| Author | Message | ||
     Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
The Nation's seems to be TS Eliot and John Donne: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/6271039/T-S-Eliot-is-nations-favo urite-poet.html For once, I agree with the Nation!  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Both excellent choices, and reassuringly non-obvious ones. I would also vote for: Robert Browning, W.H. Auden, Sylvia Plath, Edwin Morgan. I'm rather tired of the Romantics. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Charles Bukowski is my favourite poet. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.222.21 |
Plath and Yeats. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.95.168 |
Pam Ayres. | ||
| Di (Di) Username: Di Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 86.144.226.5 |
Charles Causley | ||
| Steve Jensen (Stevej) Username: Stevej Registered: 07-2009 Posted From: 82.0.77.233 |
William Butler Yeats. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Wilfred Owen and R.S. Thomas. Howard Barker has also written some great poetry. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
The Holy Trinity: Dante-Milton-Blake. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Mark Everett - aka E Derek william Dick - aka Fish | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Poetry publisher Peter Sansom said he was sick of getting people's submissions of appalling books of sonnets with titles like Shards of Epiphany. That sums up Fish for me. E, on the other hand, is great. Terse, hard-edged and to the point. Song lyrics aren't poetry though, any more than films are theatre. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Di (are you Di Lewis?), Charles Causley is great. His late sequence on hospital visitors is particularly fine. It always angered me that Causley got so much less recognition than Betjeman, when if anyone was doing something important with traditional lyrical poetry it was Causley. But he wasn't allied to the self-image of the affluent middle class. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Of course song lyrics are poetry. Just because they're designed to be sung doesn't detract from their poetic nature. GCW would you care to chip in? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
"Song lyrics aren't poetry though, any more than films are theatre" Tell that to Jim Morrison (you might need to dig him up first) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
I don't mean they're inferior, Weber. I mean they're a different medium. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
For example: Bob Dylan wrote a number of poems in the early sixties. Some appeared in the sleeve notes to his early albums. One was read out live (at Carnegie Hall). They are not songs. They are not as good as his songs. Leonard Cohen's poems are sometimes very good but rarely as good as his songs. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
So where would the Doors' American prayer fit in. Basically Jim Morisson reciting poems with a musical background (including an alternate version of Riders on the Storm) Set to music they must be lyrics, which you claim makes them not poems any more. I just think that song lyrics are just more easily accessible poems. A better example than that would be the musical Cats - the poems of TS Eliot set to music... Do they cease to be poems when ALW's music is put behind them? | ||
| Di (Di) Username: Di Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 86.144.226.5 |
Hi, Joel! Yes, I've been lurking for too long. Causley's war poetry is as relevant today as it was then: I'm thinking of 'On The Eastern Front' and 'Armistice Day' | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.15 |
Probably Blake and Dickinson for me. If we're arguing about music lyrics vs. poetry - how about Shakespeare? If he's included, he'd have to be my favorite, of course. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
how about Shakespeare? If he's included, he'd have to be my favorite, of course ========== Why 'of course'? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.15 |
I guess, Des, because he's obviously - certainly to me, and generally to others - the ultimate writer, of almost any form. So whatever category is mentioned that Shakespeare can fit in - Who's your favorite tragedian? - an "of course" is earned, even when it can't be scientifically established (Euripides can get an "of course" too, for example, for that last question... but not John Webster). | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Shakespeare is one of the Great Poets. Any reading of his Sonnets or even better (imo) narrative poems will tell you that. But I consider The Divine Comedy - which I never grow tired of rereading or dipping into now and again - as the greatest poetic work humankind has yet achieved. And as poetry is even more of a dying art than literature most probably has no chance now of ever being bettered. As far as shorter poems go, again, I'm a classicist with Blake's 'Songs Of Innocence And Experience' being my favourite collection. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
I think Shakespeare is overrated, myself. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.47.222.21 |
Steve - 'Blake's 'Songs Of Innocence And Experience' being my favourite collection.' Wonderful. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.15 |
