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| How to Join | Member's Area | Private Library | Search | Sanctuary | Login | |
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A home without a wall, |
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| Critical Analysis #2 |
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Understanding Free Verse |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA 
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He placed the page in front of me. 'Read it" he said. The sentences were in the form of geometrical shapes. I read up one side of the square across the top, down the other side across the bottom up the triangle down the triangle around the circle trying to piece the words together. The sentences curled up the spirals disappearing at the turns to reappear with words missing. I lifted the page. The words slid down the paper to land in a heap at the bottom. I held the page out giving it the forty-niner shake trying to get the words back in place no gold. 'Never mind', he said. 'You just don't get it." I looked again. The words had become worms leaving slimy tracks as they made their way over the blank white surface and I knew he was right. |
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| © Copyright 2008 Michael Mack - All Rights Reserved | |||
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
My dear Sir Balladeer, how true. Free verse indeed is such fun to read. Now, if Ron is not busy, we really shall ask a Balladeer Forum. You are genius. Now I am going to search for the Haiku form of your poems.....to see if you are good at that too.  Ha.Great pleasure to read this one. I forget to say one thing, can't you ever forget rhyme? (there are many inner ones here)  |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
If it’s any consolation Mike I don’t understand some of it either. I have a real problem with free verse, 99% of it makes no sense to me whatsoever, I cant admire the form, can’t see (or not see) the smooth flow from rhyme to rhyme and I’m not enticed or engaged by the language or the thoughts it evokes. However the other 1% always remains as a valid argument that there is in fact something to free verse and maybe the problem is my failing and not the writers. Incidentally that 1% includes a few FV writers kicking around this site, I won‘t name names, they know who they are, at this point it would be nice for me to say you’re one of them. Unfortunately I’m more honest than nice, your free verse is competent and well thought out but, at least for me, falls outside my 1% comfort zone, a fact that really annoys me. Perhaps it’s because you're so good at what you normally write that anything less than exceptional is a disappointment, I have the same problem when Karen starts to write forms. Maybe that’s just another failing in my reading though. Oh, I nearly forgot the obligatory advice bit. Re-write it as a ballad. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Ha! This is the best thing you've posted in CA -- so far (though it needs an editor.) I will ask permission before I do 'my thing' with this one however. Oh, and I still have to find the time. quote: This is great. You set up a tetrameter beginning and break that expectation with the second line. Now that by itself doesn't make it free verse, but it's a great start. There's a lot to talk about here. PS I have my extended triolet ready to go, but I'll hold off posting for a couple of days. I don't think you'll like it (it has that same obscurity problem that you have deplored before -- unless your familiar with the material.). Were you/Are you a Twilight Zone fan? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Grinch, I understand... My offering is not a slam on free verse but only my attempt at it and my feelings for it. The fact that it doesn't fall in your comfort zone bothers me not....I'm well aware it's not my style Tom... Free verse is a bite Of smorgasborg in summer So much left to eat. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Brad...permission granted. Do with it as you will. At this moment I'm watching Voyager. I also have the complete sets of every season of Star Trek and The Next Generation. Never got into Deep Space Nine and hate the new one they came out with....bad casting. Oh, you said Twilight Zone! Yep, Rod Serling was a genius and watching it at my house was mandatory...along with the poor but adequate Outer Limits. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Star Trek and The Next Generation. Are those shows for teens?  |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
The young at heart and the adventurous, Tom. Those who do not accept boundaries and believe that anything is possible....those who boldly go where no man has gone before!!! |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
another free verse in a wonderful layout+ the other Haiku. Can't show off like this, my dear sir. Too much an embarrassment to me. How cheerfully I draw my line by your club in classical fine How dreadfully You count the beads in abacus of ancient deed [This message has been edited by TomMark (01-28-2008 07:16 PM).] |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
The only problem I have with this is that I know you can do better. (I just gotta hear the "music".) And I know you got da music in you... I enjoyed the visual of sliding words, though, surrealistic and it provoked Dali in my head, and that's always fun for me. sighing--but I guess if you are going to be brave and write out of your comfort zone, I'll show my appreciation by trying one more time to write a proper form. Keep in mind, though, if I don't like it, ya'll won't see it. I didn't love this, but I didn't hate it. I'd probably like it more if I didn't know it was written by you. Y'see, I love what you do. So don't stop. |
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Nan
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-20
Posts 21191Cape Cod Massachusetts USA |
 ...I just don't understand... |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
quote: "HEY--are you making fun 'o me?" |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
LOL! I know what you mean, serene one. Hard for the music to come outta me when i don't know what tune to hum.....  |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
no lovie, despite TM's protest of rhyme, I happen to like utilizing it in free verse. But then, I'm not really a poet. so ixnay on the form for me, I guess. I think I'll go put me arse back in traction.  |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
My dear lady SB, I was teasing him. But I do want to read his unformed, uncounted poem. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Balladeer, I like your poem here. I often wonder if you give full credit to some of the great free verse poets of the last hundred years, though. This poem seems to confuse free verse and concrete verse. What I thought is that I'd offer you a reference to a formal poem by Louis Simpson, one of the fine formal poets to come out of WWII who's also written a good amount of free verse. Have a look at the formal poem, which is as moving a piece of work as any I've ever seen. http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1013.html If I knew how to do this as a link, I'd do it, but I don't. The poem is about the Battle for Carentan, shortly after D-Day, and if the reference above doesn't get you there, try googeling Carentan, Poems for "Carentan O Carentan." If I was clear about copyright, I'd simply paste it. But I'm not there, either. Simpson knows how to write formal verse, as you'll see. He's very good at it. It's worth asking why he doesn't always make that choice. Bob K. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
BobK, I apologize if I leave you with the impression that I give no credit to free verse or have no appreciation of it. Truth be known, my favorite poem, out of the thousands I know and admire, is a free verse poem...Daddy by Sylvia Plath, who happens to be one of my favorite poets as well. I read that poem and feel so envious and inferior that I could never have created something like that. To me there is a huge difference between poems like Daddy and what so many pass off as "free verse". There is no guessing what her message is and yet there is a subtlety that hits one like a sledgehammer. When I read the line "and I said I do, I do", hairs rose on my arm and I was completely filled with the magnificence of how the thought was expressed. THAT to me is brilliant writing. Over 40 years ago I read a short free verse poem in a local magazine that went something like this... Back they come, they always do Back with words I wanted once to hear Back with love I wanted once to feel But time passes Wounds heal. This time make it different. Bring him back while I still care. That's not word for word but the gist of it. I was so impressed by that poem I've never forgotten it, even after all these years.I can relate to those words. I can understand what the writer feels by that last line. THAT to me is good free verse. What I cannot relate to are free verse poems that have to be deciphered with a poetic Rosetta stone or use phrases that make little sense to anyone except the writer. I also cannot relate to supposed "free verse" that should be an anecdote or paragraph in Reader's digest, where one cannot distinguish between the poety or prose of it. Someone want to impress me with free verse? Hit me between the eyes with it. Smack me with the words...not the challenge of trying to figure out what in the world one is saying. Or give me something to really make me think...and in a poetic enough manner that I don't think it's a diary entry. Don't give me nonsensical phrases because they sound "neat". I applaud free verse when I consider it to be well-written free verse. I just don't find much of it around... |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Bob,I read to poem you linked to and agree it's is an excellent poem. If your question is, why would a structured poet write occasionally in free verse, the answer is simple. Poems have lives of their own...or, better said, the ideas of poems have lives of their own. I have written several free verse poems. Why? Because I knew I could not give the thoughts I needed to express their proper due with a structured form. If you have time to waste, I'll give you an example.. /main/forumdisplay.cgi?action=displayarchive&number=42&topic=001226 There was no way I could have written that in rhyme. It HAD to be unstructured. If a poem is worth writing, it will tell you what form to use. One-dimensional poets leave a lot unsaid because of their unwillingness or timidity to use all poetic tools available, imo. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
