Are Poets Born Not Made?

[stuntpickle]

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.

Not so great a list there to argue the point. Tennyson? Are you serious? He died in the 19th Century. Yeats wrote most of his stuff before 1930. Of course, one person brought up Bukowski and Angelou, but then everyone else made a point to say they were both awful. It is true that there are some relatively recent poets in your list, but that doesn't change the fact that the GENERAL conversation concerned whether one should read so-called Canonical poets in order to write. The exceptions do not make the rule.

This reminds me of another discussion I had on this forum with one of these self-assured "experts" on the topic of Fitzgerald. This person demanded to know who Fitzgerald had influenced, and I said Charles Bock, who had just written a literary novel that had gone mainstream and was sort of the talk of the town. The person who had asked the question started to make fun of Bock because this person had never heard of him, as though that were the primary mechanism to determine the value of a writer.

What I thought odd then and now was that both that person and many others in the thread seem entirely disconnected from modern literature and modern writers simply because it's easier to look cultured or smart by sticking to the Canon. I think it's an abortion of taste to merely inherit the tastes of the establishment--not to mention liking the Canon uniformly so that one need never actually think about what one really likes. It's much easier to quote Pope and tell people to read Shakespeare--neither of which are all that helpful if the topic is modern poetry.

I meant examples, as you know.

I did not know, and still, I find it hard to believe that you missed the person listing the names and finest attributes of those he agreed with. And this was followed up immediately by another declaring that the original poster's name should be added to the fine list of respectable personages. Then another.... It's just typical herd behavior. "We're on the same team. I like you; let's stick together!"

[Silas Thorne]

Derrida, Foucault, Baudelaire, Deleuze, Guatari, and Lyotard once ruined my passionate attempt in creative nonfiction. Since then, I have not regained my lost voice back. Deleuze and Guatari's rhizomatic scheme left me scattered- my thoughts and how my brain works. The rabid postmodernist among them pushed me to victimhood. They shattered me emotionally. There are moments now when everything to me is a purgatory of limbo, dilemma, and grey.

Personally, I try to stay away from the Postmodernists as much as possible. I don't think knowing about their ideas will help me create. I believe thinking too much about this kind of literary theory blocks creativity, for me anyway.

Actually I was at a conference once, listening to a particular talk and was so bored I wrote down some key phrases from the talk and made them into a 'poem' (read 'monotonous drivel'). It sounded like a monk's chant to me so I lengthened some syllables:

' ......The agency in the power dynamic
serves, separating the sacred
and the everyday spaces,
creating meaning within the tactics
of association and negoti-a-tion,
transgressing and resisting
established norms against the patriarchal
male hie-ra-chy,
negotiating the power relations
in the force of an authoritarian force,
calling into question
the established dis-course. '

Direct quotes. Repeat until numb.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Not so great a list there to argue the point. Tennyson? Are you serious? He died in the 19th Century. Yeats wrote most of his stuff before 1930. Of course, one person brought up Bukowski and Angelou, but then everyone else made a point to say they were both awful. It is true that there are some relatively recent poets in your list, but that doesn't change the fact that the GENERAL conversation concerned whether one should read so-called Canonical poets in order to write. The exceptions do not make the rule.

Right, and it could easily be argued that all of those I listed are canonical poets.

And, yeah, I screwed up on Tennyson, I'm so, so sorry.

What I thought odd then and now was that both that person and many others in the thread seem entirely disconnected from modern literature and modern writers simply because it's easier to look cultured or smart by sticking to the Canon. I think it's an abortion of taste to merely inherit the tastes of the establishment--not to mention liking the Canon uniformly so that one need never actually think about what one really likes. It's much easier to quote Pope and tell people to read Shakespeare--neither of which are all that helpful if the topic is modern poetry.

Was that the topic? I must have missed that post.

What I think odd is your inability to think that people may actually enjoy canonical authors.

