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I gave my professor a manuscript of approximately 12 poems for my final project, to which she commented to me in an e-mail (regarding the manuscript), "you are writing poems."
This might have seemed somewhat strange to me, but some weeks back my other professor gave me back a story and had commented, "if you want to be a fiction writer, you could be."
It's probably something that professors say, like a specific construction of a sentence where they say something like "you are [doing action]" in a declarative way, in a way maybe to emphasize or make seem important or significant concepts like "being a fiction writer", "writing poems", etc., as if to differentiate themselves from the fact that, as my professor noted with (what I felt was) a certain level of disgust as I showed her my copy of Mira Gonzalez's "I will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together", [something like "they'll publish anyone these days"], I think.
These are poems in a style that I have not really "experimented" with very much before, I feel like the reaction to these have been mostly positive and am interested if something like this is more appealing (to a more wide-spread audience) than the "personal", "open", "honest", "diary-like" style that I typically use.
+ Show Spoiler [cat] +
staring, blankly, ahead, thinking
"am i even a cat anymore,"
in an inner monologue
vaguely reminiscent
of a lil b youtube video
then briefly regretting
its own existence as a cat, thinking
"i didnt choose to be born"
"i didnt ask for this"
and "lil b based dog"
looking somewhat longingly
outside the window
towards the street
at a 'small dog'.
it is ok to feel these things.
it is normal for cats and humans.
everything is ok.
+ Show Spoiler [ladybug] +
a lady bug changes hats
thinking, silently,
to itself, "bad bitch,"
approximately twelve times,
looking into the mirror,
continuing to think,
but now also wordlessly
mouthing, "bad bitch,"
then, absent-mindedly,
briefly pictures herself,
tonight, wordlessly
mouthing some strange
man bug.
+ Show Spoiler [ducks] +
in the middle of my nervous breakdown
i will log onto rapgenius.com
and attempt to annotate every line of every song
that i feel like, or that make me think of a time
that is not the present, and then
i will shout obscenities at a family of ducks
in a grocery store looking at breads.
"these are my breads," i will say,
in a moderately loud monotone
before beginning to 'trail off',
"just let me have this bread,"
"this is all i want," and all of everyone
stares at my bed sitting,
somewhat uncomfortably, in the aisle
+ Show Spoiler [cat(2)] +
in a room somewhere
there is a tribe of cats
who wear the skulls
of dead boys, ages 13-17
we recognize more
mewing and purring
than the whimpers
of dead and dying boys
we touch their hair
and give them names
the room is dark
and we dont understand.
 
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I think they're terrible, both in content and the way you wrote them.
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I was never good at reading poetry in school. I never really "got" the effect. That said, I think there are some good ideas here. In "the ducks" i got the feeling of being in a dream, as something awkward and embarrassing and too awkward for reality happens right as overwhelming leads you to a weird action.
Overall, you're too loose with prosody and word choice for my taste. In the lines "continuing to think,/but now also/mouthing, "bad bitch" The rhythme is too conversational to really be considered a metre, isn't that true? The grammar is not very beautiful, it's conversational. There are too many words that are adjectives with meaning instead of words that portray raw emotions and pictures.
Also, i realize that a poet who is confident in his work might find it poor taste to give his audience an idea of what his work intends, because he knows if someone "gets it" they will get it without assistance. This does not seem like your situation though. Perhapsif give an idea of your intention we can see the poem more how you intended it to be seen.
I think there's something enjoyable, but it's not quite "good" for me. wow i feel like an american idol judge.. so, just remember i'm really no expert.
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Argh. They just make no sense. Still better than your older poems though, but that's not really saying much.
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@Incze I feel like 'terrible' is a sort of value judgment that has no real objective basis, and is, more or less, an empty word in terms of 'being a descriptor'. Also things like 'content', and 'the way [I] wrote them' seem really vague and also, maybe, 'without meaning'. Thank you for reading my poems.
