Hail Poetry!

I like the conciseness of poetry (or most poetry). I'm not a huge fan, but the concept of chosing just the right words to portray a vivid and rich experience is very cool.

That's why I voted for "short" -- I like the a spare turn of phrase, but it must suit the sentiment.

Also, I like to read a poem over and over, which would be hard if it were very long.

The world in a little blue egg of time.
My favorite poetry is Haiku.
This is not one.

The Poem

One moment,
one thought,
captured and preserved like wine
for anyone to drink in
a week from now
or a thousand weeks
from now.

Joe

I like poetry because it sounds exactly like
music made out of words

Hi Babs, Hi Joe,
Haiku is great. We in the west have twisted it a little... at least from what I've read. In Japanese it was expected to be a certain number of syllables, but that could be altered if necessary. The most important thing is to show a natural change with the sparest, most descriptive words. I love it too!

Most music has poetry for its lyrics... Robt. Burns being a wonderful poet, of course, whose words have been set to music. I think many musicians are also poets. Letty had a short topic on Hank Williams' work -- very poetic. Then there's old Bob Dylan, a wonderful poet.

I am not well-versed (hee) on iambic pentameters and other types of rhythm and rhyme, but I know there are some that seem to let the words swing along like a wonderful waltz. A nice thought, that it sounds like music!

I went for "Makes me think". Poetry is far more than rhyming, much of which is doggerel anyway. If there is no substance of thought in the piece, it is not poetry no matter how it scans or rhymes. Meter, alliteration, onamatopaeia, simile, juxtaposition, and development of synergystic idea, among many other factors, matter far more to me than mere phonic similarity of word endings.


And among todays greatest poets, I would include Leonard Cohen ... without doubt in my mind the most "Literate" of contemporary musicians. On the other hand, I think Rod McKuen may well be America's "Best Understood Poet", which at once condemns him and the taste of "The Public At Large".

Then again, I like anchovies, and frequently mix stripes and plaids, so what do I know?



timber

rarely poetry is so fine that it can get me high. It's sometimes beautiful.

But I'm a tough critic and find most poetry to be drivel. Even my favorite poet has few poems that cut the mustard.

I will not vote in the poll, due to the fact that I am a Poet myself. Poetry is very interesting for when it is written by certain people and studied or kept simplified it is easy to digest and understand. Either you love it, hate it , or are in the middle.
Then there are several poets out there that paint michaelangelo textures, that get miss interpereted or simply skimmed through since throughout ongoing centuries we make our sentences, their structure, and our prose in general shorter and weaker. To capture our newfound audience of readers.

It is almost like nowadays if you are a poet of deepness, or a writer of something besides See Spot Run. and wish to enrich you have to go all the way back to the burning of the book's, Censorship, and look back at what all these dead famous writer's showed us. Determination,Courage, and imagination. I Could go on and on but no one would probably reply
Though I will still write

Thanks, Timber, Craven & Mellow, for your thoughtful replies.

Timber --Leonard Cohen is another great poet/musician. And of course you are right that simple rhyming is not poetry. A poet who can put it all together AND make it rhyme has mastered the craft.

Craven -- I was thinking your favorite poet was Poe which means he'll never be able to catch up. Some religious poetry may get some religious people "high" but I am not such a severe critic. I can find beauty in a lot of poetry.

MellowGemini -- You could still vote in the poll, despite being a poet. I think I understand what you are saying... that is, poetry can be analyzed and specific symbols discussed which sometimes, to me anyway, brings it more to life. At least it shows that the poet didn't dash off a few lines and call it good, but carefully pieced the words together.

I'm not much of a "texture" person myself. I want a clear thought, sincere and true. It doesn't have to be long or complicated. If the poem is that way, I'm expecting it to build on itself.

To me, a good poem is like a bell. It has some simplicity, perhaps only one tone, but it's clarity is so beautiful that you don't get tired of hearing it over and over, or many years afterwards.

I have little patience for poems that are hyperintellectualized or that seem deliberately obscure and hard to access.
Nor do I like abstract 'word pictures' with no discernible (to me at least) meaning. (like 'The Emperor of Ice Cream' by Wallace Stevens).
I don't mind stretching, but I don't think you should have to have a PhD in English to appreciate a poem or a poet.

I am willing to invest time in a poem; to read and re-read it, to read it aloud. At a certain point if I'm getting little from it, I let it go.
If somebody else thinks it's extraordinary, fine for them.

The poetry I love:

opens up my heart, makes me think, can make me cry.
It can make me gasp in shocked admiration.
Sometimes a poem evokes a feeling or paints a portrait that makes me say: 'Yes! that's the way it is!' or: 'What a wonderful way to say that!'