Actually I was at a conference once, listening to a particular talk and was so bored I wrote down some key phrases from the talk and made them into a 'poem' (read 'monotonous drivel'). It sounded like a monk's chant to me so I lengthened some syllables:

' ......The agency in the power dynamic
serves, separating the sacred
and the everyday spaces,
creating meaning within the tactics
of association and negoti-a-tion,
transgressing and resisting
established norms against the patriarchal
male hie-ra-chy,
negotiating the power relations
in the force of an authoritarian force,
calling into question
the established dis-course. '

Direct quotes. Repeat until numb.

I did that with a professor once.

If you think literary theory and writing are that different, it could only be because you're paying attention. For 2,000 years literary theory was aesthetic theory, largely concerned with the agreement of constituent parts in the service of beauty. Then English professors got jealous of all the philosophers and scientists, with all their jargon and obese ideas, so the English professors just started aping them until everyone forgot why they were there in the first place.

Screw Shakespeare; let's read Derrida!

[stlukesguild]

If you think literary theory and writing are that different, it could only be because you're paying attention. For 2,000 years literary theory was aesthetic theory, largely concerned with the agreement of constituent parts in the service of beauty. Then English professors got jealous of all the philosophers and scientists, with all their jargon and obese ideas, so the English professors just started aping them until everyone forgot why they were there in the first place.

Screw Shakespeare; let's read Derrida!

OK... I pretty much agree with this.

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

This I question. Now granted... I'm not a poet, and whatever efforts I made at poetry over the years are admittedly bad to an embarrassing degree. Yet coming to this debate from the point of view of a visual artist I must say that I know of very few artists of any real merit who do not look to the "old masters" as well as to their immediate predecessors. Certainly they need not be aware of the masters of the past to the same extent as an academic... an art historian. They probably won't know of Rosso Fiorentinio or Il Sodoma... but quite often their work is just as much inspired by the art of the long-past as it is by the art of their immediate predecessors... or even the popular culture of today. Surely anyone having done a little study of poetry can show how any number of major poets were profoundly inspired by poets/writers well before their time.

[Pierre Menard]

What I thought odd then and now was that both that person and many others in the thread seem entirely disconnected from modern literature and modern writers simply because it's easier to look cultured or smart by sticking to the Canon. I think it's an abortion of taste to merely inherit the tastes of the establishment--not to mention liking the Canon uniformly so that one need never actually think about what one really likes. It's much easier to quote Pope and tell people to read Shakespeare--neither of which are all that helpful if the topic is modern poetry.

The 'people only like the canon so they can looked cultured' nonsense is really starting to get tiresome. Could it be that these writers are considered part of the canon because they are actually that good and that there may be reasons why they're considered good? And those reasons are why people might actually enjoy those writers...because there are qualities to enjoy.

For what it's worth, I've seen a number of posters on this thread talk about modern writers they like in other threads. I mean, in the topic 'favourite literary era', a large number chose the 20th century.

Your entire post is based on generalisation and assumption.

"Oh, those people have inherited those tastes, they're just trying to look smart by ignoring modern writers."

[shortstoryfan]

If you think literary theory and writing are that different, it could only be because you're paying attention. For 2,000 years literary theory was aesthetic theory, largely concerned with the agreement of constituent parts in the service of beauty. Then English professors got jealous of all the philosophers and scientists, with all their jargon and obese ideas, so the English professors just started aping them until everyone forgot why they were there in the first place.

Screw Shakespeare; let's read Derrida!

Indeed! Though, I do enjoy Shakespeare....

[stuntpickle]

The 'people only like the canon so they can looked cultured' nonsense is really starting to get tiresome. Could it be that these writers are considered part of the canon because they are actually that good and that there may be reasons why they're considered good? And those reasons are why people might actually enjoy those writers...because there are qualities to enjoy.