@Japhybaby 'Too loose' in terms of prosody seems, I feel, like a fair enough criticism to level, especially if, as I'm now assuming you, enjoy, or only particularly enjoy, more traditional, formal poetry. This is ok, I think, because a lot of people regard poetry differently than I do and I think that a large part of this difference makes up whatever disconnect that people use to try and pass value judgments.
'Too loose' in terms of word choice is something that is confusing to me, because, I think, the words that you later use to describe the language of the poems is, in fact, very close to the intended purpose of the grammar: that is, "conversational", "not beautiful", although I would typically choose to qualify "not beautiful" as "not (conventionally) beautiful". At the same time, as careful as I am (or try to be) with words, and with language, this is not something that I would try to argue against, because truely I can be more careful with my words and truely I probably have some words that could be seen as having been "tossed in".
I don't really think that I can 'explain' my poems any more than they are explained by the words themselves in the poems.
Thank you for reading my poems.
@Epishade I think "they just make no sense" is unfairly leveled at these poems, although it could be because they are separated from other poems in whatever collection this is to help give them context (but I do have 4 poems here, that, I feel, generally deal with the same things). I think that, definitely, these poems can seem more "abstract" because the images and characters within them, rather than being definitively human things are instead things like cats etc., but what difference would it truely make to a poem like "lady bug" if you changed "lady bug" and "man bug" to a girl and a boy, to change changing hats to changing clothes?
Does a cat feeling existential mean anything 'less' than a human feeling existential, and what does it mean to have connected, somewhat, in your head, anxiety that you feel looking at rap lyrics on rapgenius.com with anxiety that you feel buying bread at a supermarket and anxiety you feel sitting alone on your bed?
I think that the desire for things to make sense, to be ordered, etc., is not necessarily a good and beautiful thing, and I feel that, generally, in poetry I try to not just resist doing these things but to react strongly against them.
Thank you for reading my poems.
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staring, blankly, ahead, thinking
you should've put a comma after 'thinking': the one place where you didn't! But it does make for interesting rhythm on the other hand.
The ladybug one was interesting.
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Why no capitals? If you want to play with conventional form, use all the tools available!
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Baa?21242 Posts
i generally have nothing of value to say about free verse
but i just want to say rapgenius is hilarious. you can find super detailed, academic annotations of classic poetry on rapgenius lol.
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On July 04 2013 20:19 Incze wrote:
I think they're terrible, both in content and the way you wrote them.
Yeah, I more or less agree. These are the sorts of poems that when people conclude that they're stupid after reading them poets can just say, "You just don't get it, man." Know what I mean? And while most people would say that these make no sense and have no weight to them others will say, "these poems capture the essence of the modern soul," and shit like that. In reality though, these poems are weak. I dislike the content and subject matter.
Also, I think that free verse requires quite a bit more skill to use than other poetic forms since it's so damn stupid. 
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when writing, you can't expect anyone else to be able to feel and relate to the words you write.
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@Carnivorous Sheep I don't really understand when people feel "better" towards formalism etc.. I studied formalism a lot, and got started in poetry via formalism and I've studied prosody and "poetic technique" a lot, and my thoughts towards it are generally something like, "formalism is ok", not necessarily in an attempt to pass judgment on it, but I see the "technique" involved etc., can appreciate it for being well constructed (in terms of prosody) etc. but in the end I feel what really makes the poem is the words. Obviously not all poets/readers of poetry will feel this same way, (I think Eliot said something like he felt more like a musical composer than an arranger of ideas, obviously butchering the quote here) and I think that's something respectable, but still I feel that the reaction (most) people have towards poetry that is not formal is often ridiculous and unfounded: almost as though completing form is as important to the poem as the poem itself. I think it's interesting to think about, and it's something that I've sort of moved from side to side about, but in the end I feel that, as a reader of poetry and as a writer of poetry, formalism is important and "free verse" is important, they are both important to poetry, and that it's a general ridiculous notion that some people have that the form etc. is more important than the poem, and that, in general, I feel, strongly metered and strongly formal poetry has, for the most part (again in my specific worldview), very little to do with how our world operates today. I don't really think that formal poetry can really be effective in contemporary times- not to say that it is bad, or that people shouldn't write formal poetry, but that as an artist I feel a natural aversion towards a priori forms despite whatever appreciation I might have for "the old masters".