I don't love all poems. Not even all the poems of my favorite poets.
I might like only a quarter or a third of poems by a particular poet.
Of those there are usually a handful that knock my socks off.

Jjorge -- You have said this very well. A poet or an author who over-intellectualizes his or her work is playing games, not "hold(ing) secure the province of Pure Art," "the deeply loved, the laboured polished line" which were the aspirations of one fine female poet I admire. (Gee, I wonder which?)

Piffka

Here's a great quote from Russell Baker on 'New Poetry':

'I gave up on new poetry myself thirty years ago, when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens on a hostile world.'

Piffka

Coincidentally, as I have been posting on A2K I have been listening to NPR ('The Connection') and who should be the guest this hour?...poet, and opponent of academic elitism, Dana Gioia.
He has been arguing eloquently for the accessability of poetry.

I had never heard of Gioia before, or read his poems, but I like what he has been saying....notwithstanding that GW Bush has nominated him to head the National Endowment for the Arts.
(The latter makes me a little cautious knowing how the repubs have savaged that organization and some have tried to kill it.)

I just went to 'The Connection's web site intending to post the Russell Baker quotation. Here is the link if you or any A2K'er,
wants to know more about Dana Gioia.


http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2003/01/20030106_b_main.asp

Thanks Jjorge! What a great way to start the week. It is wonderful to find a good poet. Here's a couple of the poems by Dana Gioia that were available online:


The Country Wife

She makes her way through the dark trees
Down to the lake to be alone.
Following their voices on the breeze,
She makes her way. Through the dark trees
The distant stars are all she sees.
They cannot light the way she's gone.
She make her way through the dark trees
Down to the lake to be alone.

The night reflected on the lake,
The fire of stars changed into water.
She cannot see the winds that break
The night reflected on the lake
But knows they motion for her sake.
These are the choices they have brought her:
The night reflected on the lake,
The fire of stars changed into water.

......
I picked the first because I love meaningful repetition.

I picked the next poem because it speaks to the writing of poetry.
.......

The Next Poem

How much better it seems now
than when it is finally done--
the unforgettable first line,
the cunning way the stanzas run.

The rhymes soft-spoken and suggestive
are barely audible at first,
an appetite not yet acknowledged
like the inkling of a thirst.

While gradually the form appears
as each line is coaxed aloud --
the architecture of a room
seen from the middle of a crowd.

The music that of common speech
but slanted so that each detail
sounds unexpected as a sharp
inserted in a simple scale.

No jumble box of imagery
dumped glumly in the reader's lap
or elegantly packaged junk
the unsuspecting must unwrap.

But words that could direct a friend
precisely to an unknown place,
those few unshakeable details
that no confusion can erase.

And the real subject left unspoken
but unmistakable to those
who don't expect a jungle parrot
in the black and white of prose.

How much better it seems now
than when it is finally written.
How hungrily one waits to feel
the bright lure seized, the old hook bitten.

..........

Don't you love the image of a jungle parrot?

.....

Babs, You who were interested in poetry because of its music... if you happen to see this, he wrote another poem called 'The Litany' and afterwards had this to say in his notes:

"A reader will either understand "The Litany" intuitively or not at all. It will help, though, to read the poem aloud. Its organization is musical. Though not all art aspires to the conditions of music, this poem wants to be heard and not seen. What better way than music to describe the invisible?"

jjorge,

Ya like any Poe?

Craven

Perhaps I need to read more Poe. Perhaps I need to re-read him.

His technical virtuosity and musicality are undeniable...yet...up till now he hasn't done much for me.

Currently however, I'd have to say:

I'm not a Poe boy.... but a Dickinson.

Piffka

Very, very nice.
Those are the first Gioia poems I've read. They won't be the last.

Verse 16 from Sonnets from Orpheus by Rainer Rilke

You, my friend are lonely, because...
We gradually make the world our own,
even its feeblest, riskiest portion,
with our words and pointing fingers.

Who points a finger at a smell?
Still, among the forces we dread
there are many you know.... You sense the dead
And you cringe when you hear teh magic spells.

You see, we two have to manage some way
with piecework and parts, as if they were whole.
Helping you won't be easy. Above all:

don't plant me in your heart. I'd grow to fast.
But I'll guide my master's hand and say:
Here: This is Esau, in his pelt."

Now that is poetry. I am awestruck by Rainer Rilke

Hi Julie! Welcome to a2k and thanks for posting the Rilke poem. Is that your favorite of his? It has some amazing images: cringing at magic spells, and planting oneself in another's heart.

But, I must admit it doesn't make too much sense to me. I've reread the story of Orpheus and Eurydice just to be sure I wasn't forgetting something. Maybe this is a different Orpheus? I'd be glad if somebody would give me more of an explanation.