A thesis on the appreciation of poetry

Discussion in 'The Craft of Writing Poetry' started by OurJud, Mar 19, 2017.

  1. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2016
    Messages:
    2,429
    Likes Received:
    3,389
    He generally does.
     
    BayView, Homer Potvin and OurJud like this.
  2. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2010
    Messages:
    10,742
    Likes Received:
    9,991
    Location:
    Near Sedro Woolley, Washington
    Be good to each other, okay?

    Let's settle down a bit, folks, and stop calling each other names. We can express our disagreements, but when it comes to name-calling and general offensiveness, mods (like me) take notice. I don't want to start issuing warning points, but if people aren't civil to each other, I'll have to.
     
  3. badgerjelly

    badgerjelly Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2013
    Messages:
    1,558
    Likes Received:
    939
    Location:
    Earth
    Iain Sparrow -

    I would like to suggest letting us (or perhaps only me, due to hostility), try and find a poem that you not only like, but admire.

    My idea of a good poem is one that is euphonic, uses memorable and impactful metaphors, and displays a solid meaning that also has many nuances that can be explored and revealed upon further reading and study. People obviously have different tastes. Some like the meaning to be obvious, some are more taken in by rhyme or rhythm, others by assonance or alliteration. For some the theme may be off putting (the number of love poems tends to put me off of them).

    Would I rather gaze upon a sculpture or read/listen a poem? It depends on the piece. One thing that differs is that poetry can be precise in its meaning. Sculpture represents word concepts as much as words represent perceptions (in both sensory and more abstract ways). Because of this the written/spoken word has a certain degree and level of impression that you cannot get from a sculpture, and of course the reverse is just as true although on a much more abstract level.

    Judd -

    I do wonder about what part "fashion" plays into this. When I was 18 I listened to death metal, Kate Bush, Bjork and Beethoven. Most mediums of music I can listen to. What I do not like is Country and Western, and it is possible that because I don't live in the US that lack of exposure means lack of appreciation (of course there are some country songs I like, but generally I say no thanks). Also Bollywood genre sounded I found the dancing to be really ridiculous and camp. Then I watched a couple of movies and my appreciation for the dancing grew and the comical aspect of it I saw before disappeared.

    I think what you are asking has a lot more to do with critique in general than specifically about poetry. Did you watch QI? I remember Fry quoting someone talking about Jazz music and how evil and perverse the music was, absolutely hysterical description.
     
  4. ajaye

    ajaye Senior Member

    Joined:
    Feb 17, 2017
    Messages:
    283
    Likes Received:
    225
    Location:
    Australia
    What an utterly bizarre and horrible presumption.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2017
    OurJud likes this.
  5. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    N
    I meant a novel or play is harder to fake. It takes a lot of time and effort to write a novel or play, so if you're just deliberately churning out crap to sell, that will be more difficult to do. And if it is crap, it will be easier to say why. A poem is just 'self-expression' and you can't argue with that. Or not as easily. The criteria for judging poetry is different from what people use to judge other forms of writing. Poetry doesn't need to make sense. It just needs to 'be.'
     
  6. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    I agree with you. And some poetry has really opened my eyes, for many different reasons. I'm not anti-poetry in any way. However, I do think it's more difficult to judge 'bad' poetry than it is other forms of 'bad' writing, and more bad poets get away with crap than other bad writers do. You CAN fake meaning, or insist meaning is 'there' and if a reader doesn't get it, that's their problem. It's difficult to argue with that sort of approach.

    You CAN fake poetry. I know you can, because I've done it.

    I remember being required to write a sonnet when I was at school, and I just dashed off a piece to fulfill the assignment. It was crap ...I knew it was crap ...I was saying nothing, wrapped up in a few fancy words ...but it got an A. It also got published in our school paper as a 'star' poem. I remember how I wrote it. I was focused only on the form (sonnet), and said a lot of airy-fairy crap that simply rhymed and metered correctly. Wham. Publication and approving strokes. I felt really weird. On the one hand I wished I'd tried harder to write something that actually mattered to me, but on the other hand I remember thinking ...hey, this is an easy gig.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2017
    Pinkymcfiddle likes this.
  7. Pinkymcfiddle

    Pinkymcfiddle Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 17, 2017
    Messages:
    815
    Likes Received:
    454
    @jannert I've got some of the angst-ridden nonsense I wrote in my early teens, which was also praised. I reread it (a few years ago now- don't know where it is anymore) and it was narcissistic meaningless crap that was only given meaning as a child by raging hormones and a mistaken sense of profundity. Yet it was praised, I can only assume by people who (despite being far too old) shared my childish angst.
     
    jannert likes this.
  8. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    At least your angst was real. My reason for writing the poem was simply to fulfill an assignment. It was a cold-eyed attempt to please the teacher, not to say anything that mattered to me. And I guess that's my point. You weren't faking your poetry. You really meant it at the time, although you were young and it makes you cringe to think of it now. However, I WAS deliberately faking mine.