You can delete Shakespeare's sonnets and long narrative poems, and be left with all the poetry that is his plays, and he'd still be the top. And yet, he was writing under circumstances of extreme censorship. Putting to quash the idea that such censorship HAS to mean the death of the artist's art, in all cases.... Blakes SOI and SOE are his most accessible, and probably appeal more than anything else of his, to today's sensibilities - their lyric simplicity, the ambiguity of interpretation, innocence/experience as the crucial aspects of character development (as it's become, especially, in film), etc. His longer prophetic works are exhausting, but worthy pieces too - perhaps the age has not arrived for them to live in yet - perhaps they're seeds, waiting to sprout in some terrible new world to come? "Auguries of Innocence" is the Blake work I keep returning to, Biblical in its potency.... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.15 |
I think Shakespeare is overrated, myself. I will say this, Des: I think Shakespeare's was "one way," among more than one, that "myth-making" for lack of a better term, could have gone - it is the way the World chose to take. In that World, he is its mighty God. An example of another way, contemporary and worthy enough to compare to Shakespeare's, was Spencer's in The Faerie Queene. These two paths alone (leaving out others) exemplify: Individual vs. Allegory. Allegory is no less a worthy, magnificent, depth-capable myth-making art form, than the world we live in now; a World dominated almost exclusively by Tales of the Individual (and that does not exclude allegory, simply edges above it). If one doesn't accept the given World order, then sure... Shakespeare's reigning supreme, would be uncertain. All just imho. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
I don't know if I have a favorite poet, but some poets whose work I admire from time to time include: Auden, Russell Edson, James Tate, CK Williams, Pessoa, Billy Collins, Charles Simic, Ashbery, Stevens, Dean Young. Probably not in that order, though. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Here's one for you Joel.  L'Allegro (1631) by John Milton Hence, loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell, Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night raven sings; There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks, As ragged as thy locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come thou Goddess fair and free, In heav'n ycleped Euphrosyne, And by Men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore; Or whether (as some sager sing) The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-Maying, There on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides. Come, and trip it as you go On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free; To hear the lark begin his flight, And singing startle the dull night, From his watch-tow'r in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good morrow, Through the sweet-briar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine: While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, or the barn-door, Stoutly struts his dames before: Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumb'ring morn, From the side of some hoar hill, Through the high wood echoing shrill: Sometime walking, not unseen, By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, Right against the eastern gate, Where the great sun begins his state, Robed in flames, and amber light, The clouds in thousand liveries dight; While the ploughman near at hand Whistles o'er the furrowed land, And the milkmaid singeth blithe, And the mower whets his scythe, And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale. Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures Whilst the landscape round it measures; Russet lawns, and fallows grey, Where the nibbling flocks do stray; Mountains, on whose barren breast The lab'ring clouds do often rest; Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide. Towers and battlements it sees Bosomed high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some Beauty lies, The Cynosure of neighb'ring eyes. Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes, From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis met Are at their savoury dinner set Of herbs, and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses; And then in haste her bow'r she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; Or, if the earlier season lead, To the tanned haycock in the mead; Sometimes with secure delight The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth and many a maid, Dancing in the chequered shade; And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holiday, Till the live-long daylight fail; Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, With stories told of many a feat, How Fairy Mab the junkets eat; She was pinched and pulled she said, And he by friar's lanthorn led Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn, That ten day-lab'rers could not end; Then lies him down the lubber fiend, And stretched out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength, And crop-full out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his matin rings. Thus done the tales, to bed they creep, By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. Towered cities please us then, And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all commend. There let Hymen oft appear In saffron robe, with taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever against eating cares Lap me in soft Lydian airs Married to immortal verse Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed, and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus' self may heave his head From golden slumber on a bed Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear Such strains as would have won the ear Of Pluto, to have quite set free His half-regained Eurydice. These delights if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
