The idea that the well-informed or scholarly artist is more likely to follow some lock-step mentality while the intuitive "natural" artist is willing to break the rules is little more than Romantic claptrap... and surely not supported by the examples of cultural history. Was Cervantes illiterate? It seems to me that he was more than well versed in the traditional Romances that his novel parodied. Was Michelangelo just naturally talented? from what I recall, he had one of the most intense formal training and education possible.

Silas Thorne- MorpheusSandman is making a criticism of people that write poetry in a particular way, saying that they consider themselves 'geniuses,' by using Clive James' views on Ezra Pound.

More like I'm criticizing people that choose to dismiss/ignore the poetic tradition while (ironically) being allowed to do so because of that tradition... What I'm really criticizing is the anti-intellectual attitude (which I think is born out of xenophobia and laziness, more than anything) that poets are just these divinely inspired creatures that don't need to work at or learn their craft.

Exactly!

paradoxical- I didn't say the cannon was necessarily wrong, just too conservative and slow to acknowledge what is new... I stand by my statement that much of what is considered good poetry, or even great poetry is rather dull and tepid.

Canons have ALWAYS been slow, though. It's not as if those in the 17th Century considered Shakespeare as the greatest writer ever in the English language. He owes much of that reputation to the 19th Century and, especially, the German intellectuals. So criticizing the canon for being slow is bizarre to me, because all canons are formed via a "consensus" of what emerges out of criticism over a long period of time.

The notion of "the canon" or the "classics" is based upon something which has survived for a reasonable period of time and garnered the continued admiration or consensus of those who have invested the most into the study of a given art form. The idea of a "contemporary classic" or the "contemporary canon" is an oxymoron. This is not to say that none of the literature of here and now has any worth... nor that none of it will eventually rise to the status of a "classic"... but how is this process too conservative? Of what value is gushing over every best-seller and proclaiming equal to Shakespeare?

I think we need more poetry that disturbs people, that wakes people up.

Hey, I dig Burroughs, but it seems like what you're hankering for is some kind of sensationalist shock. It's been done and, quite frankly, I feel more "awakened" by Blake than I do by Bukowski (whom I don't like) or Burroughs (whom I do).

I quite agree.

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That I am a poet is debatable; that I write what seem to me as poems is not. I have no education in writing poetry. I haven't attended any workshop. I used to do readings and slams. I don't know if they are counted as poetic education.

I also don't write at my whim. Without my mood, I can't think of apt words to use. Without my sensitivity, I am blind to the images in my head. Without my emotions, my metaphors are stale. My writing skill may not be natural or inborn, but my mood, sensitivity, and emotions are.

As I said, poetry is an acquired taste. In my case, I would rather read or listen to the works of that rapper named Tai Mahmud than waste my time on Dr. Maya Angelou's lecture notes she and her fans call poems.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

My writing skill may not be natural or inborn, but my mood, sensitivity, and emotions are.

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Everyone has inborn moods, sensitivities, and emotions; not everyone can write like Milton, Keats, Heaney, etc.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

I used to do readings and slams. I don't know if they are counted as poetic education.

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Yes, why not? :) And when young, reading nursery rhymes, nonsense poems, Dr Seuss, well-written childrens' books that care about the weight of words, the joy of words, can all be part of a poetic education. Which is why I've have to now take the stand with those who believe that poets are made not born, but who use their own natural mood, sensitivity and emotions, as you have said that you do to produce their poetry. Parents can help to instill a love of language, but I think as to whether they will become poets or not depends on people's influences.

Although personally I value poetic form a great deal now, I think a problem can come with forcing form on language too much, which can interfere with our own natural poetry.

Maybe I've lost the logic of what I was writing about. If so, oh well. I'll find it later. :)

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Everyone has inborn moods, sensitivities, and emotions; not everyone can write like Milton, Keats, Heaney, etc.

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Can you fix your logic in this one?

This thread has devolved into reciprocal back-patting and cliched thinking. I mean, consider for a moment that you're having a discussion about music, which includes mention of the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Nirvana, and another about literature, which includes mention of Shakespeare, Milton and Keats. The discussion about music largely concerns culturally relevant artists from the last fifty or so years, whereas the discussion of literature concerns relics as far back as antiquity (Virgil!). Has the disparity occurred to no one?

