what is a poem?

[desiresjab]

Amost all biological mutations are destructive. The same is true of grammatical mutations.

[cacian]

Amost all biological mutations are destructive. The same is true of grammatical mutations.

do you have an example?

[desiresjab]

do you have an example?

Everyone has them. They are not often found in good mags and we do not have to wonder why, since fixing our own is something of an obsession. There is not much future in commonly defying English grammar. Miltonic inversions were once mutations, and became very successful. Poetry mutated away from those, however. We still use them, but often remove them during editing, though sometimes they stay with brilliant success. The weirder stuff that stylistically leaves out words, cuts off phrases or concocts uncouth grammar and such, slaps an extra load on the reader right away he or she may feel is not worth it. There is always poetic license, but that is easily overused. Before there can be a great poem there must be a readable one. I believe that nearly all great poems in English that I know of use grammar that flows naturally and is essentially technically correct, with here and there a minor lapse or a puposeful instance of the gainful emplyment of poetic license. At times I have employed all of the techniques mentioned with success. I normally figure if readers have to guess what I am talking about, I need revision. If I feel uncomfortable with a phrase, I should assume they will too. There are schools of thought which disagree. I appreciate poems of great clarity, which does not always mean easy, and so my philosophy usually tries to write that kind.

Even A deep dish. Lumps in it. I can't taste my mother. Hoo! I know the spoon. Sit in my mouth, is grammatically sensible, and comes from the mind of Roethke's toddler.

[YesNo]

YesNo, you just dropped an Entrendre!!! that annotation goes all the way with LOVE...without having to change a thing.

This poem gets an A+ from me, and you know I am a stern grader.

Thanks, ZacheirII and desiresjab!

Lately, I've been wondering about sound, meaning and language without anything specific about the writing being classified as poetry. I'm not sure where to look for further information.

[desiresjab]

Lately, I've been wondering about sound, meaning and language without anything specific about the writing being classified as poetry. I'm not sure where to look for further information.

I suspect that the audio-hallucinations of schizophrenics and drug addicts bear some commonality to what poetry does to human consciousness on a deep level. Maybe R.D. Lang has something to say on that, I cannot remember specifically. My mind needs about another three hundred years to become a carded, first class citizen of the intellect. Excuse me for rambling. I wish I had those years though. I would only ask to retain such passion as I myself still retain, which is a vastly different fantasy from starting over again with the comprehension one has accrued up to that point. Give me a tottering three hunded years, then, if nothing else--I mean, I will take them with no longer a youth's natural intent of conquering the world but with an old man's propensity to observe and untangle it from within.

[YesNo]

I remember reading R. D. Lang years ago, but forgot what it was about. I saw one of Edward Sapir's texts on language and almost bought it on Saturday, but then I wondered if that is the best place to start.

I am at the untangle-it-from-within stage of life as well.