So I take it you didn't care for my "The Language of the Bongo Drum?"   ah well...I'm kinda eclectic. *shrug* |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Balladeer, Read and enjoyed the game show poem. Sometimes a guy can't help but take a week's vactation with Franz Kafka in the space of a tv commerical. I sometimes think that tv is designed that way. I found four poems by Richard Hugo squirreled away. I thought the one that you might like especially was "Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg" if indeed you like any at all. It is free verse and doesn't pretend otherwise. I was reading an essay about the poem this afternoon that summarized the progression of the four stanzas in a way that this word processor won't permit me to duplicate but which translates roughly as, 1) I'm frogged; 2) You're frogged; 3) Why?; and 4) Let's have lunch!. I think Dick would have an enormous laugh at that. I hope you enjoy at least some of them. Bob K. http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/richard_hugo_2004_9.pdf |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
BobK, I think you are getting to know me a little. Degrees of Gray was excellent....that is the type of free verse I enjoy..the type that creates atmosphere and covers you with it, like reading an old Dashielle Hammett novel, or perhaps Philip Marlowe. When one can see the gray, feel the pavement and smell the diner and, moreso, get in touch with the narrator's feelings. the poet has earned his keep. I have more to say about the poem but it's off to Lion Country Safari with my daughter today, where the lions and rhinos come up to the car as one passes through, so I'm off. I hope to be back! |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Balladeer, Good! Hugo was a big fan of Hammet and Chandler. James Crumley, one of Hugo's friends at The University of Montana at Missoula wrote a wonderful series of novels set in Hugo country. The first of them, THE LAST GOOD KISS, whose title you'll recognize from "Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg," has a character modeled mercilessly on Dick as the Bad Guy. The book also has a very dignified alcoholic bulldog who is much to be admired and a fine private eye. Hugo would have bust a gut over this portrait of himself as a villain. Konk your favorite librarian on the head. Do what you can. In this book Crumley calls Hugo Trahern, after the Seventeeth Century English poet. You've already gone to the wall indulging me here. No need to go further, of course, except I didn't know of your fondness for especially Chandler, who was a special love of Hugo's, and who seems to have passed that love on to a lot of the University of Montana Trained Folks. Best from LA, BobK. Really really don't feed the lions. You're too tough for them anyway. |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
My first good grin of the day. But I have to say, I think even Grinch has read some of my free verse...I hope I fall into his one percent. Makes me wonder why you haven't yet booted me out... Oh yeah, I know! It's because I've been personally iconized by Kit!  The imagery was wonderful, Michael. But I sincerely hope that when I dabble in FV, that my words don't end up in a heap, nor slime across the page...  |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
Well we now know the kind of poems you like Mike, care to give us an example of what you don’t like? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Grinch, I already explained what I don't care for... What I cannot relate to are free verse poems that have to be deciphered with a poetic Rosetta stone or use phrases that make little sense to anyone except the writer. I also cannot relate to supposed "free verse" that should be an anecdote or paragraph in Reader's digest, where one cannot distinguish between the poety or prose of it. There are poems that have lines that I would not be able to interpret if my life depended on it, phrases that leave me saying, HUH?" When that happens, I stop reading. Poems are a means of communication. Why would one try to communicate in a way not understandable to the receiptient? Of course, there maybe many people who CAN relate to that style, who CAN find understanding where I can't. That's fine.I can only state that it's not MY way and I have no interest in it. Free verse that I admire is a poem that is understandable and, at the same time, impresses me with the author's ability to express thoughts in unique ways, such as.. Fog by Carl Sandburg The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. See? I'm easy to please |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
BobK, my formative years were spent reading three of the "hard-boiled"'s....Hammett, Chandler and Spillane. I have the complete works of all three. I've watched every movie made from their books and am saving up for a maltese falcon That trio gave me a love of reading - and writing - surpassed only by Arthur Conan Doyle later on.The city wasn't pretty. Most of its builders had gone in for gaudiness. Maybe they had been successful at first. Since then the smelters whose brick stacks stuck up tall against a gloomy mountain had yellow-smoked everything into uniform dinginess. The result was an ugly city of 40,000 people set in an ugly notch between two ugly mountains that had been all dirtied up by mining. Spread over this was a grimy sky that looked as if it had come out of the smelter's stacks. Red Harvest The line breaks are mine but THAT'S more poetic that a lot I see passed off as poetry. [This message has been edited by Balladeer (01-29-2008 10:52 PM).] |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
I read the explanation of what you don’t like Mike, I was just hoping for an example of it to try to pinpoint exactly what you’re talking about. Do you mean stuff like this for instance? http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=178638 |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Balladeer, Here's an short essay by Hugo: http://ualr.edu/rmburns/RB/hsubjt.html One of the great essays about free verse composition, short, funny, to the point. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Thank you dear Bob k for the link. Good. love You have to be silly to write poems at all and Grinch, I almost do the link myself. I am still reading the print out and still not a clue. why he wrote like this? |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Grinch,as much as I admire the man for his do not go gently creation, that is indeed an example. There are many more by past "masters". After researching, though, I have found that the practice of un-understandable writing is more prevalent among poet wannabees who believe that, by using such methods, it adds to their luster, as if citing that "if you can't understand it, the deficiency lies with you." The excellent link from BobK says things to verify that observation. Bob, thanks for the link. I enjoyed it very much. I only have one part I must disagree with.. Never worry about the reader, what the reader can understand. When you are writing, glance over your shoulder, and you'll find there is no reader. Just you and the page. Feel lonely? Good. Assuming you can write clear English sentences, give up all worry about communication. If you want to communicate, use the telephone. I think those statements are only true until you place your poem in front of an audience. If you want to write for your own self-satisfaction and keep them in your desk drawer, that's fine, but the minute you make them public, be it by magazine, book publishing, the internet, or wherever, the reader takes on an importance...as does your ability to communicate. Show me the man who displays his work and claims not to care what the reader thinks and I will show you a liar, whether he realizes it or not. An interesting anecdote...a few years ago I went to a lecture performed by Robert Fulghum, author of "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten". He came out on the stage with a camera and, for several minutes, took pictures of the audience. He then explained that he had hundreds of pictures of audiences in his study and, while sitting there, alone in the silence, working on a story and wondering if he was just spinning his wheels he would look