The distinction between the different varieties of education appropriate to artists and scholars is a well established convention. For instance, a musician attending Berklee, a top tier jazz conservatory, is generally considered a failure if he actually graduates since that means that he didn't get picked up by some pro group before then. Of course, a performing musician must "learn" things, but what he must learn and how he must learn it are entirely different from what someone studying to be an historian of music or a professor of theory must learn. Being able to articulate various theoretical justifications for this or that solo is absolutely irrelevant to the playing of one. Most often the performing musician is more concerned about developing chops and a good ear. J was absolutely correct when he talked about artists developing a "craft" as opposed to becoming scholars.

Writers too are interested in developing an ear. They are far more concerned with practical ability rather than theoretical understanding. Moreover, it is generally acknowledged that a preoccupation with literary theory, on the part of postmodern writers, has had a corrosive effect on the literature of the last fifty years.

You guys can keep patting one another on the back and reassuring each other how central this or that Elizabethan is to the Canon, but being conversant in Romantic verse and Structuralist inanities has little to do with being a writer in the 21st Century. Should a writer be familiar with his predecessors? Of course. But he has a more immediate need to be familiar with his immediate predecessors. He isn't concerned with an academic approach to the Canon, but rather his immediate cultural antecedents. And he's interested not in applying the mechanisms of critical evaluation, but in emulating the mechanisms of artistic generation, and these are not the same. One needn't know what a foil is to write one. The learning an artist does is more osmotic than analytic. And this is well understood among the initiated.

Sorry, there are "born" artists, which is not to say they fly out of the womb composing symphonies, but rather they are predisposed to certain endeavors. The hard-work canard just makes people feel better. The truth is that work is the easiest thing to do; all one has to do is DO IT. Being a great artist requires some amalgamation of mysterious abilities that we do not entirely understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpSiohXCXMo

Stuntpickle, I think you are right about developing an ear, but where that ear fo sound will be developed is surely in relation to one's enviroment, to common speech, to the music of poetry, not the writing of poetry itself. You mentioned jazz - Miles Davis said that his time at Juliard was invaluable because of his instruction in music theory. A poet must refine the methods for expression -which can come only from hard study of method and of poets themselves- for their own idiosyncracies in sound or form to be of any use. To be revlotuinary one must know what one is revolting against - not that should ever be the intention of a poet, for it is weak. In the end, all this talk of poetry that 'disturbs' is childish - doesn't Shakespeare disturb you? Dante? Spenser? If not you probrably aren't reading poetry very well.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

Can you fix your logic in this one?

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I don't see what needs fixing. Your own quote seems to violate your notion about poets being born and not made because, by your logic, everyone is born a poet because we all have inborn moods, sensitivities, and emotions. Of course I'd agree that we're all born with those things, but then what allows some to become (insert great poet here) and others not to? Could it be that the (insert great poet here) is actually made because they learn how to write poetry, and how to transfer those inborn things into language and form and drama?

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Originally Posted by stuntpickle

The discussion about music largely concerns culturally relevant artists from the last fifty or so years, whereas the discussion of literature concerns relics as far back as antiquity (Virgil!). Has the disparity occurred to no one?

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I know you're a fan of ignoring contexts, but if you had paid attention you would know that the disparity was recognized when it was introduced, and it was introduced because of that disparity.

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Originally Posted by stuntpickle

J was absolutely correct when he talked about artists developing a "craft" as opposed to becoming scholars.

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Then, by extension, I was right about the same thing when I was discussing it back on Page 2 before J had ever posted. He was the one who equated "scholars" and "intellectuals" as opposed to poets "learning technique," which was all that had been discussed before he entered. I even noted this on page 3: "There's a disconnect between what was originally being said about artists studying their art, and them being academics."

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Originally Posted by stuntpickle

it is generally acknowledged that a preoccupation with literary theory, on the part of postmodern writers, has had a corrosive effect on the literature of the last fifty years.

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Weasel words: "generally acknowledged" by whom? Why wasn't such a "preoccupation" corrosive to those who concerned themselves with theory BEFORE postmodernism?

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Originally Posted by stuntpickle

Should a writer be familiar with his predecessors? Of course. But he has a more immediate need to be familiar with his immediate predecessors.... The learning an artist does is more osmotic than analytic.

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It's good we have you to try and contradict us by stating what we have already stated:

Me (on studying craft VS intellectuals/scholars, Pg. 3): "I would argue that Keats... clearly thought deeply about poetry, as even many of his comments and scribblings testified to... Really, that kind of "study" is all I meant by the term in the first place. Obviously being a great poet does not require one to be a scholar or academic."

Me (on reading predecessors, Pg. 2): "I certainly agree that new poets need to balance studying the distant masters as well as the more recent masters and their contemporaries. All three, I think are important for getting a grasp on where poetry came from, where it's recently been, and where it's at."

