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PoetryIsLife
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0 posted 2002-03-15 06:03 PM


What is poetry? Poetry is life to me.

I find poetry in life.... in the small things, in the large things, in the odd or normal things. My poetry comes from all ends and reachs of life.  

Any thoughts?

~ Titus


I'm dealing with too much.... I'm loosing control.

[This message has been edited by PoetryIsLife (03-15-2002 06:03 PM).]

© Copyright 2002 Daniel Redding - All Rights Reserved
Janet Marie
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1 posted 2002-03-15 06:23 PM


For me poetry is oxygen ... it sustains me ... and even better...takes my breath away. Writing gave me a voice for the emotions that had no release, before I wrote, being "mute" for too long was smothering me slowly.
And yes, like Titus said poetry and inspiration are all around us. Poets dont just see the stars and the sunrise, we hear rhyme and verse. There are few moments when I am as content as when writing or reading poetry.

Phaedrus
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2 posted 2002-03-15 06:33 PM



Maybe I’m just an exception but when I see stars I generally SEE stars, the act of putting those stars in poetic form isn’t natural, it only happens after some serious thought and several re-writes.

But then again I’ve always argued that I’m not a real poet so what do I know.

Thanks for the chance to read and reply

PoetryIsLife
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3 posted 2002-03-15 06:37 PM


How Sweet Janet

Phae... not neccessarily a star becoming a poem, more like anything becoming a poem. Life becomes poetry, for me. In situations, feelings, events, things I see, things I feel, things I do.

~ Titus

I'm dealing with too much.... I'm loosing control.

Phaedrus
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4 posted 2002-03-15 06:50 PM



Are you using the term poetry literally or as a descriptive term of a quantitative/qualitative interpretation of the things around you?

Seeing the ’poetry’ of a star in sky is one thing, seeing a star and mentally processing or comprehending it in verse form another.

Or are you just saying you write poetry about what you see?

Janet Marie
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5 posted 2002-03-15 06:51 PM


Oh Phaedrus ... if you dont stop putting down your poetry...I will have to arrange it that you see a few less stars. LOL
I have raved on your poetry....I have a reputation to uphold...you arent gonna say I dont know poetry when I read it are you?  

Phaedrus
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6 posted 2002-03-15 06:59 PM


Sorry Janet, I’ll try to be a little less modest (but I’m not very good at that either)  

Poetryislife

I just re-read my above post which was written in haste, it sounds a little confrontational and condescending, it wasn’t meant to, I’m just a little confused.  

[This message has been edited by Phaedrus (03-15-2002 07:01 PM).]

PoetryIsLife
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7 posted 2002-03-15 07:56 PM


"Or are you just saying you write poetry about what you see?"

What I see, and feel.

~ Titus

I'm dealing with too much.... I'm loosing control.

Janet Marie
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8 posted 2002-03-15 07:57 PM


LOL...
Ok Phae, I give... modesty becomes you

just to clarify...when I said "poets dont just see stars and sunrises" ...
What I meant was, when a poet sees something that moves them or effects them...they often feel "compelled" to write about it, or find inspiration to do so in moments that a "non writer" wouldnt feel an urge to do so.
A good example would be, each month when there is a full moon...the forum is often full of poems trying to capture what we see and feel in the moon's momentary glory.
Before I wrote ... I just enjoyed looking at the full moon...now, maybe Im just full of it rofl
Now are you good and confused

peace and poetry
jm

Brad
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9 posted 2002-03-15 10:20 PM


No, life isn't poetry.


Poetry is life.

"Language is the house of Being" -- Heidegger.


Denise
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10 posted 2002-03-16 09:00 AM


I used to be a poet.
Sunshine
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11 posted 2002-03-16 09:23 AM


Denise, you still are a poet...it is just that your hands are full with life...grandgreatkids, you know...

Titus...when I was quite young [your age] I knew I wanted to write...way deepdowntomytoes writing...but...

I felt as if I needed to know more, have experienced more, before I could even HOPE to share that depth from which I felt the stirrings....

I am still feeling those same stirrings, that passion that takes my breath away...

I am still hoping that someday I will have the fortitude enough to reach down, drag it out, let it shine...

I am still aging...and just beginning...

but when I see some of the poets around me, here in these blue pages...I thank God that they allow me stay...so that I might learn, more...that I might read...more...that I may continue to strive, to some day...be a poet...

Brad
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12 posted 2002-03-16 09:57 PM


But what if it's the other way around?

What if the way you see the sun and stars are already influenced by the poems that have come before you?

In this sense, life doesn't determine poetry, poetry determines life.

Poetry, in this sense, is not a genre of course (not determined by the line break), it is what determines, it is what triggers, the feelings you feel in 'real' life.

I like this approach because it avoids the idea that poetry is derivative of experience and, at the same time, shows that we don't do anything in a vacuum.

We become writers, not magic users.

PoetryIsLife
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13 posted 2002-03-17 01:27 AM


"I like this approach because it avoids the idea that poetry is derivative of experience"

Can you explain what you mean by that a bit more in depth Brad?

~ Titus

My motto... always changing, always improving, veiwing life in veiw of eternity.

Brad
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14 posted 2002-03-17 01:41 AM


When we use the representational model for poetry, we automatically privilege the real life experience over the poem. This puts poetry in a secondary position:

"He didn't just write about life, he lived it."

I think this takes away from poetry in that the reading (still something else that is consistently downplayed in this model) of a poem is an experience, not the mediation of another experience.

This approach means that poetry (widely defined) is the trigger of the experience, of life, for each individual, not merely a representation of life.

Does that help?  

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15 posted 2002-03-17 02:51 AM


Brad, i see you've quoted Heidegger. I presume that came from Sein und Zeit....if you know anything about that book could you, for the love of my philosophy class, help me out? It's so dense!!!!

Brad
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16 posted 2002-03-17 04:33 AM


Get a copy of Heidegger: A Critical Reader and a Cambridge Companion to Heidegger -- this one is quite accessible. These are the ones I use but there's a lot more material out there.

At the very least, you'll discover that Heidegger can be just as frustrating to professional philosophers as he is to the rest of us.

One quick suggestion, I suppose, is to keep the distinction between readiness-to-hand and present-to-hand clear.

And when he says dasein just think, thinking human being. That's not quite accurate but its useful on a first reading.

I'm just beginning to get the whole originary time thing myself. I used to think that originary time and authentic time were the same thing but they're not. Originary time is dasein's framework that sets up pragmatic time (clock time) and authentic time (which I'm still not sure about).

There are some writers that just can't really be digested quickly. Heidegger's one of them. I feel for you, ):

hush
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17 posted 2002-03-17 11:03 PM


To touch on something Brad said- when people automatically denote a poem to the mere expression of an experience, it becomes merely another means for catharsis, and it's not just that, it's an art form. Writing a good poem is not easy, and it doesn't have to relate to a real-life experience. A lot of people write in first-person narrative forms about things that have never happened to them, however, if in poem form, without the bookstore section called "fiction" to specify as it would in a novel, people seem to automatically assume it's true to life, that the author live the poem, which isn't always true.

"Love is a piano
dropped from a four story window
and you were in the wrong place
at the wrong time." -Ani DiFranco

PoetryIsLife
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18 posted 2002-03-19 12:05 PM


Hush, so true. I agree completely. Interesting point there...

~ Titus

My motto... always changing, always improving, living life in veiw of eternity.

PoetryIsLife
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19 posted 2002-03-19 12:08 PM


"I think this takes away from poetry in that the reading... of a poem is an experience, not the mediation of another experience."

Yes, Brad, it did. Thank you.

~ Titus

My motto... always changing, always improving, living life in veiw of eternity.

JP
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20 posted 2002-03-22 10:00 PM


Poetry is a fleeting blessing that one should cherise when visisted by the muse, and not morn when no longer blessed thusly.

Yesterday is ash, tomorrow is smoke; only today does the fire burn.
Nil Desperandum, Fata viem invenient

Brad
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21 posted 2002-03-23 08:48 AM


And JP maintains a third view:

Poetry is magic.

I don't know, I can never figure out what this exactly gives you except that you didn't write the poem that you sign your name to, the muse did.

And it still privileges the writing over the reading.  

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22 posted 2002-03-23 12:26 PM


To me, poetry is a vehicle in which I can release/share what I am feeling or what I have experienced on a personal level.
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23 posted 2002-03-23 12:32 PM


If poetry is based on personal experience, why is most of my poetry fictional?
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24 posted 2002-03-23 01:06 PM



"If poetry is based on personal experience, why is most of my poetry fictional?"


If the above question was directed to me, here is my answer ~

I did not say that poetry, in itself, is based on personal experiences. It is for me, but not necessarily for others, such as yourself, Ms. deVine.

Ron
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25 posted 2002-03-23 01:58 PM


Bad fiction is when we write about our life. Good fiction is when we write about our life, but disguise it so well even we can't be sure what the mask reveals and conceals.
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26 posted 2002-03-23 03:41 PM



Ron

Isn’t the first non-fiction by definition regardless of quality?

PoetryIsLife
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27 posted 2002-03-23 03:45 PM


"Bad fiction is when we write about our life."

Ron, this makes no sense. How can you say that when we write about our lives, it is fiction? It is truth, it is fact. If we write about what we WISH our lives to be, then we are writing GOOD fiction?

"Good fiction is when we write about our life, but disguise it so well even we can't be sure what the mask reveals and conceals."

If you do this, you merely are losing focus on the truth, what is real. You are allowing yourself to be 'brainwashed' by the world you create, and thus, are living in a dream world.

~ Titus

"My body is merely the canvas of my soul."
         ~ The Night Owl

Brad
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28 posted 2002-03-23 09:31 PM


Bad fiction is when we write about our life and don't worry about the writing.

Given a choice between the facts, the real, the truth and good writing, choose good writing everytime.

Phaedrus,

I think that's what Ron means. There's bad non-fiction as well as bad fiction, but we might forgive non-fiction if it were written badly but still got the verifiable facts correct (but, you know, I don't think we should do that). This is not the case with fiction.

  

Ron
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29 posted 2002-03-23 11:01 PM


My point was that every word we write is autobiographical.

When we try to write directly about our own life, it generally turns out badly. For lots of reasons. Probably the biggest reason, though, is that we expect others to care about the story just because we care about the story. Our feelings are independent of the words we write, but the readers sees only the words. It's very, very difficult to judge the quality of our own work when we also living it.

Even when we avoid writing about our own life, however, we should still write about our own life. What does it feel like to set foot on an alien and potentially hostile planet? No one knows. But we know what it felt like to be a frightened five-year-old walking into elementary school for the first time. We twist, we turn, we hide, we deceive. Sometimes, we even fool ourselves. But when the sun sets at the end of the day, every word we've written is about ourselves.

Brad
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30 posted 2002-03-24 02:05 AM


I don't have any problems with saying everything written is in some sense about the writer (or is in some sense creating the writer  -- pretty much the same thing, right? Ron, you would say discover something new about yourself and I would say create something new about yourself.).

I thought, however, that people were trying to use truth as a kind of anchor for good and bad fiction or poetry, and I don't think that's a good way to go. I thought your point was similar. It seemed that you were saying, that you are saying, that another factor (I said writing, you said an amorphous mask -- concealing and revealing in uncontrollable ways.)must enter the process in order for it to be good.

Am I mistaken?


PoetryIsLife
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31 posted 2002-03-25 04:29 PM


"Even when we avoid writing about our own life, however, we should still write about our own life. What does it feel like to set foot on an alien and potentially hostile planet? No one knows. But we know what it felt like to be a frightened five-year-old walking into elementary school for the first time. We twist, we turn, we hide, we deceive. Sometimes, we even fool ourselves. But when the sun sets at the end of the day, every word we've written is about ourselves."

I disagree... what if I write a poem about someone else's experience? Nothing in it has to do with me, I merely write for the other person. Then, thus it is not about me. It is about them, or about nothing, just written for them about an experience. If I desire to write about something detached from myself, it is not about me, It is about that something.

~ Titus

"My body is merely the canvas of my soul."
         ~ The Night Owl

Brad
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32 posted 2002-03-25 05:50 PM


Uh, perception and significance.

You wrote what you perceived to be (you saw it a certain way) and you thought it was significant (you saw it as opposed to something else).

It's still about you. Ron's point is pretty much impenetrable unless you want to redefine his terms.


Ron
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33 posted 2002-03-25 06:27 PM


Geesh, Brad, you raised enough points in two paragraphs to fill a small book.  

Maybe later we can explore/discover/create the differences (or perhaps lack of difference?) between exploring, discovering, and creating. And I'll only briefly say that, yes, I think good writing is dependent on "truth," but probably only in the sense that it has to be internally and logically consistent. In other words, it has to "ring true."

The mask to which I referred, Brad, probably has less to do with the techniques of writing than with the psychology of writing. If you try to portray "real" events in your own life, I think the writing will often suffer for all the reasons I mentioned earlier, and a thousand other reasons I didn't mention. So, as writers, we instead lay a mask over those events and portray them as fiction. Some will lay a very thin mask over the events (risking the dangers of no mask), and others will lay a mask so thick and opaque even they have trouble discerning where reality and illusion diverge. Each writer has to paint their own mask, and it often seems to me that critics spend an inordinate amount of time trying to see through the writer's mask, to discern theme and message through personal history. Sometimes, I wish the critics would realize how hard it is for the cart to pull the horse. Sometimes, I wish the critics would realize the writing explains the history much better than the history can ever explain the writing. Most times, though, I just don't care enough about the critics to wish much of any thing.  

In one sense, this is an over-simplification, because I actually believe there are many different masks. Some may be conscious, but most aren't. The best writing, I think, is composed of many layers, each with its own mask, each with its own hidden meanings. This is where we leave the realm of craftsmanship and technique, entering the world of psychology.

A bit over ten years ago, while taking YACWC (yet another Creative Writing course) at UC Irvine, I decided I wanted my stories to be "deeper." I wrote two stories during that semester (one, Soothsayer, is posted in the Prose Forum, I think) where I purposely tried to weave a tapestry of hidden layers. Those were the last two stories I ever wrote that way, because I felt, and still feel, the story suffered badly because of the artificial manipulation. It was, nonetheless, a useful experiment, I think, because since then I've paid a great deal more attention to how the best writers seem to do it. And the answer, I feel, is a combination of courage and critical detachment.

The courage comes into play when those writers throw themselves into a first draft with no fear of revealing "too much." The words they pen generate (explore/create) feelings, and they use those feelings and insights to fuel the words that follow. They build upon what they've already built, sometimes layer upon layer, mask upon mask.

The detachment surfaces during subsequent drafts, when they look at the feelings again and decide if that layer helps or hinders the real story. At this point, I think they need to be able to step away from the feelings. Some layers, good as they might be, simply don't belong with other layers.

I'm still trying to decide which is harder to develop. The courage to reveal everything? Or the detachment necessary to evaluate what you first had to courage to say?  

(p.s. Titus, you can never write about another person's experiences. The best you can do is write about YOUR interpretation of those experiences. And you will inevitably reveal a lot more about yourself than about the other person.)

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