at all of the pictures of thousands of average people who read his works and it gave him the impetus to keep going. Garth Brooks, at his concert in Central Park, was in the middle of singing a song and, as the thousands of people in the audience began singing along with him, he stopped and began crying. He couldn't go on. He apologized to the audience and tried to explain that he had written that song on a snowy night, all alone, in a small cabin in the mountains. To hear the words that he had scrawled down that night sung back to him from people thousands of miles away provoked incredible emotion. I can understand his feelings. People who put their work in front of the public should not care about the reader or listener or whether or not the communication is there? Don't believe it... |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Balladeer, "Never worry about the reader, what the reader can understand. When you are writing, glance over your shoulder, and you'll find there is no reader. Just you and the page. Feel lonely? Good. Assuming you can write clear English sentences, give up all worry about communication. If you want to communicate, use the telephone." I've often thought about those sentences, Balladeer. Hugo loved paradox, and he loved saying outrageous things, but he generally left himself an out, and I think you'll find one here. Hugo loved to hide them in plain sight, because he knew enough about how people actually read things to know what people tend to skip over when there was something outrageous in the offing. The escape hatch he left himself here was the phrase, "Assuming you can write clear English sentences," and it's a very large one indeed. Syntax had to be clear and all the referents had to make sense. The poet had to know what was happening very plainly, and that was generally enough to bring the reader along. I make no claim for "Altarwise by Owl-Light." Serious problems were usually supposed to be ironed out in revision. I agree with you about poems for personal use and purely for self expression needing to be kept in a desk drawer. I don't think Hugo ever wanted to be obscure, nor did he want his students to be. He simply didn't want them weighed down by the sort of self-censorship that prevents a poet from making the kinds of associational leaps that it's helpful to make in producing something seriously startling and fresh. Oddly enough, Hugo goes on to address some of these very same points much more enchantingly than I might ever hope to. I must urge to to beg, borrow or steal a copy of his book, The Triggering town, which goes into much greater detail. The loss of the man from cancer in 1982 was a loss to the American Poetry Community of staggering proportions: http://ualr.edu/rmburns/RB/htrigt.html |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Bob, I'm becoming a real Hugo fan. The way he writes his essays on poetry is remindful of how I would envision Aasimov writing them, factual, informative, clever, witty and in a style comfortable to the reader. I thank you for the links... |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
quote: Could that not be that there’s more wannabes than good poets, I mean personally I see just as much, if not more bad rhyming poetry about everyday things like cats and mats. As far as Dylan’s poem goes it’s one of my personal favourites, it’s written in sonnet form with an almost perfect melodic syllabic tone or rhythm and the obscurity is intentionally constructed with obvious care and skill. Obscure in this case could be a bit of a misnomer, in my opinion the poem is an attempt by Thomas to include the reader in the constructive process of the poem by allowing multiple interpretations. In that respect it isn’t really obscure in that anyone can spot at least one of the five or six possibilities it contains. I accept that writing this type of poetry is never going to appeal to all readers but then again that could be applied to any type of poetry, it’s horses for courses I guess. quote: This is a hard call, if everybody else understands it the deficiency obviously lies with you, and if you’re suggesting writing to accommodate the lowest common denominator you’re going to have to join the cat and mat brigade and dumb down your poems to that level. If a few people understand it and you’re unfortunately one of those that don’t then the bad news is the failing is still down to you. If nobody has any idea what the poem’s about then the failing is the authors not yours and the above statement is correct. I don’t like some rhyming poetry or some free verse or some obscure poetry, but that might actually be a deficiency on my part. [This message has been edited by Grinch (01-31-2008 02:53 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Grinch. Why a deficiency? "Altarwise by Owl-Light" seems to me to be a very different poem to the ear than it does on the page. Out loud it is a magnificent aural experience that requires an practiced ability to allow an enormous amount of imagery to exist simultaneously in the reader's brain. Not everybody has that. The experience at the end of the poem, then, is the experience of immersion in a symbolic world. It is poetry pushed to the point of music. People who claim the poem is meaningless or a waste of time, and I have done so myself from time to time simply to be perverse, are not addressing the music of the poem, which in the end IS the poem and its point. This is one poem you can't really paraphrase; it's pretty much entirely music. Balladeer's comments about audience here should be re-examined, because this is one of those poems that seems to have an audience. Certainly people still read it; and people, when it's performed, will listen to it with what appears to be expressions of pleasure on their faces. I think it was Eliot who said ,roughly, that "Real poetry will communicate before it's understood." I don't think that's permission to be bloody minded in courting obscurity. You still need to write your clear English sentences. You still need to have some sense of pulse or breath or rhythms of some sort that help you pace your reader's innermost self, you still need to love words. But Grinch, I think you're doing fine if you love this particular Thomas Poem. Just fine. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
"The deficiency lies with you" Too much is made of this in the poetic context. If I handed you a piece of paper in Korean (which really does have squares and circles and figures that could easily be seen as triangles -- alas, no spirals), would it really bother you if you didn't 'get it'? The 'deficiency' is with you since you don't know Korean but is that really a problem? I mean, so what? Hugo's point by the way concerns the creative process. Doesn't it makes sense at that point that the first audience you need to please is yourself, and that to worry about some future audience will tend to be more of an obstacle than a facilitator? You have to like it first. I don't know. I keep thinking of this: "Why did you kiss me?" Wrong answer: "Because I thought you wanted me to." |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
A poem can show, as form, meaning, sound, music, painting, or other artistry. Free verse, esp this one is showing the beauty of logic in illogical thinking and the authors intelligence. I read up one side of the square across the top, down the other side across the bottom up the triangle down the triangle around the circle Can one really read like this? no, because common writing is not like this. But it surly told that the reader worked hard to try to understand what he was looking at as looking at an abstract painting and without being told the orientation. trying to piece the words together. The sentences curled up the spirals disappearing at the turns. The feeling of confusing. I think that it is very intelligent to make out the image to show The sentences curled up the spirals disappearing at the turns everything disappears at turn, ever light. Why can't words? And to reappear with words missing I love this expression. It is very intelligent nonsense. Those are the exaggeration of the author's confusion. I lifted the page. The words slid down the paper to land in a heap at the bottom. I held the page out giving it the forty-niner shake trying to get the words back in place no gold. My favorite part. How does a smart child make all kinds of unreasonable excuses to tell you the he could not eat pea or not to go to sleep? A smart adult can do better, of course with poetic sense. Obvious he tried to use sand/gold to express his opinion on free verse...ha, missed the goal. or(you want to slam yourself? )I looked again. The words had become worms leaving slimy tracks as they made their way over the blank white surface Love the picturesque expression of not understanding. (That was what looked like in my brain after I read it) Sir Balladeer used such a good free verse to tell that he could not get it. then write more My thought "why do you twist my passion into a string to fit in your thread?" TM |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
