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Jason Lyle
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since 2003-02-07
Posts 1438
With my darkling

0 posted 2003-10-04 01:19 AM


Just a question, I recently checked a few sites I posted on before I found pip.they were all poetry sites I found after searching my name on google.I never mind a critique, but most of the critiques i read.Said things like forget metric poetry, that was " as bad as Keats" (I wish I was that bad) You use cliched meter and metaphor.Really is there a site I don't know about on how to critique a poem?
I would not mind a harsh critique here, but noone here has ever told me I use harsh, end stop rhyme.Or that I am forced, all should feel free to if that is true, but why are critiques on other sites so harsh? correct me, but dont make me drink more.You read a harsh critique, and reread your write, and think some of what they said made sense, then you read the critics work, and think to yourself...from what talent or skill did they base this critisism? There has to be a website I am unaware of that teaches one to properly tear up a poet.
I would be willing to guess, I am not the only victim of uncrunstructive critisism, by equally unskilled poets.
This sounds bitter, it is a little, I have more than a few drinks(note the spelling), but really, do many of you read writing with end jambs, and metric in mind, or do you just read and feel?

Jason

[This message has been edited by Jason Lyle (10-04-2003 09:35 AM).]

© Copyright 2003 Jason Lyle - All Rights Reserved
Ringo
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1 posted 2003-10-04 06:19 AM


Jason- Just consider the source and leave it at that. You mentioned that the criticisms were done by unskilled poets (notice I didn't use the word equally). You are talented, and we enjoy... well, I can't speak for others, I... enjoy your writing, even though I don't always reply.

We are all equal but we’re individually different
and able to reach the impossible if we try.

Marge Tindal
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2 posted 2003-10-04 09:40 AM


Jason~
quote:
do many of you read writing with end jambs, and metric in mind, or do you just read and feel?
I can only speak for myself when I say that I read and feel and I write the same way~

Sometimes I challenge myself with structured-form poetry, just because I think that, for me, it's good discipline and a wonderful self-teaching tool.

But, my heart reads and writes ... and I let it~
*Huglets*
~*Marge*~

~*When the heart grieves over what it has lost,
the spirit rejoices over what it has left.
- Sufi epigram
   noles1@totcon.com     

Denise
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3 posted 2003-10-04 09:42 AM


Jason,

I agree with Ringo. Some people are just ignorant, and prove it by implying that the form of poetry that they prefer is the only acceptable form. Don't give it another thought.

Denise
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4 posted 2003-10-04 09:45 AM


Hey,Marge!  
Marge Tindal
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5 posted 2003-10-04 10:18 AM



Hey you sweet Denise person you !

~*When the heart grieves over what it has lost,
the spirit rejoices over what it has left.
- Sufi epigram
   noles1@totcon.com     

Miah
Senior Member
since 2002-08-26
Posts 1062
Pennsylvania
6 posted 2003-10-04 11:07 AM


personally, who are they to judge? If you want it critiqued take a poetry class. Even then poetry is still in the eye of the beholder. If you don't want to do that I would get them critiqued here. As for me, I never would "critique" a poem, I am no where near qualified.  But.. I do know what I like and what I don't.  but that is just taste.
Essorant
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7 posted 2003-10-04 11:50 AM


Alas, the critiques you mention sound like they are of that very vigorous and often haughty group of freeverse fanciers now lording it that call rhyme a wretched clown, and strive to banish antiquity, straightforwardness and formalness off the poetic stage.  Never yeild to them.  Poetry needs his past.  They seem to imagine poetry may be pulled out of some mere thin abstract air of the present, out of their poetic hats perhaps, and done by arbitration alone.  But all they pluck out is a little feather to wave on high; and for certainly they know well how to carp on the art, but often not from consumate practice.  Maybe I take it a bit too gravely, yet honestly, I think the "freedom" in the art now has been taken too excess.  If one will to write poetry well, he shall in faith study the language and the forms of this art, and not just in their modern practice, but in their ancestral forms as well.  It is needful for more study in general.  And that is the full extent of my advice to any seeking to be a well versed poet or critique.  Studying shall make the poet wiser.  Studying shall make the critic wiser. Studying; and keeping intimate with the past.  