Me (on osmosis, Pg. 2): "Shakespeare might not have been a scholar, he was still clearly well-read and had an amazing ability to absorb, digest, and then represent almost everything (and everyone) experienced."

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Originally Posted by stuntpickle

The truth is that work is the easiest thing to do

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All the more reason to deride those that refuse to do it! :lol:

"I don't see what needs fixing. Your own quote seems to violate your notion about poets being born and not made because, by your logic, everyone is born a poet because we all have inborn moods, sensitivities, and emotions. Of course I'd agree that we're all born with those things, but then what allows some to become (insert great poet here) and others not to? Could it be that the (insert great poet here) is actually made because they learn how to write poetry, and how to transfer those inborn things into language and form and drama?"

Again, your reading is frustratingly flawed. I said (or wrote) "my mood", "my sensitivity", and "my emotions". No two individual personalities are the same. I write a certain way, I am not a Milton or a Heaney, and I will never become like them because they have their own unique moods, sensitivities, and emotions.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

"my mood", "my sensitivity", and "my emotions". No two individual personalities are the same.

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No two individual personalities are completely unalike, either, so I still don't get your point. Everyone has SOME moods, sensitivities, and emotions, and not everyone can write as well as everyone else. As someone in another thread said, people are pretty much people wherever you go. You can't chalk up their talent as being due to their "unique moods, sensitivities and emotions," in which case why can two writers express the same mood and emotion and one be better at it?

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

No two individual personalities are completely unalike, either, so I still don't get your point. Everyone has SOME moods, sensitivities, and emotions, and not everyone can write as well as everyone else. As someone in another thread said, people are pretty much people wherever you go. You can't chalk up their talent as being due to their "unique moods, sensitivities and emotions," in which case why can two writers express the same mood and emotion and one be better at it?

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One can have a mood to murder, the other, a mood to write. The problem with you is your assumption that all writers have the same mood, the same sensibility, and the same emotion, and if someone has those, he should be a writer. Also, you assume all moods, sensitivities, and emotions are the same. Damn! Just damn! Is this a first grade philosophical logic lost in the misreading of psychology 101?

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

I know you're a fan of ignoring contexts, but if you had paid attention you would know that the disparity was recognized when it was introduced, and it was introduced because of that disparity.

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I know the context: you weaseling out of everything you say. You use asinine terminology such as "innate intellectual" in order to obscure any sort of rational discussion so long as you can maintain the facade of being right. You might as well talk about "naturally manufactured" caves.

Because you seem deaf to any connotation, let me quickly explain that "intellect" and "intellectual" generally imply a rational or academic faculty, as opposed to an emotional or intuitive one, and that you would use that word to describe Keats is ridiculous. For Chrissake, you had someone for whom English is a second language trying to explain this to you.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

Me (on studying craft VS intellectuals/scholars, Pg. 3): "I would argue that Keats... clearly thought deeply about poetry, as even many of his comments and scribblings testified to... Really, that kind of "study" is all I meant by the term in the first place. Obviously being a great poet does not require one to be a scholar or academic."

Me (on reading predecessors, Pg. 2): "I certainly agree that new poets need to balance studying the distant masters as well as the more recent masters and their contemporaries. All three, I think are important for getting a grasp on where poetry came from, where it's recently been, and where it's at."

Me (on osmosis, Pg. 2): "Shakespeare might not have been a scholar, he was still clearly well-read and had an amazing ability to absorb, digest, and then represent almost everything (and everyone) experienced."

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Yeah, unfortunately, I read all your bogus posts wherein you desperately tried to backpedal to keep from looking absurd. Keats was no intellectual despite all your "research" on Wikipedia.

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Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

All the more reason to deride those that refuse to do it! :lol:

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Look, I have an advanced degree in English literature that is absolutely worthless unless I want to teach overconfident dullards who go around quoting Pope as if it matters. Who is it that you think isn't doing this work? Which poet is it that a twenty-six year old writer of mediocre verse is entitled to deride?

That you think aspiring poets need to be told to read and work at their craft is ridiculous. But that's not really what you were saying. You seemed particularly concerned about who they're reading and how. And when someone suggested that your antediluvian study plan was unnecessary, you suggested that he was anti-intellectual.

One minute you're crying about how your presence here testifies to how much you have to learn, and the next you're making pronouncements on the Canon from atop your wobbly soapbox.