BobK quote: quote: You mean some people are deficient in that regard? quote: I disagree but this probably isn’t the best place to explain why especially when there’s already a thread created for discussing the poem in detail. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Grinch, I do make an effort to say what I mean. It seems you are asking me if "You mean some people are deficient in that regard?" when I'm not sure which regard you mean. I could probably do a better job of looking silly if I knew what proposition you were asking me to agree to. I've taken regrettable positions on lots of things, and probably find I need to stick by some of them, even today. But I do like Dylan Thomas a lot. And I've said what I actually think about "Altarwise by Owl-Light." I also think that people who try to run down the line by line meaning of a poem of this length and of this level of complexity are probably attributing to Thomas a level of sobriety that's not consistent with his biography. Music and musical sophistication in his verse and language, yes. People who can put that sort of planning into a literary project in a conscious way are few and far between. Joyce may have been able to do it in prose, but certainly not in his verse. Some people would attribute that ability to Pound, and have made a case for it. I don't believe they have made it. Shakespeare is too smart to have tried, and I think that Thomas is too smart to have tried as well. I do think that Thomas was smart enough to trust his unconscious and his God-given musicality to have pulled him through, and I think they did. I don't think that anybody has the sheer processing power actually consciously to construct an edifice like "Altarwise by Owl-Light." Nor do I believe that you will anywhere find Thomas saying that he did so. I hope, at least, he was too canny for that. I do hope you'll find him teasing us all with quips such as, "I meant everything I wrote literally." If you get a chance, please do tell me what I said to provoke the "You mean some people are deficient in that regard?" line in your above posting. I'm frequently startled to see what new outrages I've perpetrated, albeit unknowingly. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
BobK Sorry about the confusion my post caused, I was a little short of time and brevity can sometimes obscure intent. Mike raised the point that writers often suggest that if a reader doesn’t “get” a poem then the deficiency lies solely with the reader. He seemed to suggest the contrary, that it was the writers fault. I used the term deficiency in Mikes original proposition to highlight the cases where I believe the claim of the writer is actually correct. Your subsequent question “why deficiency?” seemed to intimate that none existed but in the same post you offered the suggestion that Thomas’s poem created a lot of imagery in a practiced readers mind but then went on to say that “Not everybody has that”. In my following post I was simply pointing out that the missing something you were referring to could be construed as a deficiency. Hope that clears it up, if not please take it as a deficiency on my part. |
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Balladeer
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since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I mean personally I see just as much, if not more bad rhyming poetry about everyday things like cats and mats. You will get no disagreement from me there, Grinch. There is a plethora of bad rhyming poetry out there - bad rhymes, erratic meter, throwing in extra syllables to preserve the proper count - you name it. It is so recognizable because structured poetry has rules and it's easy to see when those rules are broken. I can critique a badly structured poem by simply pointing out which rules have been broken. The poet does not have the luxury of saying "the defeciency is yours, not mine" because there are rules. Free verse, however, without pesky rules to follow, allows the poet to say that very same thing and some do. You know them and so do I. if everybody else understands it the deficiency obviously lies with you I'll agree with that. The thing is that I don't see cases where everybody else understands and I'm not referring to those cases. In your respected Altarwise by Owllight, if I take a section out into the stree, such as.. Death is all metaphors, shape in one history; The child that sucketh long is shooting up, The planet-ducted pelican of circles Weans on an artery the gender’s strip; Child of the short spark in a shapeless country Soon sets alight a long stick from the cradle; The horizontal cross-bones of Abaddon, You by the cavern over the black stairs, Rung bone and blade, the verticals of Adam, And, manned by midnight, Jacob to the stars. ...and everyone, or even a majority, or even a small part of those I show it to, tell me they understand it, then I'll agree that the deficiency is surely mine. I don't see that happening. if you’re suggesting writing to accommodate the lowest common denominator you’re going to have to join the cat and mat brigade and dumb down your poems to that level. I did not suggest writing to accomodate the lowest common denominator at all. I do suggest writing to the normal, average reader. You make it sound like it must be one or the other - writing for the dumb on one hand or writing so obscurly few can understand on the other. There is a universe between those two points. I would hardly call The Raven a dumbed-down poem, nor would I call The Charge of the Light Brigade or Oh,Captain! My Captain! writing to the lowest common denominator. They are excellent pieces of writing and poems that are easily understandable to the average person. I don’t like some rhyming poetry or some free verse or some obscure poetry, but that might actually be a deficiency on my part No, it's not a deficiency on your part at all. It's your preference. We are not talking right or wrong here, nor are we talking my way or your way. We are talking personal preference. You profess to admire poems that, in your opinion, are " attempts to include the reader in the constructive process of the poem by allowing multiple interpretations. In that respect it isn’t really obscure in that anyone can spot at least one of the five or six possibilities it contains." That's fine. If you are able to get pleasure out of that form of writing, then good for you. I, on the other hand, don't want five or six possibilities of what a poem may mean. I want to KNOW what a poem means and I want to the poet to make sure that I do. I will be impressed by his poetry methods, his vocabulary, his uses of enjabment, caesuras, alliteration, onomatopoeia, zeugmas, chiasmuses, apostrophes, synecdoches, similes, metaphors and all of the tools of the trade. The average person on the street will not know those terms nor be able to point them out - that is my advantage as a poet - but he will still be able to understand and admire the poem, in much the same way we can admire music without knowing all of the musical tricks of the trade that went into making it. For people like me, understanding is the key ingredient. Without it, the rest is superfluous. It may as well be a mindless chant (pass me another cup of kool-aid, Jimmy). So you will derive your pleasure from the form of writing that you like and I'll reach for my Poe, Robert Service, and Banjo Paterson (the king) and we will both be satisfied and the balance of the universe will be preserved. |
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Balladeer
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since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Doesn't it makes sense at that point that the first audience you need to please is yourself, and that to worry about some future audience will tend to be more of an obstacle than a facilitator? Absolutely, Brad. That's a given that it must please you first. That is our main reason for writing. If you are going to release it to the public, however, for, hopefully, acceptance, whether it be a poem or a play, you must also consider the audience. You don't "worry"about it - you plan for it. Following your example, you may write a masterpiece of a poem in Korean but, if you know you are presenting it to an audience that does not speak Korean, what's your point in presenting it to them? If I were to write a poem that I knew no one would understand, I would keep it to myself and enjoy the self-satisfaction of having created it. If I were to write a poem that I wanted the public to see, I would make the effort to make it understandable to them in a way that would not damage the integrity of the poem. It's not an obstacle - it's a challenge. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
quote: quote: What do these poems mean? Do they follow the rules? My point is not to convince anybody of anything here, Mike. I don't think I could even if I tried. My point is simply that 'meaning' as such is less important for most people than for others (Is rap really popular because of the meaning?). Most people don't care or perhaps don't even want to know where these poems come from. That's fine with me. The rules are arguable or if you want there are different rules for different types of poetry (Frost's strict and loose iambic though neither poem above is recognizably iambic) or do we accept tri-syllabic substitution? Or perhaps: quote: or: quote: Interestingly enough, there's no reason to worry about the rules (If by rules, you mean those governing accentual-syllabic verse) if we see all of these poems as accentual in nature. So is rap, so is, at least what I've heard, of Cowboy poetry. Beowulf has not been forgotten! Mike, if anything, I think you're right. This is all about personal preference and that's really the whole shebang (?). Let's embrace subjectivity knowing that some people aren't going to like what we write, argue/discuss/debate/joke over metric substitutions or whether a pyrrhic or spondee really exist or the dreaded ionic minor foot or rhyming 'far'/'war' or whatever. But let's stop pretending that any one way is the right way. ------------------ Mike, There is so much that you've said here that I agree with but the one point that I can't buy is that the common man somehow wants it this way and not some other. That's just not what I see. Poetry, in any of its myriad forms, is more popular today than, perhaps, it has ever been. If there was a dark ages of poetry, I would suggest that it was twenty to thirty years ago (say from 1975-1989 -- and even then I was attending standing room only poetry readings. This also corresponds roughly with the rise of New Formalism in more 'academic' poetry). The rise of rap, of cowboy poetry, of poetry slams, of internet forums, and other things that I don't know about all serve to further the genre as a whole. That can't be a bad thing. More to say but I have to stop here. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