[This message has been edited by Essorant (10-04-2003 11:52 AM).]

littlewing
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8 posted 2003-10-04 05:08 PM


just read and feel always and if there is something to be noted about a form or style, then it is
Severn
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since 1999-07-17
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9 posted 2003-11-02 12:01 PM


Well, Ess. You should know me by now - I'm a 'freeverse fancier.' Sometimes, my dear fellow CA frequenter - you do strike me as being against progress/change/growth..

You know, I studied form poetry. A lot of 'freeverse fanciers' do. Alas, freeverse - good freeverse - is not the easy jumble of words to produce that some seem to think it is..

K

ps - Jason - critiquing can help you learn, depends on what you want out of poetry really isn't it?

Jason Lyle
Senior Member
since 2003-02-07
Posts 1438
With my darkling
10 posted 2003-11-02 01:50 PM


Oh, I agree Severn, and do not mind an honest critique, I just do not understand why on some sites, they can be so personal and mean about it.All should feel free to critique me in depth, only way I can learn.
but no one on this site has ever done it in a cruel way, and on other sites that seems to be the rule.

Jason

P.S...I would not think of free verse as progress or growth, just a differant and equally enjoyable style.

[This message has been edited by Jason Lyle (11-02-2003 01:52 PM).]

hush
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since 2001-05-27
Posts 1653
Ohio, USA
11 posted 2003-11-03 02:16 PM


Psst, Ess-

'If one will to write poetry well, he shall in faith study the language and the forms of this art'

Last time I checked, us women folks were writing some poetry, too...

'Poetry needs his past.'

Since when is poetry a personified guy?


Sunshine
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12 posted 2003-11-03 03:12 PM


Y'know Jason...I've got so much silver and stardust in my rose colored glasses, that it's beyond me how to critique.  Most of what I can say is I like it, love it, feel it, or any other sense that gets kicked in when the poet really emphasizes certain things [i.e., I just read one where "touch and smell" came into play very well - for me.]

My point is, when I don't like something?  I personally find it very difficult to tell the person that "this is bad" - rather, I go on about what good points are in the poem, and make suggestions where it can be improved [at least, to my naive eye...]

Some folks can give excellent critiques.  Some folks [like me] just appreciate putting their eyes on so much talent.  Sooner or later, I recognize those that lack talent, or can see a diamond in the rough...and with proper encouragement from their peers, those folk generally begin to expand their learning and their writing.

Heh.  Can you tell I rarely get mad over how others perceive me and my work?  I guess I have to say it's always in the eye of the beholder, but them that behold only one style or form...miss out on so much more.


Essorant
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Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada
13 posted 2003-11-05 08:52 PM


Hush,

"He" and "she" are both equally Human to me so I don't think of one excluding the other.  But that may just be me.

Essorant.


[This message has been edited by Essorant (11-05-2003 09:50 PM).]

Severn
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since 1999-07-17
Posts 7704

14 posted 2003-11-06 12:18 PM


Ess - cutting in here, I think that's rubbish and an excuse. Sorry, but I really do. Why didn't you put 'she' then? Just the very nature of saying 'men' etc etc cuts out women from the equation.

What do you think feminists were harping on about for so long? (Btw, I'm not one in the labelling sense).

K

Essorant
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Posts 4769
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15 posted 2003-11-06 10:32 AM


Severn

I believe when "he" is used to represent a word like (every)one or (every)body,
though not literally given, she should be figuratively there, and when "she" is, there he should be too.  
Why should the use of one be construed as ignorance to the other?  If you randomly pick one human out of all,  a "he" or "she" shall be that, but that he or she may in a general sense still equally represent everybody, as a human.  This is why I use either very randomly and try not to make an issue of them.  


[This message has been edited by Essorant (11-06-2003 11:40 AM).]

Severn
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16 posted 2003-11-07 01:52 AM


Well that's very noble, Ess.

Sadly, you're fighting an uphill battle, with the sun in your eyes too, against decades of established language, dominated by patriarchal norms.

Unfortunately, your noble idea exists only in your head, as your very use of that patriarchal norm consolidates its privilege within our language structures.

You won't win - you'll just look unPC, and come up against arguments like the above.

K



Ron
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17 posted 2003-11-07 03:13 AM


Sometimes, there are worse things than looking unPC, K. In my opinion, bad writing is usually one of those things.

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that our choice of language greatly influences our way of thinking, and the elimination of grossly prejudicial labels helps, in at least some small way, to eliminate prejudice. But it has always been much easier to eliminate words than to change them.