For the record, poets don't require a "balance" of antique and modern literature. They can do just fine with the modern stuff alone.

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Then, by extension, I was right about the same thing when I was discussing it back on Page 2 before J had ever posted. He was the one who brought up "scholars" and "intellectuals" as opposed to poets "learning technique," which was all that had been discussed before he entered. I even noted this on page 3: "There's a disconnect between what was originally being said about artists studying their art, and them being an intellectual and/or academic."

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Sorry, but words like anti-intellectual and intellect are there before I posted. Anyways, I told you we do not have much disagreement and I was not answering you, but rather someone else that mentions you (Pierre) and that come to a jump in space, equating domain of technique as fully understament, reading experience as fully understandment, etc.

Afterwards we developed this discussion with two pararel topics, because I found the use of the world intellectual (you just are in love with this word) confusing as Intellectual - even by the same wikipedia link who relate intellectual with analyct thinking and use of reason in the place of intuition and emotion that is represented by Keats or the word study, which you used in the place of Learning. It seemed to me you were claiming everytime a man thinks something, he does it in a specific way and everytime he learns he also did in a specific way. But as I said, I can see what you want to mean and there is no need for wasting time with vocabulary discussions, considering in the end we are not claiming poets are born writing poetry.

Also, it became an argument about Keats, which is topic related (as Keats composition method, ideas, etc. help it), but seems like we are the only two interessed and it can be left to a specific Keats topic.

Either way, I do think you are presenting with a very specific kind of poet (or artist) but our disagreements seems to be so small relating this thread that it is better we wait another oportunity to discuss it as we are not leaving the site so soon.

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Originally Posted by stuntpickle

You guys can keep patting one another on the back and reassuring each other how central this or that Elizabethan is to the Canon, but being conversant in Romantic verse and Structuralist inanities has little to do with being a writer in the 21st Century. Should a writer be familiar with his predecessors? Of course. But he has a more immediate need to be familiar with his immediate predecessors. He isn't concerned with an academic approach to the Canon, but rather his immediate cultural antecedents. And he's interested not in applying the mechanisms of critical evaluation, but in emulating the mechanisms of artistic generation, and these are not the same. One needn't know what a foil is to write one. The learning an artist does is more osmotic than analytic. And this is well understood among the initiated.

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Now that you talk, I seem to recall to read (I think in Guardian) about a research that showed today writers are making more references to writers from now than classic writers.

They do not present the full study, but first wondered if they considered how relevant is this reference and if they really analysed if past writers didnt the same (for example, Wordsworth and Byron influence on keats seems almost as notable as Spencer and Champman)... Popular poetry influence seems much closer, I have seen poets improvising on spot poems with classical structure which they learned listening to other poets and then trial and error.

Some people in this forum have the annoying braggadocio of a latent megalomaniac. They create their own literary terms as if they have the authority, in skill and in scholarship, to do so. In truth, they actually build mirrors and smokes, so they can still project a semblance of what is true, valid, and correct. The fact is that they haven't written any poetry or prose that has moved me the way those of the canonical authors have. This is the danger in this forum. Due to cliquish patronizing and thoughtless appreciation of mediocrity, the mediocre think they are superior. What a farce!

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Originally Posted by Catamite

Stuntpickle, I think you are right about developing an ear, but where that ear fo sound will be developed is surely in relation to one's enviroment, to common speech, to the music of poetry, not the writing of poetry itself. You mentioned jazz - Miles Davis said that his time at Juliard was invaluable because of his instruction in music theory. A poet must refine the methods for expression -which can come only from hard study of method and of poets themselves- for their own idiosyncracies in sound or form to be of any use. To be revlotuinary one must know what one is revolting against - not that should ever be the intention of a poet, for it is weak. In the end, all this talk of poetry that 'disturbs' is childish - doesn't Shakespeare disturb you? Dante? Spenser? If not you probrably aren't reading poetry very well.

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This is addressed to me, so I will assume you're speaking to me. Having said that, I don't recall ever having discussed "disturbing poetry". But now that you bring it up, I would say that someone should read "disturbing" poetry if that's what he wants to read. Moreover, I would say it is childish to pretend to instruct him on what he should read instead. I take it for granted that what someone likes is automatic and not susceptible to change by way of lecture.

I'll resort again to the beer analogy. There's nothing wrong with drinking an American lager even though some idiot demands you drink Guinness under the pretense that it is "better". In fact, I find drinking a beer one likes far more respectable than drinking one simply because other people like it. Of course, some people do actually like dark beers, but they generally don't give a **** what anyone else is drinking. The people who concern themselves with what other people are drinking/reading/watching are called "snobs".