It was a long line in check out A man in front me turned back to talk. He asked me if I liked to read poem He was a poet without doubt. I told him what in my thought That all poets were with long hair and thick bear not in suit and why a black hat with a big yellow dot he said, “I am a uniformed poet. A proud uni-formed poet, ya know." [This message has been edited by TomMark (02-04-2008 09:20 PM).] |
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dwgpoet Member
since 2007-03-05
Posts 122FL, USA |
Hey, great example, that "Fog" True, free verse is usually poetry only to the poet and a few like-minded accidentaly, under_light-standing readers. Shaded; Most of mine are never Under stood in the corner pouting at disciplened. Still, would love seeing Triangular, square shapes circling up as the disappearing ink dries on Balladeers Free Verse. Written down page's multiple angles. copyright dwgpoet 2007 |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
This thread makes poetry dirty. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Is there something that made you think poetry had some obligation to us to be one way or another? It's survived almost everything but purposeful attacks such as book-banning and burning; and accidental attacks such as the fire at the library at Alexandria. Actual dirtiness doesn't seem all that fatal. People tried for years to rewrite Shakespeare for the offense of not fitting the fashions of the day. They tried to give the tragedies happy endings during parts of Victoria's Reign. Poems have suffered from debasement of the actual words and their order in the texts, yes, through the introduction of purposeful errors. Or through ignorance of authorial intention, as in the two texts of King Lear, or the multiple versions of Hamlet. But those things aren't the kind of dirtiness you're talking about, are they? Apparently you haven't read decent translations of some the Greek and Latin lyric Classics. Nobody said you need to agree with a view of poetry that is more inclusive than yours, but perhaps you might consider the possibility that some of us don't feel our view of poetry is dirty at all, but decent and even noble. I do. I would take it as a favor if you were able to articulate exactly what about the discussion of poetry in this thread brought you to this conclusion, so we can talk about it. As poets do. I would be especially happy should you feel able to clarify what you mean by "dirty," and what about this thread could have possibly done that to the art that so many of us love so much. |
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Balladeer
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since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
But let's stop pretending that any one way is the right way. I'm not sure who is pretending that, Brad. I've said nothing that it is the individual's preference that dictates what is likeable or not. Do I think that today's free verse has been damaging to poetry in general? Yes, I do, but only because of the classification. When anecdotes become labeled poetry, and expressive paragraphs are called poetry and short stories are referred to as poetry, accompanied by the cry, "Who are you to say it ain't poetry?", then poetry in general has been diluted. For those who admire this type of free verse i continue to say, "Good for you. Enjoy it." Poetry, in any of its myriad forms, is more popular today than, perhaps, it has ever been. Last time I heard, Brad, you were still living in Korea, so I can understand your lack of information here. Perhaps poetry runs rampant in Seoul, but I assure you it doesn't here. The rise of rap, of cowboy poetry, of poetry slams, of internet forums, and other things that I don't know about all serve to further the genre as a whole. Rap is music (or so I'm told!). The "rise" in it is only because it is a different musical form. It certainly has nothing to do with the rise or popularity of poetry. Songs, in any form, has been rhyming since lyrical music began. Cowboy poetry has been around for a century. It is little more than ballads that deal with cowboy life and times. True, there are a few cities that have "Cowboy poetry roundups" but it's popularity is limited. Can you name a cowboy poet without looking it up, or perhaps recite a couple of lines from a cowboy poem? Me, neither but I applaud it because it is understandable. Do "real" poets like it? About as much as pop music lovers liking C&W. Poetry slams I will give you. That is a relatively new medium on the scene which wasn't there before,opeining up a new form of communication that goes along with rap music....in this case being rap music without music. Internet forums? Sure..we are on one now. Is this because poetry is so popular now? Or is it because there is a central place where all poetry organizations can be seen? Is stamp collecting so much more popular now that it has been in the past? Knitting? Dog house construction? I can find the same large grouping for thousands of topics like those. The vast majority of people who frequent poetry sites treat them as social groups which use poetry as a medium by which they communicate and form friendships. Nothing wrong with that but does that make poetry "more popular than it has ever been"? Not for poetry's sake, it doesn't. the one point that I can't buy is that the common man somehow wants it this way and not some other. Ok ,don't buy it, Brad...no problem. That's exactly what the p,ublic is doing with poetry books....not buying them. With the exception of Maya Angelou, I would venture a guess that most poetry sales deal with the "old" poetry. The common man likes what he can understand. If you think he would prefer something he cannot understand, instead, then I would question your sensibilities. I live in one of the artistic meccas in the U.S., Brad....Miami and ft. Lauderdale. There was a time we had a poetry reading or get together somewhere every night of the week. We had poetry fairs, poetry cruises, you name it. Now we have very few...I only know of one reading and the fairs were canceled years ago, along with the cruises. I used to read at these events. If I had a nickel for everyone that came up to me and said, "Thank God there was someone whose poem I could understand", I wouldn't be killing bugs Common people, in general, like understanding, whether it be in poetry, art or anything else.Again, I am not intending to knock free verse at all. I've read excellent free verse. Nor will I knock your pleasure in reading or writing poetry with little understandable "meaning", which you claim most people prefer. I will, however, continue to feel sad that poetry is not as "meaningful" as I think it once was (if you get my "meaning") Serenity, threads don't dirty poetry.....and Happy Fat Tuesday!!!  |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Brad and Balladeer, Have the two of you thought about actually talking about the specific authors you dislike and the specific authors you enjoy? I read what the two of you have to say and I wonder if the actual poems you like and dislike are as different as the positions you assume would suggest. I can't imagine either of you being very fond of Clark Coolidge, for example. I was looking at some C. P. Cavafy that I thought you'd both enjoy ("Ithaka"), and I wondered what both of you thought about Elizabeth Bishop's poem "The Fish." Rather than assuming you don't agree and starting from generalities, why not look more specifically? I think you both write too decently to disagree as widely as you seem to think you do. You both value clear english sentences that try to go someplace in a clean fashion and that sparkle along the way. Try this http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fish/ and this http://ithaca.rice.edu/kz/Misc/Ithaka.html Remember, guys, most poetry isn't great poetry. Most published poetry isn't even great poetry. If you start comparing what you see of poetry these days with the great poetry of the past, it's not much of a comparison now, is it? If you want to compare the majority of today's poetry with the majority of the poetry of the past, I think we're doing just fine. Even some of what the critics of the past thought were giants aren't so terrific today. Poe, whom we admire today, had to be rehabilitated by a Frenchman before he was accepted over here. Baudelaire had to pick poor Poe out of the trash heap of history, dust him off, and glue his shattered reputation together after Poe's death before we would give him a serious second look. He was outshone by the popular Lydia Sigourney, the best-selling "Sweet Bard of Michigan," widely published and much feted, clearly the popular choice. She wrote long rhyming poems with idealized Indians and Christian maidens. Very instructive, I'm told, and invigorating. There's actually an attempt to bring her back these days, I'm told, but then I tell myself I must be having a nightmare. Anyway, my candle gutters and my ink well is frozen, so I should take a break. Best to everybody, BobK. [This message has been edited by Bob K (02-05-2008 07:30 PM).] |