Psychologists tell us that gender differentiation is built into human behavior at the lowest possible levels. Meet another person ever so briefly, on the street or at a party, and you may not later recall their name, their face, or what they were wearing or doing, but you will always be able to tell us their gender. Gender seemingly implants itself on our psyche when nothing else about a person does. Not surprisingly, then, our languages reflect our preoccupation with sex. It's almost impossible to talk about anything of substance without stumbling across gender specific words.

Should we bow to the PC movement and use awkward constructs like he/she or s/he? Not, in my opinion, if we care about the real intent behind our words. Such devices immediately yank the reader out of the world we are building for them and dilute the message we are trying to impart. Sure, gender equality is important. But you CANNOT explore two important themes without both suffering. Throwing an awkward construct into your carefully crafted words, just to appease the activists, is akin to slapping the reader up side the head.

I think we can choose to be politically correct or we can choose to be good writers, but even the best among us can rarely be both.

My mistress' or master's eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red than his or her lips' red.
If snow be white, why then his or her breasts are dun;
If hair be wires, black wires grow on his or her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in his or her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress or master reeks.
I love to hear him/her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a god or goddess go:
My mistress or master when s/he walks treads on the ground.
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any he or she belied with false compare

Sonnet 130 - William Shakespeare




Local Parasite
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18 posted 2003-11-07 03:18 AM


I must be really slow... because I read that sonnet about four times and the only thing I found fishy was how bad Shakespeare's meter was.  

On that note, I should get some sleep.  