    In both cases, we garnered praise. So these might be examples that prove @OurJud 's original point? (Whatever it was... :))

    ...a mistaken sense of profundity. Love it. That's exactly what some poetry seems to exhibit.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2017
    Pinkymcfiddle likes this.
  9. badgerjelly

    badgerjelly Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2013
    Messages:
    1,558
    Likes Received:
    939
    Location:
    Earth
    Janert -

    I put weight in meaning first. Others put weight in feel and rhythm. Maybe the person marking your poem was just going through the motions, or maybe they valued the emotion they found in the piece, due to rhythm, and the meaning/intent did not matter to them.

    I frequently argue that meaning matters. At college I would argue the opposite because he insisted that poetry must express the full intent to the reader and not be open to interpretation. I am not quite so strict. I insist on core meaning being expressed, yet also see no harm in the reader putting part of their own spin on meaning, as long as the core meaning is preserved.

    The very best poems leave nothing open to interpretation and are rich with meaning that can be explored from many angles. I am thinking of Ode to a Nightingale here again. The language may be a little archaic, but it is not something that is open to interpretation. It says what it says and ticks all the boxes for expressing emotions, having depth of meaning expressed through a rigid structure with rich imagery.

    It seems there is a question of quality and quantity being expressed in this discussion too. You can argue that poems take less time to write than novels. That doesn't mean they are less artful. So in that respect it is easy to "fake" a poem, because it takes less physical time to write.

    It is also possible to write something accidently. I have done this fairly recently with the title of a poem that happen to capture the whole analogy of my poem (probably subconscious).

    You CAN fake a novel too. AI programs have made it through several rounds of critique. It is to do with how our brains function. We experience the world as a narrative, and our interpretations of it are our reality. Which is the theme of my novel coincidently - well, I am lying. I am purposely here discussing this because it is very relevant to my novel ;)

    Good art brings a dull artless mind into the sphere of art. The creative artist brings the dull into closer and more fascinating focus.

    The prefce of The Picture of Dorian Gray says all this better than I can
     
  10. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2016
    Messages:
    1,107
    Likes Received:
    1,062
    I like this one, a quick and sweet passage by Mark Twain...

    Good-bye! a kind good-bye,
    I bid you now, my friend,
    And though 'tis sad to speak the word,
    To destiny I bend

    And though it be decreed by Fate
    That we ne'er meet again,
    Your image, graven on my heart,
    Forever shall remain.

    Aye, in my heart thoult have a place,
    Among the friends held dear,
    Nor shall the hand of Time efface
    The memories written there.
    Goodbye,
    S.L.C.


    ... this classic poem that laments the passing of time and our brief existence, by Poe...

    Take this kiss upon the brow!
    And, in parting from you now,
    Thus much let me avow--
    You are not wrong, who deem
    That my days have been a dream;
    Yet if hope has flown away
    In a night, or in a day,
    In a vision, or in none,
    Is it therefore the less gone?
    All that we see or seem
    Is but a dream within a dream.

    I stand amid the roar
    Of a surf-tormented shore,
    And I hold within my hand
    Grains of the golden sand--
    How few! yet how they creep
    Through my fingers to the deep,
    While I weep--while I weep!
    O God! can I not grasp
    Them with a tighter clasp?
    O God! can I not save
    One from the pitiless wave?
    Is all that we see or seem
    But a dream within a dream?



    ... and Killer Queen, about a high class prostitute, by Freddie Mercury...

    She keeps Moet et Chandon
    In her pretty cabinet
    'Let them eat cake' she says
    Just like Marie Antoinette
    A built-in remedy
    For Khrushchev and Kennedy
    At anytime an invitation
    You can't decline
    Caviar and cigarettes
    Well versed in etiquette
    Extraordinarily nice

    She's a Killer Queen
    Gunpowder, gelatine
    Dynamite with a laser beam
    Guaranteed to blow your mind
    Anytime

    Recommended at the price
    Insatiable an appetite
    Want to try?

    To avoid complications
    She never kept the same address
    In conversation
    She spoke just like a baroness
    Met a man from China
    Went down to Geisha Minah
    Then again incidentally
    If you're that way inclined
    Perfume came naturally from Paris
    For cars she couldn't care less
    Fastidious and precise

    She's a Killer Queen
    Gunpowder, gelatine
    Dynamite with a laser beam
    Guaranteed to blow your mind
    Anytime

    Drop of a hat she's as willing as
    Playful as a pussy cat
    Then momentarily out of action
    Temporarily out of gas
    To absolutely drive you wild, wild
    She's all out to get you

    She's a Killer Queen
    Gunpowder, gelatine
    Dynamite with a laser beam
    Guaranteed to blow your mind
    Anytime

    Recommended at the price
    Insatiable an appetite
    Want to try?
    Want to try?
     
