Refreshing, really. A professor I had once decided that there was no real law, order, or definition for poetry, that many words jumbled strangely together on a page without any kind of purpose or order constituted poetry if that is what the author decided it was and that a single word repeated over and over also constituted poetry if the author decided it was. Any thoughts on that? I am inclined to argue against him.
I'll be the first to admit, isidro, that many contemporary poems seem inacessible to me, even though I've spent a lifetime trying to understand it. I think that there are some poems that are "abstract" in the way a contemporaryOriginally Posted by isidro
painting is abstract -- but in such a painting at least I can appreciate the colors or the shapes or the composition. With a difficult and dense poem, however, I am totally asea-- though I warrant that in most cases the problem might be w. yours truly rather than the work itself.
Not every contemporary poet writes incomprehensible stuff, though, and there are several poets writing today who produce works that are accessible yet still rich in meaning.
(Please don't forget to point out any mistakes or erroneous info you may see in my "manifesto.")
I'm glad you disagree with him Isador. That professor ought to be fired. Babbling does not constitute poetry. First and foremost there has to be cohesion not just in poetry but in all works of art. next there has to be charged language, and babbling s not language.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Aunty, I applaud your concise guide to poetry and its elements. I consider myself still new to this so I hope I live at least as long as Stanley Kunitz to take in all there is to know about poetry.
There are many poems by Wallace Stevens that I don't understand, but that in some way get to me. I have always looked at these poems as a validation that use of language is where the punch comes from. For this he remains my favorite poet. I feel like the character in Man Carrying Thing reading his poems.
Thanks also to all those who responded to help make it a very interesting thread.
They tell kids that, so they can begin to understand how untraditional forms work - in truth, there is some truth to it, but in order to understand that, you first need to understand the forums - poetry is everything that fits within the dialog of poetry, regardless of form, technically, so, in essence, writing in clusters all over the place is a valid form - though, not generally a good one.
The problem is, it only works if the work fits into the frame - I don't, for instance, consider much of the stuff put in the personal poetry forum to be poetic, whereas I think the more wacky poems of Robert Kroestch to be top notch poetry - the problem is, people who don't understand the dialog end up having limited ideas of the possibilities of poetry - so, in a sense, the professor is write, it just so happens that poetry, to really be poetry, has to be somewhat good and intelligible, in the sense that it can speak to the audience, and to other poems.
The professor was in fact reprimanded but that was because he tried to push his sexual ideas on his class to a very revolting degree. And I confess, I was his biggest opposition and antagonist in that.
Well then they tell kids crap. She said this:
Any work of anything that is jumbled together without "order" or "purpose" is certainly not art. It may be something else, but it's not art.Originally Posted by isidro
A professor I had once decided that there was no real law, order, or definition for poetry, that many words jumbled strangely together on a page without any kind of purpose or order constituted poetry...
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Dunno about that. Art can be as accidental (or even incidental), as it is intentional, if not more so. Which might be sort of lame and demoralizing, but then, as that trendy professor seemed to be saying, the holy principles of aesthetics work in the most mysterious of ways.Or, if you’d prefer a bit of historical insight, there is a quaint Latin saying, lamer still, but equally as non-delineative: de gustibus non est disputandum.
Well, you may not know about that, but I do.Dunno about that. Art can be as accidental (or even incidental), as it is intentional, if not more so. Which might be sort of lame and demoralizing, but then, as that trendy professor seemed to be saying, the holy principles of aesthetics work in the most mysterious of ways.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Jawohl mein Führer!
I totally agree with you, Virgil. I think the apparent disorder or randomness or spontaneity of some art (whether it is sculpture, painting, or writing) may lead someone to believe it was not calculated or ordered.
Then there are those "works of art" where someone throws paint up in front of a fan or jet engine, lets it fall on canvas and sells it for thousands. Because someone likes the results of these exercises does not make them into works of art (the operative word being work). One might argue something similar for language art that there is "found poetry" and spam poetry, but these are nothing more than after the fact applying an aesthetic filter that, somewhere in time, an artist worked hard to establish.
Jawohl mein Führer!Anytime.
Thank you Fire.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Didn't mean to start such a commotion. This was a 400 level English class so we were supposed to already know meter etc. He also taught meter but later in the semester essentially pulled out the rug and said that poetry was what we said it was - completely subjective.
He later published a poem as I understand and had a book signing etc at Yale University. His poem had no rhyme, meter, etc. It was words in a strange shape on the page and exceedingly off color in nature. Hardly surprising. I love him to death as a person but as a professor...? He teaches at Penn State now, so look out y'all over there!
Thank you for this thread AuntShecky. Most enlightening.
As a poet, in the most minor sense, many of my writing flaws have become most apparent; (...) guilty - most egregiously [lol]. Not having any formal writing education, however, did allow me a certain freedom to many, many, failures in expression and style. Now, perhaps, I can build upon those failures within the constraints of critical thought.
By the by... (sorry, habit)... (smacking hands)... (aahh!!!). Anyone else having difficulty accessing the last 4 or 5 replies? [my last access was to reply #43 for some reason].
Enchant Me...
Your very being
a desire for answer
Lament not
your unassailable
mystery
Enchant me with
your dreams
[QUOTE=tailor STATELY;787860]
By the by... (sorry, habit)... (smacking hands)... (aahh!!!). Anyone else having difficulty accessing the last 4 or 5 replies? [my last access was to reply #43 for some reason].
QUOTE]
This is a really old thread, tailor STATELY, and that may account for the difficulty. I "revived" it, so to speak, because I noticed a terrible error, and the orig. thread was so long that the mechanism for "editing" was no longer available. Please take heed of reply # 30 (above), though, as I don't want anybody to walk around with a mistake made by me.
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