A list of adjective that describe poetry:
worthless
inane
unimaginative
pretentious
A poet is somebody who writes song lyrics but doesn't have enough talent to write accompanying music. As a result, poetry is a sub-par form of literature/art that expresses only part of whatever the writer was thinking about. Also, those who read poetry think that the people who write it are brilliant and talented. They end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by thinking that a poem is actually about something. So, they end up reading the poem and coming up with a twisted and obscure manner in which the poem can end up reflecting a comment on society or something of that nature. For instance, in high school one of my teachers was a poetry nut (a.k.a. can't read well) and forced us to read a poem about a red wheelbarrow. He then went on to explain that the wheelbarrow was a metaphor for society and that the poem was about communism. No, fucker. The poem is about a red wheelbarrow and poetry sucks and it doesn't represent anything. Read a fucking book instead of a paragraph full of stereotypical metaphors and actually learn something from literature.
Some common every-day items that are adequate substitutes for poetry:
picture
painting
dog shit
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hmmm. As a former English teacher, I tend to disagree. While I think some poetry is asinine, I think that there is certain poetry that is music in and of itself. Have you ever heard of the Black Mountain Poets?
I’m aware that this post was written just to get under my skin specifically, and that I should smile and ignore it, but alas, I cannot.
The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
First of all, Jon and Matt, I’m very sorry that your English teacher was dumb, but this poem is not about communism. If fact, it’s not about anything and that is the point. This poem was written for the sake of the words on the page, the visual art of the words, and not what they mean. This was a revolutionary new way of thinking about poetry, which Dr. William Carlos Williams was involved in.
The Second Coming, by W.B. Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Now I don’t see why I would have to defend this poem, it’s genius and my absolute favorite. BUT for those of you who might not agree with me, please explain how this poem doesn’t fully express what its author intended. Every single word was meticulously chosen for its meaning, connotation, sound and rhythm.
You say poetry is a sub-par form of literature/art.
Let’s start with art. If I had a canvas, and I painted the word fear in black letters, then that would not be art. But if I created a scene or an image that made an observer feel or understand the fear of the situation, then that would be art.
If W.B. Yeats wrote about the story of WWI and how horrible things had happened and how it made him feel as though the world was ending, then that would not be art. But with this poem he’s created an image and a feeling using figurative language and allusions, and that is art.
Poets craft words together in new and beautiful ways to get their messages across. No, it’s not right there on the surface, but that is exactly what makes it art: you have to think about it.
Which leads me to literature. Literature is a subtle form of poetry, NOT the other way around; it is impossible to separate the two. Anyone could write a story with a setting and a conflict and some characters, in any plain kind of language they wanted, but it will probably not be literature (trust me, I’ve tried). Something becomes literature when it uses the words in new and original ways to subtly create feelings and make the reader think. And, by the way, that’s what poetry is!
Another interesting point that completely destroys this horribly worded, ill-conceived “argument”, is that prose wasn’t even considered a form of art until probably the late middle ages. All of the Greek and Roman classics were poetry.
All of this is, of course, ignoring the fact that most poetry is metered, structured according to a certain form, has a rhyme scheme and has rhythm. Therefore, writing poetry is just as, if not more, difficult as writing large amounts of free verse prose.
On that note, here’s an Edgar Allen Poe poem. Read this out loud, and tell me that its author did not achieve something as, if not more, impressive than the authors of any of those canonized works of literature.
The Bells
I
Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II
Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! -how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III
Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now -now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV
Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people -ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells,
Of the bells -
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
P.S: SUCK ON THAT, JENDALL FACE!
Things that are wrong with your rebuttal:
1. The red wheelbarrow poem could be taken to be about communism. The poem says that "so much depends on a red wheelbarrow", which could be taken to mean that society is dependent on agriculture and farming as a basis for all of its activities, because without food, we die. Therefore, this could reflect the notion that all sects of society should be treated equally, because they all serve to allow the others to exist. Also, the wheelbarrow is red, which is a color commonly associated with communism. You just got schooled and I'm only on point #1.
2. You say that the red wheelbarrow poem was written for the visual art of the words on the page. Therefore, if you outlined the words with rectangular boxes and then erased the words inside, you would have the same amount of artistic meaning. That is why I dislike poetry; because it's a waste of words. Instead of writing a book, which uses words at their most fundamental and pure, poetry serves to largely ignore the meaning of words and instead use them as clip-art to create a picture.
3. You say that painting the word FEAR on a canvas would not be art. Who made you the decider of whether or not something is art? I say that art is whatever the creator wants it to be. If someone paints FEAR on a canvas and it expresses something artistic to their mind, who are you to disagree?
4. Literature is a subtle form of poetry? The chicken and the egg argument, nice going.
5. Prose wasn't considered a form of art until the middle ages? What is that supposed to mean, that nobody wrote books before then?
5. All of the Roman and Greek classics were poems. Yea, because they weren't talented enough to write a good book. I've read a lot of poetry and lot of books, and I can say honestly that writing a book takes much more talent. Read Catch-22. Tell me that it isn't the most insanely inspired and creative use of language on the planet, and I'll know that you're full of crap. No poem will ever come close to the imagery and humor and genius word-play that Heller uses in that book. It's pure gold.
6. That Bells poem sucks. Wow, he used the word "bells" 50 times in one poem! That's so creative.
SUCK ON THAT, MANSFIELD!
Post a Comment