For what it's worth, I've seen a number of posters on this thread talk about modern writers they like in other threads. I mean, in the topic 'favourite literary era', a large number chose the 20th century.

Your entire post is based on generalisation and assumption.

"Oh, those people have inherited those tastes, they're just trying to look smart by ignoring modern writers."

"Tiresome" is right. I wrote my master's thesis on Coleridge's ironic notion of an insufficient poetic language, and it's a bit tiresome to listen to all the teenyboppers and young adults instruct me in the importance of the Canon (with an emphasis on the English Romantics). I say this not to brag, as the paper was tedious and unimportant as all theses are, but I certainly don't need to be instructed in the importance of such things.

Of course, the writers of the Canon are good... Duh! I'm certain the same could be said of an early cinema auteur, but I don't think such persons are so absurdly esteemed to the exclusion of more relevant ones by modern filmmakers.

It's such a bore to listen to mediocrities equivocate about what "born poet" and "intellectual" might mean since no one intends, by "born poet", someone who comes out of the womb reciting heroic couplets or, by "intellectual", someone with innate capacities for expression. Nor does a statement suggesting that reading Canonical literature isn't a necessary prerequisite for poetic technique mean anything like "Canonical poets are bad." So perhaps when you get done with all the pseudo-intellectual equivocations, you could actually join me in a real conversation.

You know, if someone wants to restrict his reading to the Canon, fine. I don't give a damn, but when someone starts quoting Pope as if he were directly relevant to modern poetic technique and admonishing others for not approaching the Canon in the conventional manner of a matriculating undergrad, then I will certainly point out the idiocy of it--even if the person(s) in question refuses to listen.

If my posts consist of generalizations and assumptions, then yours consist of fallacious misrepresentations and faulty reasoning, which is symptomatic of someone who has learned not to think for himself, but reiterate all the prevailing liberal arts platitudes.

[miyako73]

My God, Stunt, you still have the energy to engage with people who argue for argument's sake. Misreading, it seems, is the worst in this forum.

[MorpheusSandman]

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.

How is it possible that you can write this crap and accuse ME of misreading people's posts and poetry? Really, where in the world did I ever say ANY of this?

It seems that you're the one incapable of distinguishing any middle ground between "everyone feels the same emotions/moods" and "everyone feels entirely unique emotions/moods". Would you really deny that everyone experiences a lot of the same emotions, but perhaps in slightly different ways? That two people can experience love, but that perhaps those two experience it slightly differently? Tons of writers have written about falling in love, but do you want to claim that what separates good love poetry from bad love poetry is the uniqueness of those poets feelings of love? So Shakespeare and Donne (eg) wrote great love poetry because they experienced love in totally unique ways from everyone else?

I know the context: you weaseling out of everything you say.

You know the context... yet you accuse me of comparing modern music to canonical poetry when I wasn't the one that brought it up? The very first post that mentioned the musical canon as an example was stlukes, and he was replying to a poster that had said they'd take certain modern poets over the canonical poets, and stlukes brought up Pink Floyd and Aerosmith by saying most would take them over Bach and Mozart. So, if you really understood the context, you would see that the disparity between modern poetry and the poetry canon was being compared to modern music and the musical canon.

But, of course you read all this, which is why you're blaming me for bringing it up and think that the discussion was all about classic poets and modern music. Sure.

"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.

Keats' aesthetic theories have been as influential and widely discussed as any intellectual aesthetic theories of the 19th century. They are CLEARLY intellectual concepts. That you're trying to make some discrete split between intuition and intellect is a bit strange... Keats intuits that there's something powerful about Shakespeare's plays, and reasons about it enough to come to the conclusion that it was his ability to not have to know everything about his writing, and he reasons that this is what separates him from someone like Coleridge that has to theorize everything. So what, pray tell, about that theory is not intellectual?