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Balladeer
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Thank you, Bob,and I agree with you that Brad and I, or even Grinch, are not that far apart. As I mentioned to grinch, there are undecipherable poems one one end of the spectrum and tacky, badly-written rhymes on the other. In between the two, there is a wealth of poetry that we probably do agree on and enjoy. As far as your two links are concerned, Ithaka was a wonderfully-written piece and I thoroughly enjoyed The Fish. With regards to the fish,however,I could imagine taking out the line breaks, creating one paragraph out of it all and coming up with something similar to what I could find in a Hemingway novel....which makes me question - is it really poetry or not? If either Hemingway or Ray Bradbury had used line breaks in such a way, all of their novels could be proclaimed poetry. Actually I entered my poem here because this IS CA and not the alley. I was wondering, from the eyes of free verse poets, how it could be improved. I wasn't really intending to create another rhyme-free verse battle. My mistake was in the title....I should have titled it something like "Trying to Understand the Un-Understandable" or something like that because my problem is not with free verse per se but only the ones that I haven't the foggiest what they are about. The poem was to illustrate the frustration of trying to reach some level of understanding or awareness with these pieces of writing. As far as Poe is concerned, thank God some or any quirk of Fate presented itself to shine the light on him or the world would be poorer without the display of his amazing talents. |
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TomMark Member Elite
since 2007-07-27
Posts 2133LA,CA |
Dear Sir Balladeer, I think that the title is fine. And I think that the poem is very good. I'll wait to read Sir Brad's comment on this one because he did give you a "ha". One thing to remind you.. I think that everyone understood your title and poem but everyone again, like each time you posted something, tried very hard to misunderstand you |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
quote: With or without line breaks, most of their work is nonetheless sheer poetry. |
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Grinch Member Elite
since 2005-12-31
Posts 2929Whoville |
Mike, We aren’t that far apart. I totally agree. Sort of. I think the only difference between us is that I believe that some obscure poems have more merit than you’re affording them. I emphasized some for a very good reason. When it comes to a large percentage of obscure poetry I’m with you 100%, this includes a mass of poetry that I’d label unintentionally obscure where a “poet” is being downright obtuse without knowing. It also includes a plethora of bad obscure poems where the “poet” is attempting to sound poetic by throwing out a host of unconnected metaphors and images in the belief that being obscure in this way automatically guarantees poetic kudos. There are however obscure poems that are different, these are the intentionally obscure poems that have been carefully, or more usually, painstakingly constructed to highlight the meaning in an indirect way. There’s a skill to writing that type of obscure poetry but they only work for me if the piece contains other devices that prove an understanding of poetic form. Finally there’s Altarwise which is obscure on a whole new level, I believe it should be taken as a special case, that Thomas carefully constructed it to be exactly what you see it as, unbelievably obscure but at the same time impossible to get the wrong meaning. If you take any section of Altarwise, give it to anyone and ask them what it’s really about or what Thomas was trying to say exactly and you’re likely to get some very strange looks, a lot of head shaking and a liberal scattering of shrugs. If however you take the same section and ask people what they think the poem is about you’ll still get a few head shakes and more than a few shrugs but some of the people you ask will take their best shot and tell you what they think. What’s more every now and then you’ll get one or two who notice extra connections or alternative meanings and will amend or refine their idea of what they think it’s about. The beauty of Altarwise is that whatever meaning you read into the poem is the right one. It doesn’t matter who you are, a poet laureate from Oxford or a car salesman from Detroit the meaning your own imagination or experience sparks is as valid as the next mans. Very occasionally though you’ll get some sad soul that can’t stop finding links and meaning in Thomas‘s poem, when you do shake his hand because there’s a high probability that person is me and at that point we truly won‘t be that far apart. As far as offering advice on improving your poem I’m sorry but I can’t help, I couldn’t write free verse to save my life. Sometimes reading it mystifies me to the point that I have trouble even recognising it as being poetic, I generally put that down to a possible deficiency on my part and simply wander off to read something else but maybe it is simply a case of preference and we aren’t that far apart after all. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Perhaps the question might be more usefully asked from the other direction. What is prose? I doubt that Hemingway,who also wrote poetry, would agree that his prose was poetry, though who knows? As for Bradbury, why speculate? The man is still alive; why not ask him? If either man wanted his words read as poetry, he probably could have and would have arranged it. What the shock may be about here is that the writing in each author's case is better than the writing in most poetry. That doesn't mean the writing is poetry. That means that the standard of all writing is humiliatingly low. Many publishing houses appear to be run these days more after the fashion of printers than as publishers have traditionally been run, since at least the beginning of the 19th century, as places that nurtured writers with an eye toward the culture, the literature and the future as well as the bottom line. Today's publishers don't seem to provide as much editorial help as once they did. Hemingway, as did Thomas Wolfe, was helped by Maxwell Perkins, one of the great Editors of all times. If you want to know why Hemingway was as great as Hemingway was, his years-long dialogue with Maxwell Perkins as well as Hemingway's own enormous talent and hard work go a long way toward answering that question. As (I believe it was) Pound said, poetry should be at least as well written as prose. If Pound didn't say it. he should have. It has the virtue of being true. Nor should we let ourselves be deceived by the rhythmic structure of good prose. There is a metrical structure to prose in the same way there is to poetry. Robert Bridges, the same guy who was poet Laureate of England and brought us Hopkins, wrote the definitive book on English Poetic Meter (used to be; it may have been superseded by now), and also the definitive work on English Prose Meter. There is such a thing and it matters. Simply because it is well written, is lyrical, and has metrics doesn't make it a poem. It may simply be competent prose. Gasp! [This message has been edited by Bob K (02-07-2008 02:40 AM).] |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Hmmm, things have switched here. That's fine. Maybe the whole debate would be better placed on another thread anyway. At least, and I think this is important, it has been started (I don't think it's simply a rehash of free v. meter. I agree, we've done that one to death -- until new people reincarnate it yet again). Now, to the poem: First, I agree that you have the wrong title. quote: I've already talked about why I think this is a great beginning. quote: The first thing that hit me here is how much this felt like a ride at an amusement park. Whether it's Space Mountain or Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, you have a lot to work with here. The experience of controlled fear, of pleasure, and, of course, of nausea. With that in mind, I would at the very least cut, "trying to piece the words together". It interferes with the ride. quote: Now we're off the roller coaster. Frankly, this is the weakest part of the whole poem. I'm not sure the metaphor and your actions match. The shake is designed to separate the nuggets from the mud, not put them in place (What does that mean here?). I think 'no gold' is out of place, in limbo -- it grates when I read it out loud. Still, the idea is sound. If you probably need to compress (however slightly) the roller coaster ride, you probably need to expand this image. When I was a kid, we did this while we were camping and the inevitable love of 'fool's gold' seems like a good entry point. Was it Andy Griffith who did a show like this once? I forget. quote: I'd hold off on this part. quote: I 'enjoyed' this image if that is the right word. One of the more interesting points here is that simply by changing one letter, you change word to worm. You have shown what some would call the magic, the power of writing in this image. There's more to it perhaps but I'll leave it at that for now. quote: I don't see the point of adding this line. The confusion of the speaker is already apparent. Let that stand by itself. It might be stronger if the final lines were something like: I explained my problem and said, "I don't get it." To which the writer responds, "Yeah, you do." or something like that. The speaker's confusion hasn't changed but the images presented in this poem about the other poem, even if they don't show meaning, show what happened during the reading process and that can be very gratifying for the writer. It's not what it means, it's what it does that matters. |