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Originally Posted by stuntpickle

You guys can keep patting one another on the back and reassuring each other how central this or that Elizabethan is to the Canon, but being conversant in Romantic verse and Structuralist inanities has little to do with being a writer in the 21st Century. Should a writer be familiar with his predecessors? Of course.

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This is (and the rest of your post, except the little rant about us discussions music, which was a sidetrack discussion in the first place) pretty much what a lot of us have been saying.

And what "back-patting"?

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Originally Posted by miyako73

One can have a mood to murder, the other, a mood to write. The problem with you is your assumption that all writers have the same mood, the same sensibility, and the same emotion, and if someone has those, he should be a writer. Also, you assume all moods, sensitivities, and emotions are the same. Damn! Just damn! Is this a first grade philosophical logic lost in the misreading of psychology 101?

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He didn't say any of that.

I like when someone gets so caught up in showing up another person because they don't like them that they'll go to such great lengths to purposefully obfuscate their points in an attempt to make them look stupid. It's quite amusing.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

Some people in this forum have the annoying braggadocio of a latent megalomaniac. They create their own literary terms as if they have the authority, in skill and in scholarship, to do so. In truth, they actually build mirrors and smokes, so they can still project a semblance of what is true, valid, and correct. The fact is that they haven't written any poetry or prose that has moved me the way those of the canonical authors have. This is the danger in this forum. Due to cliquish patronizing and thoughtless appreciation of mediocrity, the mediocre think they are superior. What a farce!

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I thought you didn't like canonical authors. . . that they didn't **** you awake, or whatever that dumb saying was.

Mutatis, read what he wrote:

"Everyone has inborn moods, sensitivities, and emotions; not everyone can write like Milton, Keats, Heaney, etc."

Who told you I don't like canonical authors? I don't like all of them. Auden's queer works excited me as if it was a woman who wrote them. I've been reading canonical texts since I was a kid. My reading is separate from my writing.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

Popular poetry influence seems much closer, I have seen poets improvising on spot poems with classical structure which they learned listening to other poets and then trial and error.

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Yes, this is much like what occurs at "jam sessions". You get all the historical context second or third-hand. Culture is a synthesizing machine that keeps building on itself. There's no reason one HAS to go back and start at the beginning.

The irony, of course, that I'm sure you, of all people, are aware of, is that I greatly appreciate Shakespeare and the English Romantics. I think reading Shakespeare can be aesthetically rewarding and that the Canon is pedagogically useful, but not for any PRACTICAL reason. "All art is useless," etc. I don't think close reading of Shakespeare is necessary to be a good poet. I can't even imagine how someone would think it was.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

This is (and the rest of your post, except the little rant about us discussions music, which was a sidetrack discussion in the first place) pretty much what a lot of us have been saying.

And what "back-patting"?

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It's unfortunate that you cut the quote off where you did since the following sentence expresses something very different from what everyone else has been saying. My point was that, yes, artists should acquaint themselves with their predecessors, but they should acquaint themselves with more culturally relevant predecessors. You know, someone who has lived in the last century--sort of like how you guys relate to music. I wasn't ranting about the music. I think everyone's statements here about music are more honest than their statements about literature, which I find to be largely affected.

And by "back-patting" I meant giving each other pats on the back.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

considering in the end we are not claiming poets are born writing poetry.

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I change my mind; poets are made...still art can't be taught. You can be guided in the right direction but what does that mean ultimately? That you understand the value of taking directions? Which in turn would mean that you're just one of the guys, a normal fella like everyone else. Nothing wrong with that. But that's not art. That's being a normal guy, well respected, humble--being someone no one could possibly hate. It's what 99% of humanity aspires to.

"For Chrissake, you had someone for whom English is a second language trying to explain this to you."

I hope there is no condescension in that, Stunt. English may be my second language, but I like to think my thoughts are not second-rate; thus, I should speak.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

"For Chrissake, you had someone for whom English is a second language trying to explain this to you."

I hope there is no condescension in that, Stunt. English may be my second language, but I like to think my thoughts are not second-rate; thus, I should speak.

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Uhm... I didn't know English was your second language. I was talking about J. I just thought it was telling that someone whose native language is Spanish was informing a native English speaker about the appropriate meaning of a word in English. Of course, I suspect that Morph knew what it meant. I just think his whole "innate intellectual" was a retrospective rationalization he used to attempt an escape from his initial use of "anti-intellectual".