Really, though, and this is a question I asked back when that discussion started: why do we have the term "intellectual" if it's just synonymous with academic and scholar? Because if all intellectuals are academics and scholars, the word intellectual would be redundant. I argued that intellectual should be the middle ground between just average/everyday thinking and academics and scholars, describing those people that think a great deal about intellectual matters, like aesthetics, but do so in a completely informal manner, and that description fits Keats perfectly.

Yeah, unfortunately, I read all your bogus posts...

Even the "bogus" ones where you stated the same things I had stated several pages back while pretending that you were stating something new that hadn't already been stated? You want to cut off your nose to spite your face here?

Who is it that you think isn't doing this work?

Someone like miyako who thinks that all a poet needs is their moods, emotions, and sensibilities.

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.

It wasn't? Here was my first post:

"I still think Pope had it right when he said: "True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have learned to dance" A while back there was an author on The Colbert Report who was promoting a book about creativity in humans, and he gave a surprising statistic that in kindergarten over 95% of kids will say they're creative, while in high school that number drops to below 50%. So I don't think people are born being more creative at all, I simply think some choose to cultivate that universal creativity that all of us possess and some don't, and somewhere along the line people forget they ever had that creativity in them at all.

As for the whole "technique VS creativity, intuition VS intellect" debate, I always thought it was a false dichotomy. When we look at the greats in all mediums, the most creative were frequently the most technically accomplished, and this is hardly limited to literature. Although I do agree that the entire point of learning technique is to be able to forget it. It's like learning all of the minute techniques of a jump shot so that in a game you can do it automatically without thinking. Art is the same way. You consciously learn technique so that it's always there when you need it. There's a lot of mediocre art made where technique was never learned and ignored, as well as where technique becomes the sole focus. It can't be to either extreme. The technique needs to be there, but in the service of intuitive creativity. "

Now, would you mind please pointing out where I was "particularly concerned about who (poets are) reading and how"? Because, I don't see anything there about me saying poets must read the canon, I'm saying they need to work at their craft. Here was my second semi-lengthy post:

"It seems to me that there's a lot of the anti-intellectual approach to art and creativity around today, even on these forums, but I ask those that promote this view: what great artists they can name that became great through nothing but natural talent and with no learning and no hard work? If you rattle off any list of the great poets--Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Chaucer, Yeats, Eliot, Keats, Blake, Wordsworth, Neruda, Hill, Auden--none of them were dummies that wrote their masterpieces by never learning about the art and craft of poetry. I simply don't think it is possible to ever be great, perhaps even good, without spending a significant time learning the craft that you intend to practice. As the saying goes, art is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration."

Now, what there is me being "particularly concerned about who (poets are) reading and how"? What I see is me arguing that the great poets of the past put work into learning their craft. In fact, the first post I made on that subject at all was in response to shortstoryfan talking about poetry being a response to other poetry. In fact, the first real post that started the discussion on who SHOULD be read wasn't mine, but stlukes.

So, would you mind not accusing me of things I haven't done? My posts from the beginning have been about poets learning the craft, and later posts developed into saying that it was good for poets to read and study their early predecessors, recent predecessors, and contemporaries. It was OTHERS who brought up the discussion about who should and shouldn't be read, about the canon VS contemporary poetry. I was promoting contemporary poetry as far back as page 2 where I mentioned Geoffrey Hill, and page 4 where I mentioned Larkin, Ashbery, Merrill, Neruda, Lowell, etc. Are they recent enough for you?

[stuntpickle]

You know the context... yet you accuse me of comparing modern music to canonical poetry

I wonder whether the problem is that you don't read or can't. I never accused you or anyone else of "comparing" poetry to music. I pointed out what I thought seemed to be a disparity between the two discussions, in which people seemed enthused about recent popular music, on the one hand, and fairly dated Canonical literature, on the other. It seemed to me wonderfully emblematic of the point I was trying to make.