@Shebuha I think for as many words as you used in making your statement, you said, mostly, the same thing and leveled, mostly, the same sort of empty criticism towards the poems that Incze did. I think that disliking the subject matter (essentially the content) is something that is somewhat tenuous, but I probably would agree, I think, that the things that I try to write about, and my purpose of writing, etc. tend more to appeal to people that feel in the same modes, ie these specific anxieties, this specific detachment, etc. rather than a broader base (this is a justification I use for some people enjoying what I write vs. some people not enjoying what I write: being that the sample of people that I typically interact with generally being more likely to share these traits, vs. people that I don't typically interact with not sharing these traits and thus not necessarily being in a position to "like" the things that I write) but writing for a broad base, having a sort of "universality" is not something that I want, I think.
As a matter of interest, what contemporary poets/poems do you think are particularly "strong"?
@MarklarMarklarr yes
@Roe at first I thought this was a transcription error because there should be a comma there, but I think that there isn't because there's a natural juncture there, and I probably felt like that was enough to make up for not having a comma and then to use the enjambment to "push" through the lines. I'm not sure because I didn't take notes when I was writing these poems because they started as little one-offs to go with the drawings in my notebook, it wasn't until recently that I noticed that they were related or a "thing" that's been developing.
@farvacola I think I have an aversion towards capitals, I usually think badly towards them, but these are mostly new/unfinished, I've only edited them 2-3 times each, these are something that I've been thinking about collecting into a "small book" with drawings/illustrations, looking over some of them I could/might add capitals but I don't really think that they add very much and I don't want to point out to the readers of the poem how bad/ungrammatical they are as sentences, forgoing capital letters makes me feel like I can "get away" with bad grammar, generally.
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Baa?21242 Posts
i wonder, though, how much of your feeling "natural aversion towards a priori forms" is a product of your own creative/artistic/etc. instincts as opposed to being merely a product of the prevailing attitude.
you make it sound as if free verse is a persecuted form, when honestly, the exact opposite is true. major contemporary poets write nearly exclusively in free verse, and formalism is the craft that's mocked and dismissed tbh. so really, free verse is the new formalism ~_~
casual readers gravitate more towards formalism in general because it's much easier to take a line of formal verse and identify and explain the elements that make it appealing/special, whereas free verse has the stigma of "any one can write that..." there's a lot of very bad free verse that reinforces this notion, and it's harder to identify a "good" line of free verse in comparison
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@Carnivorous Sheep I think saying "natural aversion" is probably more ambiguous than I meant- I don't really think that I am that much of a "creative force" (as opposed to, for example, someone like Walt Whitman) that if I had lived in an era where people wrote formal poetry and "free verse" didn't exist that I would be writing free verse etc.- but I still feel unhappy with this sort of answer because I think it can be construed or interpreted as writing this way because it is "in vogue", "fashionable" etc., which I think is untrue. I think it's more along the lines that I write this way because of the things that I've read, the things that I experience in my life etc., that lead me to reject a priori forms and write the way that I do. I got started writing poetry writing formal poetry (mostly light verse like double dactyls etc.) and early in my study of poetry I was more into formal verse than free verse for a number of reasons:
1. There was a story my professor told me about having taught a class of poetics to a room full of engineers, where they were all deeply appreciative of things like Shakespeare's sonnets because they could look at it the same way they look at a nice bridge, or a building: it's well constructed, it's well designed, and they can appreciate these things. For someone who felt mostly depressed in general, and more about writing and the prospects of the future as someone studying literature, this sort of sentiment, that something like a poem is or could be the same kind of beautiful as something functional and something that has a concrete contribution to society was especially comforting
2. As someone who felt mostly sad, the idea of order and organization in the universe seemed appealing. If I order these things, I could think, then the universe would be mostly good, or more good than it was before, it was something that could be measured, something that was (at least more than "free verse") concrete, which feels (or at least felt to me, at the time) more inviting and more "capable of feeling positive" than something that didn't have these rules, and couldn't be measured in the same ways, or as easily
3. I think canonical reasons, the idea of anthologies etc., and taste-making, I think it's really easy to fall into the trap of accepting what is "good" without really very much critical thought, without thinking "why is this good" and determining what "good" means, etc. something that I think about when I'm writing this is the peers of mine who list as their favorite books whatever books they read that semester, peers of mine who say they love poem X or poet X, where poem X or poet X is what they recently studied, that they heard (what they think is) their brilliant professor speak at great lengths about in that it is easy to accept these things, it is easy to look at the meter of a poem, to look at the technique of a poem and judge from there, "yes, this poet is using technique in this poem," or, "yes, these are iambs, yes, these are substitutions, yes."