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Originally Posted by stuntpickle

It's unfortunate that you cut the quote off where you did since the very following sentence expresses something very different from what everyone else has been saying. My point was that, yes, artists should acquaint themselves with their predecessors, but they should acquaint themselves with more culturally relevant predecessors. You know, someone who has lived in the last century--sort of like how you guys relate to music. I wasn't ranting about the music. I think everyone's statements here about music are more honest than their statements about literature, which I find to be largely affected.

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Yeats, Eliot, Neruda, Auden (all of which mentioned by your pal Moprheus, no less), Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Bukowski is mentioned who knows how many times, Tennyson, Maya Angelou, Morgenstern, Olson, Vallejo, Carson, and, well, I quit scanning posts after page four. All of those authors have been mentioned, most in the sense that they should be admired, studied, or are part of the canon.

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And by "back-patting" I meant giving each other pats on the back.

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I meant examples, as you know.

Okay, Stunt, I got it. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

Mutatis, read what he wrote:

"Everyone has inborn moods, sensitivities, and emotions; not everyone can write like Milton, Keats, Heaney, etc."

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He also wrote this. He obviously doesn't think everyone has the same emotions:

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No two individual personalities are completely unalike, either, so I still don't get your point. Everyone has SOME moods, sensitivities, and emotions, and not everyone can write as well as everyone else. As someone in another thread said, people are pretty much people wherever you go. You can't chalk up their talent as being due to their "unique moods, sensitivities and emotions," in which case why can two writers express the same mood and emotion and one be better at it?

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He's emphasizing that we all feel emotions, many times the same emotions (emotions like love, anger, hate are not unique) nothing more. He is saying that if everyone feels emotion, there must be more that goes into writing poetry than feeling emotion. That's all his point was. It was obvious.

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Originally Posted by My2cents

but what does that mean ultimately? That you understand the value of taking directions? Which in turn would mean that you're just one of the guys, a normal fella like everyone else. Nothing wrong with that. But that's not art. That's being a normal guy, well respected, humble--being someone no one could possibly hate. It's what 99% of humanity aspires to.

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Amen.

People in the present often judge people from the past poorly. They marvel at how uniformly idiotic past persons seem. How could everyone be so stupid, so myopic, so oblivious, so agreeably monstrous? they ask. Yet it never occurs to them how uniformly well they get along with everyone in their own time.

"When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him."

--Jonathan Swift

I get the impression that literary theory is a world apart from those that write poetry. How one applies literary theory in any meaningful way is the full responsibility of the person waving the flashy piece of paper around an online forum. One would certainly hope that all that theory actually gets proactively applied, to enrich the lives of others and doesn't become a pissing contest between like minds or used against those who chose a different path.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

He also wrote this. He obviously doesn't think everyone has the same emotions:


He's emphasizing that we all feel emotions, many times the same emotions (emotions like love, anger, hate are not unique) nothing more. He is saying that if everyone feels emotion, there must be more that goes into writing poetry than feeling emotion. That's all his point was. It was obvious.

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And you think he is right? Emotion is a broad whole that you cannot dissect into specific parts. Maybe you hate something I love and vice versa, do you think it's the same kind of hate? C'mon, neuroscientists have been telling us that personality like emotion is a web of interconnections, and that makes every human being unique.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

And you think he is right? Emotion is a broad whole that you cannot dissect into specific parts. Maybe you hate something I love and vice versa, do you think it's the same kind of hate? C'mon, neuroscientists have been telling us that personality like emotion is a web of interconnections.

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I think he is right in his position that emotion isn't, nor can be, the only factor that creates good poetry.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

I get the impression that literary theory is a world apart from those that write poetry. How one applies literary theory in any meaningful way is the full responsibility of the person waving the flashy piece of paper around an online forum. One would certainly hope that all that theory actually gets proactively applied, to enrich the lives of others and doesn't become a pissing contest between like minds or used against those who chose a different path.

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So learning for learning's sake isn't enough of a reason to learn?

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

So learning for learning's sake isn't enough of a reason to learn?

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That isn't what I said Mutatis but you're welcome to apply whatever meaning you like to comments I make.

Mutatis, I give up... to your control. I'm weak. hehehe

Does any of it matter, for Christ sake! Whether you're made or born with a poet's halo over your head. Does it really matter? I like some poetry that people think is crap. And I like some music that people think is crap. So what? I also hate some poetry that people think is brilliant. Same goes for music. So what? Let the world argue over the merits of the canon. As for I, I'm just gonna kick back and enjoy what I like.