That you're trying to make some discrete split between intuition and intellect is a bit strange

You can't be this clueless! I am not making a distinction at all, the language is! The distinction is friggin conventional. Just now, I typed in on Google "intellect vs...." and Goggle filled in "emotion" as the first option and "intuition" as the second one. It's not simply a connotation either, but one of the primary denotative meanings. From Merriam Webster:

intellectual

developed or chiefly guided by the intellect rather than by emotion or experience : rational

why do we have the term "intellectual" if it's just synonymous with academic and scholar? Because if all intellectuals are academics and scholars, the word intellectual would be redundant.

Are you kidding me? Why do we have the word intellectual in addition to scholar? Because intellectual is used specifically to contrast with emotional and intuitive and "scholar" isn't. This conversation is such a joke. Kids in junior high know this stuff.

Even the "bogus" ones where you stated the same things I had stated several pages back while pretending that you were stating something new that hadn't already been stated?

I concede entirely that you have said similar things to what I've said. But I also recognize that they have been in service of your obfuscation. This whole ridiculous discussion of intellectual is the vestigial reminder of what you meant. The only reason you're trying to pervert the language is so that you don't look as ignorant as you did initially.

Someone like miyako who thinks that all a poet needs is their moods, emotions, and sensibilities.

I've seen miyako posting a number of published poems and essays on this forum (for instance, one by Lorca). I take it for granted that she is reading them before doing this.

As for the whole "technique VS creativity, intuition VS intellect" debate,

So now you're acknowledging the convention of intuition vs intellect? Well, then why are you, elsewhere, pretending otherwise. FYI, it isn't a "debate"; it's a well established convention.

"It seems to me that there's a lot of the anti-intellectual approach to art and creativity around today, even on these forums, but I ask those that promote this view: what great artists they can name that became great through nothing but natural talent and with no learning and no hard work?

You see, here's another convention that you seem to be ignorant of. "Learning" is often contrasted with "practical experience", and it seems you're trying to conflate the two. Doing such is an error.

You know, this conversation would have been over had you simply admitted the error, but, no, you will defend it to the death. I can't believe that anyone buys your whole "innate intellectual" obfuscation. The understanding is so basic.

Morpheus,

I've just reread the thread, and I've come to a realization, one that J apparently came to much earlier than I. You see, this entire discussion owes to that you don't understand the word "intellectual". I say this not to berate you or make fun of you, but simply to address the crux of the issue. Let me say I'm sorry since I could have, had I been a bit more reasonable about it, noticed it earlier. You see, I thought you were saying one thing, and then trying to cover it up with a deceptive use of "intellectual", but now that I've looked at the thread again the issue seems to be that you're just unacquainted with how the word is used in this context.

You see, the conversation we're having is older than any of us, and historically the divisions have been drawn along the lines of intellect vs intuition and formal education vs practical experience. When you started using the words "anti-intellectual" and "intellectual", you were raising a recognizable battle standard, and I simply don't think you knew this. As it transpired, J realized this error long before I did. And, of course, he's more charitable than I. So he's just willing to let it go.

To be honest, I'm not particularly interested in arguing over it anymore simply because I think you're confused. When one uses "intellect" and "education" as the justification for artistic skill, typically one does so in contrast to "intuition" and "experience". Eliot, for instance, is someone typically considered to be representative of the intellectual side of the coin. Keats and Shakespeare, however, are typically thought to represent the other side. I thought your misunderstanding of the issue was an instance of deception, but now that I've looked over it again, I think it's simply one of ignorance.

In short, I think this conversation has been entirely pointless. It's just an error. It happens to everyone. If you'd just admit the error, it would be no big deal.

[stlukesguild]

My God, Stunt, you still have the energy to engage with people who argue for argument's sake. Misreading, it seems, is the worst in this forum.

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!

The image of a mirror is surely apt.

[miyako73]

My God, Stunt, you still have the energy to engage with people who argue for argument's sake. Misreading, it seems, is the worst in this forum.

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!