Faith is a fine invention
When gentlemen can see
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.
~~~Emily Dickinson

Essorant
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since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769
Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada
19 posted 2003-11-07 11:05 AM


How about:

"Because I could not stop for Death,
He or she kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
  
We slowly drove, he or she knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his or her civility.
...

Emily Dickinson  



And if we are going to make issues, how come people always say "he or she" instead of "she or he"?  Is it right to put the "he" before the "she"?  

[This message has been edited by Essorant (11-07-2003 11:42 AM).]

Severn
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20 posted 2003-11-07 03:33 PM


Ess - Sometimes I say she or he. I hear others doing so as well. I admit - particularly when I was at university. Actually, sometimes people just said 'she' which I think is just as bad, and achieves nothing.

Ron - I agree with some of what you say:

quote:
There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that our choice of language greatly influences our way of thinking, and the elimination of grossly prejudicial labels helps, in at least some small way, to eliminate prejudice.


Yes, I agree with that.

This:

quote:
Gender seemingly implants itself on our psyche when nothing else about a person does. Not surprisingly, then, our languages reflect our preoccupation with sex. It's almost impossible to talk about anything of substance without stumbling across gender specific words.


I agree with to a degree. However, there are many cultures/societies when this cannot apply. An example: In some parts of Albania it's traditional that if a family bears all female children, the eldest shall assume wholly the identity of a son. To the degree that the child becomes male for the rest of his life. It is not merely a case of cross-dressing and assuming male roles. He is referred to as male by his family, peers and other members of the community, he is thought of as male. There is no translation process - ie, it is not usual for the community to think 'oh there goes Jane who is now Bob.' It's just, 'oh there goes Bob.' Bob the once-Jane may even marry...and then adopt a member of the extended family as a child (a son of course).

Your example of Shakespeare's sonnet is completely off I'm afraid. Can't agree at all. There are two problems that I can see.

One - using a poem for an example that was written centuries ago cannot work for the simple fact that the cultural standards of the day cannot translate to modern Western life today - Shakespeare's society was, at the root of its structures, patriarchal and misogynist. Therefore, your argument is out of place for this particular work.

Two - Shakespeare's sonnets concerned three principle players. The grim reaper/death, the lover and the mistress/dark lady. His sonnets were gender specific. In this case, the lover, who is male, is reflecting on the dark lady. Therefore, it would make no sense to substitute the gender specific references to a female, with male references.

K


Ron
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21 posted 2003-11-07 07:00 PM


Having never visited Albania, Kamla, I'll have to take your word for it, but would nonetheless remain skeptical. Gender isn't a "choice" we can make, else I suspect there would be many socially stigmatized individuals who would gladly make new choices. Nor, I believe, is the way we think about gender so easily changed. There have been documented sex-change operations at birth, where a disfigured male baby was surgically made into a female, and the parents were encouraged to treat the child as a girl. Turns out they over-compensated, because in the end, they could not forget the dichotomous gender of their daughter. They didn't treat her as a girl, but rather as a boy who had been turned into a girl.

Still, even if Albanians are quite different from Americans, your story really only proves that our human preoccupation with gender is both deeply rooted and often grossly illogical. Why couldn't the oldest daughter simply assume the responsibilities of a family leader, rather than the social role of male? A culture where gender can be reversed proves nothing, Kamla. Show me one where gender does not semantically exist?

And, yea, the sonnet was not a good example, nor was it meant as one. It was a joke. It's interesting though that you would call Shakespeare's sonnets "gender specific," while simultaneously referencing the grim reaper/death?  

The sonnets are, of course, gender specific as you say. But, so is everything else in our language. All attempts to introduce a genderless human pronoun have, so far, failed dismally.

Essorant
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22 posted 2003-11-08 02:09 AM


When we indicate gender with a pronoun connected to a word like "this one" or "this person" it shouldn't say more than "this as a general example of one/ a person" (which inevitably has gender) not "this as particularization of the gender."
If the writer is haughty of masculinity or femininity that shall protrude thickly and obviously elsewheres.  But at least for a bawbling pronoun I believe the author deserves the benefit of the reader's doubt.  Just my headachy opinion.

[This message has been edited by Essorant (11-08-2003 02:45 AM).]

Not A Poet
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23 posted 2003-11-08 12:00 PM


This thread Brad started in the English Workshop Forum addresses that very subject. I thought it was quite interesting.

Sorry. Never mind. The link advocating the use of the "singular they" seems to be missing.

[This message has been edited by Not A Poet (11-08-2003 12:02 PM).]

Essorant
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24 posted 2003-11-08 12:40 PM


"They" is grammatically wrong but at least makes an end to some people's issues about "he" or "she".

Unfortunatly some difficulties may arise if you don't closely pay attention or if If you are late to the conversation and the "this one" or "a person" or "when somebody" phrases have gone by and people are at the they's and them's and their's, you may take those for the plural, indeed. "take their luggage"  "tell them the password" "attack them"
"They must remind them they should take them to his office" (a person, people, or things?)  If you lose track, you may be in trouble    

Personally I still like "he's" and "she's"  But then I have always been a bit oldfashioned.

[This message has been edited by Essorant (11-08-2003 04:00 PM).]

Ratleader
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25 posted 2003-11-17 08:12 AM


Why should we bother with people's "issues" at all? This language works. It's vibrant and useful the way it is. If it's radically altered because a few people choose to have "issues" about pronouns, then it stands to become less vibrant and useful. Worse, the most valuable and beautiful works produced in its history -- like those of Shakespeare -- would become less accessible, less understandable. It's not worth that.

There is a trend these days, to seek "issues" that we can be disturbed about, not because they're actually distressing, but as a tool with which to flog the people around us, and make ourselves feel important by doing it. I think that's the source of the gender issue in language, and in a lot of other things.