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Balladeer
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since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
The first thing that hit me here is how much this felt like a ride at an amusement park. Whether it's Space Mountain or Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, you have a lot to work with here. The experience of controlled fear, of pleasure, and, of course, of nausea. With that in mind, I would at the very least cut, "trying to piece the words together". Exactly! That is the exact feeling I was trying to give -a whirling, spinning ride, jumbling the senses, lost in confusion. Thank you for noticing that. "Trying to piece the words together" - yes, after re-reading that part, I can see where it doesn't need to be there. By that time the reader knows that the person in the poem is lost in a lack of understanding. I put it in there to show a serious effort on the part of the reader to make some sense of it all, but does fin without it. Now we're off the roller coaster. Frankly, this is the weakest part of the whole poem. I'm not sure the metaphor and your actions match. The shake is designed to separate the nuggets from the mud, not put them in place (What does that mean here?). I think 'no gold' is out of place, in limbo -- it grates when I read it out loud. I will acknowledge that this part is weaker but not really for what you points out. The shake refers to the actual action the forty-niners performed...I wanted the reader to imagine the character in the poem holding the page with hands on the sides, gently shaking it back and forth, as if panning for gold.....in this case panning for some meaning....the "no gold" referring to the fact that it didn't work. No, no roller coaster because I wanted it to be different. I wanted the first part of the poem to be rather spontaneous and the second part to be more deliberate and subdued. I wanted it to be like the feeling of someone giving you something to read and you take it and immediately start reading and, after realizing you don't understand it, you slow up and try again and try harder to "get it" because you are told there's something there to "get". 'Never mind', he said. 'You just don't get it." I'd hold off on this part. The only reason I putthat in there was to show that, even after two attempts and being told to forget it, he still went back for a third time in an effort to understand. If you think it does nothing for the poem, that's fine with me. and I knew he was right. I don't see the point of adding this line. I put that there to show the final defeat after three tries....an acknowledgement that whatever was there was beyond me and it was time to give up. he speaker's confusion hasn't changed but the images presented in this poem about the other poem, even if they don't show meaning, show what happened during the reading process and that can be very gratifying for the writer. It's not what it means, it's what it does that matters. There we have to part ways...I know how you feel about not having to have meaning and you know how I feel about meaning being imperative so I wouldn't be able to go with your alternative ending. The person saying, "Yes, you do" wouldn't end anything but perpetuate a continuous yes-you-do....no-I-don't interaction till the end of time, especially if he were as hard-headed as I am Thanks, Brad. I appreciate the time and the advice. I can see the merit in several things you have said and will use them  |
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chopsticks Senior Member
since 2007-10-02
Posts 888The US, |
I have enjoyed this thread . I will make two comments while I am here : Tom, I like this quote, it is so true. “ One thing to remind you.. I think that everyone understood your title and poem but everyone again, like each time you posted something, tried very hard to misunderstand you “ “ The ‘deficiency ’ is with you since you don’t know Korean “ Brad, if someone that understands Korean don’t get it, who’s deficiency is it then ? If you don’t get my point., It’s my fault . Btw, some of us wouldn’t get it if it was in Egyptian hieroglyphic. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
true enough,chopsticks! BobK, I have responded to your e-mails twice but it would seem you are not getting them...don't know what else to do  |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Balladeer, Thanks, I didn't know! I'll have to talk with apple. I appreciate you letting me know. BobK. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: Balladeer, you get to say anything you want to because Freedom of Speech protects that as a right. But think for a minute what you are saying here. You are a poet who is committed to being clear in what he writes. You feel clarity and meaning are deeply bound up with each other, and you have had much to say even in the brief amount of time that I’ve known you about the folly of poets who are cryptic, gnomic and do not write to be understood. This is part of your disagreement with Hugo, whom I know you admire, and with much of modern poetry in general. (Hugo qualified himself by saying first something like, given that you can write a clear English sentence. I say this so as not to be led astray.) The judge here of what is clear or not clear is not the poet, though as I poet I have had my reservations about this. It is the reader. The reader will say, I follow this or I don’t follow that. As a writer, what are we going to do, call our readers liars? I don’t believe that’s been your position in the past. Brad’s doing you a favor here by telling you that he sees the section of your poem about the ‘49ers is weaker than the earlier parts. He’s saying that this place in the poem fails for him. He’s trying to put his finger on exactly what’s dropped him out of the world of the poem that he’s pretty much shared with you up to this point... The only thing he could really do wrong here is be dishonest with you and tell you that the poem worked for him where it didn’t. I assume he’s giving you the straight stuff, in the same way I assume you’re giving him the straight stuff when you write the poem. This is one point that for a savvy reader that your good poem went off the tracks. He’s not wrong, and for you to disagree with him misses the point, because he’s reporting an internal reaction to you. You weren’t there, it was his feeling and his observation from inside his head where you’ve never been, and his willingness to offer it was a rare gift. You know his feelings and perceptions better than he does? I differ, respectfully. Oddly enough, he is taking what I understand to be your usual position here about meaning. He wants things to be clear. He wants the meaning of what’s going on to be clear, so he can participate in the life of the poem. There was little problem at all about that in the early part of your poem, when you were describing what you felt to be an experience of dealing with confusion. This is because you description was so vivid and clear and amusing that the experience was actually joyful. I think you know that you can’t make the description unpleasant and disorienting without leaving nauseated readers heaving by the side of the road. They won’t make it to the end of the poem. I’ve seen you make similar points. When Brad makes it here, you try to explain what you were trying to do. I can’t draw any clear conclusions from this, but I can talk about my own experience with similar situations. I end up in them all the time. On occasion I have found I must simply pound my head against the wall until the wall, my head or my willingness to put any energy into the problem have gone away for a time. Sometimes I find that I’m trying to force a solution on the poem that the poem has no interest in accepting. The poem has its own ideas and I need to think about ways of asking the poem what it wants instead of trying to inflict my own ideas on the poem. If I’m not too much of a jerk, the poem will often work along with me. It’s one of the things that working in free verse allows you to do more easily than you can when you’re working in more formal verse. Although I think it still works there as well, but the amount of of obsessional energy I find tied up in rhyme and meter makes a quick and sweeping change more difficult. |
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RCat Member
since 2008-02-16
Posts 70 |
Nice work Balladeer (as the worm oils my screen)! Personally I like wild free verse with steamed organic verb. My only “crit” is the centered text which doesn’t seem to fit the expression IMO. Perhaps a more “wild and free-range” format would enhance the energy more? But of course this is more a personal choice. Thanks for the read. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