The image of a mirror is surely apt.

Indeed you would know.

Originally Posted by miyako73
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.
How is it possible that you can write this crap and accuse ME of misreading people's posts and poetry? Really, where in the world did I ever say ANY of this?

It seems that you're the one incapable of distinguishing any middle ground between "everyone feels the same emotions/moods" and "everyone feels entirely unique emotions/moods". Would you really deny that everyone experiences a lot of the same emotions, but perhaps in slightly different ways? That two people can experience love, but that perhaps those two experience it slightly differently? Tons of writers have written about falling in love, but do you want to claim that what separates good love poetry from bad love poetry is the uniqueness of those poets feelings of love? So Shakespeare and Donne (eg) wrote great love poetry because they experienced love in totally unique ways from everyone else?

Weren't you the one who generalized "my" into "everyone"? Reread your responses.

Put this in your head: what makes me unique is the totality of my emotions or personality which is unique and mine alone. You cannot select parts of the two wholes then compare. My fantasy affects my emotional capability to love. Maybe my being an emo is the root of my fantasy. I act out my love through my being an emo. Can't you see the web of interconnections? You can add biochemistry, cognition, social response, culture into that web. The result is a web of endless permutations. So you cannot really say two personalities or emotions can be the same. Find a psychologist who does not say that every personality or emotion is unique, then I'll shut up.

[stlukesguild]

Indeed you would know.

Talk about mediocrity... one might as well be back exchanging insults on the playground in middle-school.

[miyako73]

Well, you started it like a middle schooler would. Could you really expect a professional response?

[MorpheusSandman]

I pointed out what I thought seemed to be a disparity between the two discussions, in which people seemed enthused about recent popular music, on the one hand, and fairly dated Canonical literature, on the other.

Amazing you said nothing about this level of enthusiasm in your post. All you said was: "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?"

But you have no point, because the original post that mentioned modern music was comparing modern music to canonical music as being analogous to modern poetry and canonical poetry, and there HAS been discussion of modern poetry, as well as plenty of people recommending certain contemporary poets and deriding others, the same way we were recommending certain modern music and deriding others. There's no disparity. Everyone on both sides has mentioned modern music/poets they like/dislike and canonical music/poetry they like/dislike. All four groups have been aptly represented, I think.

I am not making a distinction at all, the language is! The distinction is friggin conventional.

Please go back and reread what you quoted, because I did not say you were unfairly making a distinction. What I said was: "you're trying to make some discrete split." I then went on, in that very post, to illustrate how intuition can lead to an intellectual formulation through Keats. Nowhere was I attempting to argue intuition and intellect were identical or the same, but that they are not mutually exclusive and, in fact, the former often leads to the latter, just like Keats' reading and intuiting there was something unique in Shakespeare that separated him from Coleridge lead to his theory of Negative Capability.

Because intellectual is used specifically to contrast with emotional and intuitive and "scholar" isn't.

Can one be an intuitive or emotional scholar? Anyway, then explain to me how Keats formulating the theory of Negative Capability is not the product of an intellectual? How is Negative Capability emotional or intuitive rather than rational?

I've seen miyako posting a number of published poems and essays on this forum (for instance, one by Lorca). I take it for granted that she is reading them before doing this.

I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't even reading them. In our first debate regarding formalism and formalists, she seemed to be in favor of Vendler as a critic, but tried to claim Vendler wasn't a formalist. Then, when she challenged me by asking what critics support noticing anagrams in poetry, I posted repeated excerpts from Vendler's Shakespeare book. Then, after realizing that Vendler supported the kind of criticism she (miyako) disliked, she posted one of the only critical attacks on Vendler online by an idiot named Dan Schneider. I doubt seriously she even read it, because when I countered several of Dan's points, miyako didn't even bother addressing them.

So, she went from: seeming to support Vendler by claiming she wasn't a formalist, to trying to attack her when she realized Vendler engaged in the kind of criticism she found distasteful.

But, regardless of all that, miyako has come out against poets trying to learn their craft several times. You both say "nobody's claiming poets come out of the womb composing masterpieces," but then... what happens? What separates "born" poets from "made" poets? miyako keeps mentioning emotions, sensibilities, and moods. Do you think all that it takes to make a great poet is them having the right emotions, et al.?

So now you're acknowledging the convention of intuition vs intellect? Well, then why are you, elsewhere, pretending otherwise.

I never was. I stated even within that post I felt it was a false dichotomy (it has to be either/or), and for the same reasons I've explained numerous times and you have (surprise, surprise) completely failed to address. We agree there is a difference between intuition and intellect, but my argument has always been (from the beginning) that one does not have to exclude the other and, in fact, intuition usually leads to intellectual formulations. One is built upon another, intuition can transition, sometimes little by little, into intellectualism, rather than being two completely different modes.

You know, me bringing semiotics up in that other thread was important, because you seem to be completely lost in this area. Really, a lot of our disagreements would be aided tremendously if you had the first clue how language works. Every time you find me using a word that's different from the way you use it and the way you define it, you try to act like I'm the idiot who's confused, without considering that I could be using it in another way that's perfectly legitimate. Look at the various definitions of intellectual on Dictionary.com that fit perfectly what I've been saying about Keats:

noun
6.
a person of superior intellect.
7.
a person who places a high value on or pursues things of interest to the intellect or the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, as aesthetic or philosophical matters, especially on an abstract and general level. (So Keats didn't pursue knowledge about aesthetics?)
8.
an extremely rational person; a person who relies on intellect rather than on emotions or feelings.
9.
a person professionally engaged in mental labor, as a writer or teacher. (One reason I said it's tempting to call all writers intellectuals)

— n
4. a person who enjoys mental activity and has highly developed tastes in art, literature, etc
5. a person who uses or works with his intellect
6. a highly intelligent person

A person who engages in academic study or critical evaluation of ideas and issues. (Negative Capability comes out of Keats' critical evaluation of Coleridge's literary theory)

Merriam Webster:

a : given to study, reflection, and speculation

b : engaged in activity requiring the creative use of the intellect <intellectual playwrights>

Now, call me crazy, but a lot of these definitions describe Keats perfectly. So, as much as you'd like to make it out that I'm "confused" regarding the meaning of the term intellectual, it could also very well possibly be that you (and I, and JCamillo) simply had different definitions of the term in mind when we brought it up. But the real crime here is that I have repeatedly attempted to clarify my definition--perhaps not in the most lucid ways, granted, and I even already admitted that "innate intellectual" was a plain bad term on my part. But when neither you or J has made one attempt to distinguish intellectual from "everyday thinking" or "scholar/academic," then how have you helped matters at all?

I'm not particularly interested in arguing over it anymore simply because I think you're confused.

Yeah, yeah, you've pulled this trick numerous times, stunt, and if anyone's actually reading this exchange, and reading all of the numerous times you have flatly misread who's-said-what in this thread and what the context was that certain things were said in, I doubt they're going to take your word that you've read through this thread and now have it all figured out.

what makes me unique is the totality of my emotions or personality which is unique and mine alone.

So everyone is a unique little snowflake; so why are some people better writers than others? Because all it requires is the right kind of uniqueness? Really, I could use your argument to argue that there is no difference between born and made poets, because made poets are unique in the totality of their emotions and personality which is theirs and theirs alone no different than anyone else... so why the distinction again?

miyako, you're the type that could look at the numbers 1,595,320,005 and 1,595,320,006 and call them "unique" even though they have 9 integers in common and 1 different. You seem to see this issue only in black-and-white, completely alike/completely unalike, rather than "certain things in common, certain things that are different." If we were all as unique as you make it out to be, we could never see ourselves reflected in the writings of others to begin with.