I don't know what sort of background you have in poetry/poetics, but I don't really think, and haven't really thought that formalism is mocked, or dismissed. The professor of mine that I gave my manuscript to spoke with great admiration towards the poems and poets that we studied for the first half that we studied almost exclusively formal poetry, exclusively forms, etc., and another one of my poetics professors only had us study formal poetry, the closest venture into free verse we got was looking at specific passages of Song of Myself and Howl (specifically parts where metrical analysis could be especially "effective"). Formal verse, I feel, is something that I am able to appreciate, something that I am able to admire (because, as I wrote above, it is well constructed, it is well designed, it is well made), but ultimately not something that I feel has bearing on my mindset, my frame of mind, the way I think about the world, and how the world is and operates today. (Interestingly, as a side note, rap is a lot like formal poetry, I think someone wrote something about this, I haven't really thought about this or delved very deeply into it to be able to form an opinion about it and how it relates to how I think/my aesthetics).
Your point that casual readers would tend to gravitate towards formalism because it's easier to identify the elements of good verse is funny to me, mostly because I feel like it is far easier for a casual reader to read something that is not constrained by artificial rules and decide from there if it is "good" or not. I think that good formal poetry is also very difficult to identify in that things can be "too regular", you can have substitutions that are without meaning, with meaning, etc.- things like scansion are just as difficult to wrestle with as having no discernible meter at all, I've seen professors talk at length about scanning a single line, the different interpretations of each scanned line etc., and I've seen the same line scanned in many different ways (famously, Marvell's "green thought in a green shade", or essentially any substitution that you see in Shakespeare's poetry). I think that casual reader would have as little idea from up to down in this field as they would in free verse, the main difference being that free verse isn't trying to fulfill any particular form or structure, and (should, in my opinion) speak more clearly, openly, honestly, etc.
I think that my point is that casual readers don't gravitate towards formal poetry because it's easier to identify good formal verse, because they don't/can't appreciate the subtler aspects (ie basically the best/most important part) of formal verse, especially if they aren't able to identify/appreciate the aspects of free verse that make it good. I feel like the reason why casual readers would gravitate towards formal verse (if they do) is because they have been told that "this is good" and are victims of taste-makers and anthologies, and don't want/don't feel that they are able to make judgments on things that they haven't been told if it is "good", or "bad" because, ultimately, they feel like they don't "get it" because the way poetry is taught is mostly as this "mysterious", "puzzle"/"riddle" kind of thing.
I would also say that mostly, people's favorite lines of verse are going to be less "beautifully constructed lines" via meter and poetic technique and more lines that people feel strongly about the words and ideas about, most people don't/won't care about a particular spondaic substitution but will gladly tell you, "the road less traveled, that's my shit".