  11. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 21, 2009
    Messages:
    9,502
    Likes Received:
    9,758
    Location:
    England
    I don't think this can be argued against for one second, and in that respect it does differ from certain other art forms. But surely the question is, why would you? Who are you kidding but yourself (or in your case your teachers)?

    You've also go to ask would faked poetry such as this fool a publisher? I like to think not, but who knows? Maybe it would... which brings us nicely round in a full circle and back to my original point.
     
    jannert likes this.
  12. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    I'm not convinced you can't fake other art forms.

    I mean, I don't understand visual arts, so it's easy for me to dismiss some of the celebrated pieces I see as crap, the old "my two-year-old could have done better than that" line. But I do, more or less, understand written arts, and I can see both craft and passion in pieces, just as I can, I think, see when they're missing.
     
    jannert likes this.
  13. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    @OurJud - Of course you can fake anything. It's just that it takes more time and ...effort? ...to fake a novel than it does a poem.

    However, my example of me faking a poem, was not an example of how/why to fake a poem. It was an example of how the reader/judge (the teacher) didn't notice that it was crap.

    It WAS crap. It was perfectly scanned and rhyming crap, but meaningful content was simply not there. I know, because I didn't put any there. I just picked words that sounded good. And he didn't seem to recognise that.

    I don't think you'd get away with choosing words that just 'sound good' and convey no meaning for an entire novel. Or a short story either. Of course you can do it, but I suspect you won't get away with it. My point was that in poetry you CAN get away with it. Which, I think, addresses @OurJud 's original post.
     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2017
  14. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2016
    Messages:
    2,429
    Likes Received:
    3,389
    People string meaningless words together for novels and short stories frequently (take a look at the thousands and thousands of self-published works on Amazon). You won't see it very often getting published traditionally, but you won't see poetry like that getting published very often either.
     
    BayView and jannert like this.
  15. badgerjelly

    badgerjelly Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2013
    Messages:
    1,558
    Likes Received:
    939
    Location:
    Earth
    Jud -

    If you wrote the best song in the world, the best novel, or the best poem; without someone to distribute it may simply go unrecognized. LUCK makes a difference.

    As far as I know there isn't commercial market for poetry like there is for novels. I didn't happen to browse a selection of poems for sale on amazon and thought they were pretty poor and I am certain I could do a whole lot better.

    I started writing in that so called teeny angst phrase and used writing as a carthartic process. After a while I started to see and play around with the patterns of the words and started to read meanings into the stream of consciousness I had written purely for its rhythmical quality and flow. After a longer period of time I started to purposefully control the meaning of what I wrote.

    I still use the same process today. I write something I simply like the sound of and drop it quickly if no meaning presents itself. If it does I expand on it, and often drop the original line or lines which prompted the idea. Other times I purposely have a theme and/or something specific I wish to express.

    When it comes to publishing it is a mixture of luck, talent, current trends and fashions, and persistence. I like to believe that talent is the defining factor, but human nature tells me such a romantic idea may very well be unfounded. Quality is hard to quantify.
     
  16. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    Well, I have no statistics to offer on that one.
     
  17. badgerjelly

    badgerjelly Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2013
    Messages:
    1,558
    Likes Received:
    939
    Location:
    Earth
    Sparrow -

    I don't think it is fair to compare lyrics with poetry. I cannot help hear the voice and music when reading them. If I had never heard Queen and only knew these words would I rate it highly as poetry in and of itself? Impossible for me to say given my familiarity with the song.

    Twain piece doesn't do a whole lot for me. I don't see anything particularly astounding, but appreciate it and think it is nice.

    Poe, the first part I don't really care for a great deal, but the second part is quite breath taking and I would heap praise upon it no matter who had written it.

    The question is then does the Queen song hold more value to me than the second part of Poe's poem? Honestly I think it would depend upon my mood, just like I may fancy listening to Radiohead one day and The Bangles the next. Technically I find it very hard to make obvious comparisons between different mediums of art.

    Modern art has moved things into a completely different area too. For me it is more about a psychological/anthropological study.

    Over all I think poetry has more value to the writer than the reader. The good poet manages to express enough of their intimate self exploration of words and translate their feeling to another. Although it is impossible to achieve the replication of your own experience in someone elses head, poetry can reach others in a way that other mediums cannot because they are not the same medium.
     
  18. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2013
    Messages:
    17,674
    Likes Received:
    19,889
    Location:
    Scotland
    Urkkk. I just realised I edited the bit you quoted. Sorry.
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice