Should Rhyming Poets Be Castrated?

[hillwalker]

Poetry was devised as a device to make it easier to remember than prose. There fore poetry has rhyme and meter, which prose lacks. It is my opnion that "poetry" that lacks rhyma and meter is simply poorly punctuated prose.

So you're suggesting that all free verse is nothing more than 'poorly punctuated prose', including classical works by the likes of Chaucer, Milton, Dryden, Rimbaud, Rossetti. . .

It must be quite embarrassing to have chosen such a deluded signature - 'The Great and Wise'. Really? (lol)

H

[WolfLarsen]

On second thoughts WolfLarsen I would much rather call it rythmic poetry. A peotry that has rythm.
As to your experiencing nails on blackbroard feelings it could only be as a reaction to something you are not used to. They do say any reaction is better then none. Maybe it is saying something about the state of our minds that it has been dormant for a very long time . A rough awakening is seriously better then a smooth one. Traumatic at first but solid in the long run.
I believe that to control a langauge is to control all. Rhythm freezes a meaning and launches new others. It is liberating to liberate the sense and meaning of language. It allows of creativity and movement.

You don't need to rhyme to have rhythm. In addition, I assure you I am all too used to the nails-on-blackboard experience of the rhyme in contemporary poetry. It is not an awakening. It is more like sado-masochism.

As for rhythm one can write a poem to the beat of Afro-Brazilian drums, or 20th century classical music, or the free jazz greats David S Ware or Rob Brown or Sabir Mateen – or you can write your poem to the beat of your neighbors doing the mattRess-syMphonY-bEd-spriNg-bOng.

The rhythm is up to you. You don't need a rhyme for rhythm.

[YesNo]

I assure you I am all too used to the nails-on-blackboard experience of the rhyme in contemporary poetry. It is not an awakening. It is more like sado-masochism.

Some people consider your own doo-doo poetry to be a nails-on-blackboard experience whether it rhymes or not.

Clearly, the answer is NOT castration. The answer is to EAT them! After all, dog is delicious!
So, instead of castrating poets that rhyme I advocate that we eat them.
You say that eating human flesh is abominable? But there is nothing more abominable than poetry that rhymes! Making a stew or a steak or a hamburger out of poets that rhyme is clearly the civilized thing to do! Between cannibalism and poetry that rhymes clearly cannibalism is the lesser evil.

Are you advocating physical violence against those who disagree with you?

[WolfLarsen]

Some people consider your own doo-doo poetry to be a nails-on-blackboard experience whether it rhymes or not.



Are you advocating physical violence against those who disagree with you?

I'm not advocating physical violence against anyone. As a matter of fact I'm inviting everyone over for dinner! We're going to have one delicious barbecue! Doo-doo poetry as an appetizer and guess what kind of meat is on the main menu? Mmmmm yum yum delicious!

Hey near Chicago where's your sense of humor?!

We're going to have a South Side of Chicago kind of barbecue! So come on down from the suburbs and join us on the South Side!

[YesNo]

I'm not advocating physical violence against anyone. As a matter of fact I'm inviting everyone over for dinner! We're going to have one delicious barbecue! Doo-doo poetry as an appetizer and guess what kind of meat is on the main menu? Mmmmm yum yum delicious!

Hey near Chicago where's your sense of humor?!

We're going to have a South Side of Chicago kind of barbecue! So come on down from the suburbs and join us on the South Side!

Although I like to think that I'm a potential vegetarian, I am definitely not a cannibal, so I'll have to pass on your barbecue invitation. But, hey, thanks anyway.

The pattern of verbal abuse disguised as a joke is listed in Wikipedia in case you want to look it up further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_abuse

[YesNo]

Although I don't live in Chicago at the moment, Wolf, it occurred to me that many years ago I did live in Hyde Park. Since that was south of Roosevelt Road that would be in the South Side of Chicago.

This all reminds me of a Jim Croce song.

Before you click on the link--well, I don't know how to put this delicately--but the lyrics do rhyme. I know in your case, you're just putting meat on the table, but don't tell hillwalker.

[cacian]

to rhyme or not to rhyme that is the mime.

[prendrelemick]

I love the discordance of a really bad rhyme, skillfully used. It pricks the pomposity of the reader, pokes fun at the serious poet, and leaves you wondering if the writer is taking the piss. Like poetical Schoenberg

[Emil Miller]

I love the discordance of a really bad rhyme, skillfully used. It pricks the pomposity of the reader, pokes fun at the serious poet, and leaves you wondering if the writer is taking the piss. Like poetical Schoenberg

Then I would like to see the poetical equivalent to this:

http://youtu.be/BtV0dL2jEHw

[WolfLarsen]

Then I would like to see the poetical equivalent to this:

http://youtu.be/BtV0dL2jEHw

So the rhyme could be used to make discordant disturbing music & poetry – interesting idea!

I like the music on that link. Although I wish it was more – powerful & dramatic. If Beethoven were alive today maybe he would compose discordant stuff like that – but I bet it would be more powerful.