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i like metre is because its fucking pretty
"success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed
to comprehend a nectar requires sorest need!" - emily dickinson (punctuation my own/ maybe paraphrased)
(say this one in your head and picture purpley stuff)
"generations have trod, have trod, have trod
and all is smeared with trade; bleared smeared with toil
and wears man's smudge and shares men's smell"
-gerard manly hopkins (my own punctuation)
Say this one out loud. it's just pleasurable, the way the words all have a feeling.
In the Dickinson line, there's something otherworldly that is created, almost like a witch who's mother was a honey making honeybee speaks to me (tried some of my own. it isn't easy)
In the Hopkins lines, it's more like a rap song, where the rhythmes give the words meaning, and vice versa. It just sounds manly(inspired by pun but not intended as pun) and raw, so i want to say it over and over.
In conclusion, I think it is a very personal experience to read poetry. My own opinions are based on my experiences and my "delight [in the sounds] of language." I can sometimes be heard saying ridiculous sentences in french with overexaggerated accents, cuz that's just me!
So, I guess you and I have different taste. What do you like about free verse writing?
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@Japhybaby I think your post is an excellent example of 1. why we shouldn't pass value judgments on things like poetry/art re: subjectivity and, in general, a lack of/the impossibility of objective criteria from which we could pass value judgments and 2. why "casual" readers (should, I think) have no more affinity towards formal verse than they do "free" verse in that people, for the most part, aren't appreciating the lines or the poems because of any specific technical or metrical importance (that they are aware of) but rather because they feel like the line sounds good, is beautiful, etc. when free verse, unmetered verse can offer and does offer the same kinds of (conventional, poetic) beauty.
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On July 07 2013 01:47 AiurZ wrote:
@Japhybaby I think your post is an excellent example of 1. why we shouldn't pass value judgments on things like poetry/art re: subjectivity and, in general, a lack of/the impossibility of objective criteria from which we could pass value judgments and 2. why "casual" readers (should, I think) have no more affinity towards formal verse than they do "free" verse in that people, for the most part, aren't appreciating the lines or the poems because of any specific technical or metrical importance (that they are aware of) but rather because they feel like the line sounds good, is beautiful, etc. when free verse, unmetered verse can offer and does offer the same kinds of (conventional, poetic) beauty.
I disagree. I think there is some stuff that is better than other stuff. could make a "movie" with my video camera and not use good actors, just random people, make no effort to light it in beautiful ways and it's still i could call it a movie, but how would it compare to Avatar?
Edit- in your post there seems to be a tone of the argument that i"t is really futile to judge like this." I agree for the most part. What a waste of precious time.
part 2- i don't understand "casual reader." I don't know who these people are. I think it's false that there is a clear and sharp divide in reading styles.
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@Japhybaby "Casual reader" is a term that I lifted from Carnivorous Sheep's post, I think what he means is someone who reads poetry "casually", in that he (the casual reader) is not someone who seeks out poetry, who studies poetry, poetic technique, etc., ie the layman.
I think it is funny that you make the example that you do because one movie that I saw recently was almost exactly that (http://vimeo.com/24088956) and I liked it more than most movies that I have seen recently. Rather than trying to explain how I feel about value judgements etc. I think I can just summarize it by saying that there isn't, I feel, an objective criteria from which we can use to pass value judgements (ie this is good, or this is bad) on things like art, which are, as you said in your post before, something more of a subjective, intensely personal experience.
I think that formalism offers a sort of illusory out to this, in that in formalism there is a sort of "perfect", "good" form (thinking of the greeks and the platonic ideal) to which a poem can aspire to, so there is a sort of "objective criteria" and this might be one reason why some people might be drawn to it, be comfortable with it, etc. (I think I said something like this in one of my posts above) but ultimately I don't think that it is true, or real (in how we/I interpret the world today) and reject the idea that there could be this objective criteria and, I think, even if it were to exist, I would be opposed to it just because of its existence.
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EPT