I used to have a workmate who would come to work early every single day. He would pull out a container of Lysol, and sterilize his desk and everything on it, including pens and pencils, before starting his day. If anyone touched anything on his desk during the day, he would ostentatiously pull out his Lysol and re-sterilize it. I rate his "issues" at about the same level as I rate gender pronoun "issues."

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Ron
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26 posted 2003-11-17 09:01 AM


I'm not sure I can agree, Ed. Just because a language is already vibrant doesn't mean it shouldn't change. More importantly, I think those who have been victimized by stereotyping and prejudice have a very valid complaint. How we talk and write impacts how we think, which obviously, in turn, impacts how we act towards others.

The other night I heard I a commercial promoting some fancy new drug, at the conclusion of which they gave the mandatory list of possible side-effects. "XYZ may, in some cases, cause such-and-such in African-Americans." In my lifetime, blacks have undergone numerous name-changes, and apparently we still can't quite get it right. Unless, of course, the copywriter was suggesting the side-effects don't apply to European or Canadian blacks? Yet, in spite of the confusion, can anyone really doubt that the more disparaging labels are a festering wound in our language that needs to be healed? Words have power.

I sincerely wish gender discrimination could be eliminated from our language, as perhaps one step in eliminating it from our society. I just don't think it's possible. Unlike race or class, gender is too deeply ingrained into our sex-driven genes, and I don't believe we can ever truly "think" of another human except as a he or she. Larry Niven, a writer renown for his ability to create detailed science fiction worlds, once wrote a whole novel about an intelligent species composed of three genders. It was a great story, but when I closed the book, I still could think only in terms of he and she, with everything else just a mixture of the two.

Oh, and your workmate?

In California, my best friend's wife developed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and like prejudice, it's not an issue that should be trivialized. OCD, if left untreated, destroys lives.

Essorant
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since 2002-08-10
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Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada
27 posted 2003-11-17 01:15 PM


"Unless, of course, the copywriter was suggesting the side-effects don't apply to European or Canadian blacks?"

Hey, aren't Canadians part of America -- Americans -- too?!    
  

[This message has been edited by Essorant (11-17-2003 01:28 PM).]

Ratleader
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28 posted 2003-11-17 11:11 PM


I think that’s a false choice, Ron. We don’t have the choice, either of trying to force the language to hold still or of allowing pressure groups try to alter it to suit their own agendas. We can also allow it to develop naturally, as a tool for the communication of ideas. If that communication becomes easier with a neutral gender application, then that change will happen, by the same process that the need to simplify communication in an increasingly complex society has led to the near-demise of our familiar pronouns (thee, thou etc). Like you I think that the language would be better if there were such an option, but I am not willing to let it be coerced, which is pretty much what is happening right now.

Words do have power, and the way we use them does influence the way we think. If we force someone to speak in a different way, we are forcing him to think in a different way. Your own illustration is a good example of that, and of the negative consequences that can come from trying to force an alteration rather than letting the change occur naturally. By that I don’t mean we can’t introduce changes as a way of trying new forms. Of course we can. But allowing a group -- any group or movement – to force a change, which will then affect the way people think, is wrong on its face. The fact that the move to eradicate our language’s default to masculine pronouns was started by a group which actually favors coercive gender discrimination is beside the point. Letting any group affect things to that extent is inherently destructive.

Yes, I’m agonizingly aware of OCD – I don’t need instruction and I would never trivialize it. But – my workmate’s hang-ups were not my problem. The fact that he felt a need to live in a sterile environment did not constitute any kind of justification for him or anyone else to force me to do the same, any more than someone’s real or pretended discomfort with masculine pronouns is justification for using social, economic or any other kind of pressure to sterilize my language. I never forced him to sit at my desk, and I never force anyone to read what I write.

Severn
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since 1999-07-17
Posts 7704

29 posted 2003-11-20 02:56 PM


quote:
The fact that he felt a need to live in a sterile environment did not constitute any kind of justification for him or anyone else to force me to do the same, any more than someone’s real or pretended discomfort with masculine pronouns is justification for using social, economic or any other kind of pressure to sterilize my language. I never forced him to sit at my desk, and I never force anyone to read what I write.


I don't have much time so I have to keep this short and sweet. Two things here - perhaps if your colleague suffers from OCD he is not actually able to make a rational choice about whether he forces his sterile environment on others. It's not a rational condition is it? What makes you think he can choose rationally, Ed? Secondly, I fail, truly fail, to see how attempting to include the feminine in our language contributes to a sterilisation of it. That's rather harsh. Hm, I wonder if you would feel that way if you were female? Yes, that's a very loaded question. The bottom line - language will change - whether by choice, force or a 'natural' process. (I have a severe problem with the word 'natural' in many cases. If that isn't one of the most abused concepts I don't know what is).

K


[This message has been edited by Severn (11-20-2003 02:58 PM).]

Essorant
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since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769
Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada
30 posted 2003-11-20 10:16 PM


It may be relevant to keep in mind that all the third person pronouns were fairly close in "shape" to begin with in early English.


He   (he)
Heo (she)
Hie  (they)


Which may account somewhat for our inclination to the only one that stayed the same from the beginning.  That to me, would make some of it natural.  Ammend me if I'm wrong

[This message has been edited by Essorant (11-21-2003 06:02 PM).]

Robtm1965
Member
since 2002-08-20
Posts 263

31 posted 2003-11-21 09:14 AM


"Ammend me if I'm wrong"

Lose an "M" Ess.
And I agree totally with K and Hush

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