Yeah. Discordant poetry with the use of horrible rhymes on purpose. You might be onto something.

[prendrelemick]

I liked the music too, you had to actually listen to it.

[Paulclem]

Castrate rhyming poets? You're talking bollocks surely Wolf.

We'd never have had this by Philip Larkin:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178055

or this by the same,

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178051

And might I add that these two are far more shocking than the poo wee sperm wank that you write Wolf, because they are really critical, and really say something about society then and now.

[islandclimber]

The problem - as others have mentioned - is that rhyme is all too often forced and misused. Rhyming poetry still has its place, when crafted carefully. One of the interesting aspects of rhyming poetry is the intellectual constraint it places upon the poet.

Wolf is certainly talking nonsense. Evidenced even more so by his exclusion of contemporary rap poetry from what he deems "terrible rhyming poetry." His statement: "rhyming poetry written by white people sucks!" might be one of his most absurd. Contemporary rap lyrics are for the better part, awful, regardless of rhyme. There are some talented rap lyricists/poets but to offer this up alongside a statement that white people suck at rhyme is so misguided. For poetry, one could list many examples by Leonard Cohen of great contemporary rhyming poetry. Or how about Bob Dylan's spoken word "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie"? Here it is, in all its rhyming glory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0OdNY8Aybw

If we are looking at poets from the musical side of things, how about the Canadian spoken word indie band The Fugitives? The song Shiny Plastic Bags is brilliant with its use of rhyme. Or Tom Waits. Or GA Johnson from Piano Magic? Jar of Echoes is pretty amazing. Lyrics are here along with the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWXbi-huWD8

There are many contemporary poets who use rhyme quite effectively. I prefer free verse, almost exclusively, and am in general apprehensive about any new poetry with rhyme, yet this does not mean all contemporary rhyming poetry besides African American rap poetry is trash. What an absurd idea.

Robert Frost once said something like: "Writing free verse is a bit like playing tennis without a net." I don't agree with this, but to advocate the opposite is pretty silly Wolf.

[ralfyman]

Start with rhyming, and once you believe that you've mastered that, then try free verse.

[WolfLarsen]

Castrate rhyming poets? You're talking bollocks surely Wolf.

We'd never have had this by Philip Larkin:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178055

or this by the same,

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178051

And might I add that these two are far more shocking than the poo wee sperm wank that you write Wolf, because they are really critical, and really say something about society then and now.

Not bad, but better (a thousand times better) is the Jewish poet David Lerner. Perhaps only the literary world could make a Jewish poet so sick to his stomach that he would entitle a poem about it “Mein Kampf” :

“Mein Kampf”
by David Lerner

all I want to do is
make poetry famous

all I want to do is
burn my initials into the sun

all I want do do is
read poetry from the middle of a
burning building
standing in the fast lane of the
freeway
falling from the top of the
Empire State Building

the literary world
sucks dead dog dick

I’d rather be Richard Speck
than Gary Snyder
I’d rather ride a rocketship to hell
than a Volvo to Bolinas

I’d rather
sell arms to the Martians
than wait sullenly for a
letter from some diseased clown with a
three-piece mind
telling me that I’ve won a
bullet-proof pair of rose-colored glasses
for my poem “Autumn in the Spring”

I want to be
hated
by everyone who teaches for a living

I want people to hear my poetry and
get headaches
I want people to hear my poetry and
vomit

I want people to hear my poetry and
weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets, beat each other to death with
swords and

go out and get riotously drunk on
someone else’s money



this ain’t no party
this ain’t no disco
this ain’t no foolin’ a

grab-bag of
clever wordplay and sensitive thoughts and
gracious theories about

how many ambiguities can dance on the head of a
machine gun

this ain’t no
genteel evening over
cappuccino and bull****

this ain’t no life-affirming
our days have meaning
as we watch the flowers breath through our souls and
fall desperately in love

this ain’t no letter-press, hand-me-down
wimpy beatnik festival of *****ing about
the broken rainbow

it is a carnival of dread

it is a savage sideshow
about to move to the main arena

it is terror and wild beauty
walking hand in hand down a bombed-out road
as missiles scream, while a
sky the color of arterial blood
blinks on and off
like the lights on Broadway
after the last junkie’s dead of AIDS

I come not to bury poetry
but to blow it up
not to dandle it on my knee
like a retarded child with
beautiful eyes
but

throw it off a cliff into
icy seas and
see if the the mother****er can swim for its life

because love is an excellent thing
surely we need it

but, my friends…

there is so much to hate These Days

that hatred is just love with a chip on its shoulder
a chip as big as the Ritz
and heavier than
all the bills I’ll never pay

because they’re after us

they’re selling radioactive charm bracelets
and breakfast cereals that
lower your IQ by 50 points per mouthful
we get politicians who think
starting World War III
would be a good career move
we got beautiful women
with eyes like wet stones
peering out at us from the pages of
glassy magazines promising that they’ll
**** us till we shoot blood

if we’ll just buy one of these beautiful switchblade knives

I’ve got mine