BobK, after reading your response, the only word that comes to mind is....huh? I'm afraid I have no idea what your references lead to. He s not wrong, and for you to disagree with him misses the point, because he s reporting an internal reaction to you. You weren t there, it was his feeling and his observation from inside his head where you ve never been, and his willingness to offer it was a rare gift. I have no idea what this mild rebuke refers to, nor do I see where I have disagreed with him or told him he was wrong. I will acknowledge that this part is weaker but not really for what you points out. - me I agreed with him that this was the weaker part. I felt it was weaker for a different reason. If someone says, "I don't like that house because it is too small" and another says " I don't like it because of the color", the second person is not disagreeing with the first, only showing a different point of view. You will find nowhere in my reply up to the end where I told Brad he was flat out wrong. I thanked him and acknowledged merit in his comments. Oddly enough, he is taking what I understand to be your usual position here about meaning. He wants things to be clear. He wants the meaning of what s going on to be clear, so he can participate in the life of the poem There is no problem with meaning at all. He does not claim not to understand the poem. He simply has different ideas on how some parts can be better represented. My "usual position on meaning" is....what the double hockey sticks does this mean???? Brad expressed no problem with the meaning of the poem here, other than how to pan for gold. You know his feelings and perceptions better than he does? I'm at a loss to understand why you would come back with this type of remark. if it matters, it is unwarranted and unappreciated. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Balladeer, I had no intention of offending you. I like you, I like your poetry in general, and I like this poem in particular for many many reasons. I don't want to hurt your feelings; though I know you're a sturdy guy, all of us have them, and simply having the perception to be a decent poet means you have to know more about yours than most folks do. But look, quote: The problem I was attempting to point out to you here is not an unwillingness to accept criticism. You do accept criticism and are often very good about it. The problem I was trying to point out was that you were unwilling to accept Brad's criticism exactly as it was. This is what he said, quote: Your response here is to tell us what your intention was. I assume that you believe your execution fell short somehow when you say that you acknowledge this part is weaker. The net effect of what you do here is to subvert Brad’s input by saying that you’ve essentially considered what he’s had to say and decided that’s he’s missed the point or, in your words, “the part is weaker but not really for what you points (sic) out.” Or in the words of the speaker of the poem, whom you are satirizing, “ 'Never mind', he said./ 'You just don't get it.’” But you haven’t actually shown you have understood what Brad’s saying. Here is what I understand Brad to be saying, and he can and should correct me if I’m off base. I believe Brad is saying that he has a gut feeling about this passage about the 49er shake and the No Gold that you’ve made a misstep in the way the poem is developing, and that he’s been jarred out of his sense of being with you as he continues to read. When he checked his intuition by reading the passage aloud, he felt the same thing only more viscerally. And that his theory for what he’s had this reaction is that he doesn’t see your extended metaphor and your method of expressing it in this section as fitting together well. In your talking about his comment and in your talking about your distress over my comments (I must say once again that I’m sorry, and that I meant to give no distress. The only reasons I’m following up here is that I wanted to make my apology clear and that I wanted to be clear about the point that I apparently wasn’t clear about yesterday) I didn’t get something across. Whether Brad or anybody who’s a well intentioned and skillful reader of poetry says something like that, the exact details may be wrong, but the intuition usually isn’t, and trying to explain in the way that you did, that he didn’t understand your intention, shortchanges YOU. When I try to explain my intentions to people (It’s easier to talk about me, here.) I’m safeguarding my territory and protecting my poem and myself. This means I feel under attack and, if I choose to look at it in this way, then protecting myself and my poem makes lots of sense. Part of me will always feel this way and will always need protection and soothing in pressured situations, and getting feedback on my creative work will always be a pressured situation. I may be an adult, but I’m not a particularly good adult if that’s all I am all the time. So I do need to keep myself safe. But when I know people really are trying to help me get better with what I’m doing, after I’m finished being upset or sometimes a little bit before, it helps to ask myself what it is that they actually seen or responded to. There’s generally something real there that they’ve seen and I haven’t because I have lots of blind spots. You’ve had at least one or two people who’ve suggested to you that this area might be a problem with this poem. They may or may not agree about what that thing is, but they don’t mean you harm by saying it. quote: Specifically, you would probably gain from trying to understand what it was that grated for Brad about this sequence when he read it out loud. Whether the two of you have different intellectual points of view about this section, and you probably do, and they are probably legitimate as all get out, something grated on Brad, something dropped him out out the shared experience of the poem. This isn’t a matter of agree/disagree. A good reader has red-flagged something in a poem for you to understand and fix. You may both have different theories about what it is, but it will continue to grate until the issue is found and resolved. I attributed the same problem to a football metaphor that I didn’t get. I was wrong about my theory, but something still popped me out of the poem at that point as well and I hadn’t read Brad’s comments at that point. You did thank him for the merit of his comments, which was forthright and gracious of you; and gentlemanly as well, as I have come to see is so much a part of your character. I should have been specific in acknowledging that yesterday; not doing so was a sad shortcoming on my part. But I thought you’d missed the heart of what Brad had said, and your poem was, and is so good it broke my heart that you would settle for the Boone’s Farm of the intellectual exchange when the Chateau Yquem was so close at hand. I’m sorry once again if you felt that I misread you in the matter of your response to Brad, but as you can see from what I’ve written above, I really did have a different vision of the exchange than you did. I don’t want to devalue yours or you, it’s simply that I thought you missed so much of what he had to say that could have been useful to your writing and especially your revision process. I can say that it's been very helpful in mine. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
No problem, Bob. I know you are a decent sort and mean well. It struck me as strange i would be criticized by one for what I said to another and I over-reacted. We both know Brad needs no one to come to his aid I will listen to anyone's advice. If I don't agree with it, I'll simply disregard it but, hopefully, I'll never admonish them for giving it, knowingly. Thank you for the response. |
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LynnFromCT Member
since 2008-02-18
Posts 53CT, USA |
I have trouble commenting on free verse poems, because I cannot follow along. Blame it partially on ADD - I need the rhyme to keep the flow going. This is why I don't comment on as many poems as I should. I don't know what to say, because I give up on reading it past say maybe the 2nd stanza. Sorry that's just me. |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
Mike - when I read your poem in this post (which I think I liked, lol) I had a clear memory that (after some research) I discovered was over four years old, and was something you once said to me. It meant much then, and, if the fact that I still remember it is any indication, made quite an impression: /main/forumdisplay.cgi?action=displayarchive&number=83&topic=003287#4 You often have a unique way of stating something simple and turning it profound. Thanks for that. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Yes, I remember that, Christopher. I've always considered you a good example of good free verse I don't always get. Hey, that's not a left-handed compliment! What I mean is that,even when I don't get all of the meaning of your poem, the words are enough to know something (normally profound) has been said in a very smooth way....no worms crawling on a blank page. Your poetry (and, again, this is a compliment, really!) reminds me a little of the hit song Sukiaki in the 60's. Number one one the charts and sung in Japanese. Did anyone understand it? Nope, but it sounded good enough to matter. People DO understand your work so the deficiency lies with me ...and I like it, regardless |
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