For the record, I think Shakespeare is overrated, too, Des. (No offense, Craig. You can still love him if you want. ) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.15 |
Eliot's The Waste Land is a poem firmly in the school of Allegory, come to think on it. It's quite un-Shakespearean (what with its apocalyptic vision alone, and Shakespeare was quite non-apocalyptic, even anti-apocalyptic you could say). And you seem to have quite enjoyed the choice of Eliot as poet supreme. Have I stumbled onto something, Des...? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.15 |
"Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild...." Milton seems to level the two. And Jonson too, in some plays, represented another "path" that "myth-making" could have gone. Take SEJANUS, which is a political play - themes of man's (plural) interaction with man is its life-blood, and it almost totally eschews the arc of the individual, or of inter-personal relationships-in-transition (the type of individual analysis that dominates contemporary film). It all could have gone the way of, say, SEJANUS, which is itself a worthy and magnificent play... but it didn't.... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.15 |
Shakespeare wrote one thoroughly political play as well: KING JOHN. How would things be different today, if most of his plays were of that "universe" instead?... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
I love Eliot's FOUR QUARTETS as well as THE WASTE LAND. I sometimes enjoy Shakespeare (whatever the circumstances of his life and writing), but I wonder if we can truly judge his work ... it's a patchwork of wonderful moments amid a dramatic usage that works well or badly according to its 'performance'. I don't think we can judge his work, too, becuase we are taught to be glassy-eyed about him as a landmark of literature. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Shakespeare's poems are fairly minor. His plays are meant to be seen and heard, not read. The best of them are very great indeed. Des, how can you not recognise King Lear and Macbeth as two of the finest plays ever written – the first a stunning meditation on power, corruption and madness, the second a terrifying drama about greed, murder and guilt? A really good production of either leaves you shaking, inconsolable. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
A really good production of either leaves you shaking, inconsolable. ================ Are we shaking because we are truly shaken or because we feel we should be shaken? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
"Shakespeare's poems are fairly minor." He wrote masterpieces like Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, thou makest me hot, and sweaty. I'd like to roll with thee in t'hay And change my name to Betty Something like that anyway. Flawless poetry | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.225 |
Are we shaking because we are truly shaken or because we feel we should be shaken? This is sort of a bottomless-pit of a question, Des, because we can apply it to anything. Someone hands me a copy of THE SHINING and says I should be amazed because it's one of the greatest horror novels of all time - I read it and AM amazed, so now I vex: was I amazed only because I thought I should be amazed?... I think Shakespeare's work flawed in any number of areas. So is any other "great" work, let alone lesser works - again, a bottomless-pit of a critique. So then the bottomless-pit applied back to me: How do we assess the work, if everything reduces to perception? Perhaps only time can do that - Shakespeare survives, in ways that Jonson does not. But even time is not the final word, because in time, some monuments themselves fade away (e.g., The Aeneid). I think then we can reduce all art to: Age(as in, ages of man)-ephemeral phenomena. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
Craig, interesting. That's why perhaps I do real-time reviewing .... and a close attention to text rather than textpectation. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
It is reflexive to include Shakespeare among the greats, much as it is reflexive to include CITIZEN KANE or Sgt. Pepper. Times change, and values change. It is probably good from time to time to examine whether these "absolutes" still withstand scrutiny. I studied King Lear and Macbeth in college and I recognize each play as a masterwork mainly because I've been told they are masterworks. I have little to compare these works to, however. The only other plays I've read, I confess, are 20th century plays -- Beckett, O'Neill, etc -- and these bear little resemblance to Shakespeare's. Having read the plays I can say that Shakespeare had "quite a turn of phrase," as my father might say, but they have little emotional impact for me. The productions I've seen have not left me shaking or inconsolable, merely bored. When my friends tell me they count Shakespeare's works among their favorites, I wonder whether they are saying that because they truly feel that way or because they have come to understand that this is what an intelligent person must say. For me his work remains enigmatic. I certainly don't want to belittle Shakespeare's work -- clearly I'm missing something here -- but it never hurts to give a second look. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
My biggest problem with old shakey is the (now) opaqueness (opacity?) of the language used which forms an instant barrier to the understanding of the plays which only a fantastic performance can overcome. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer fantastic performances of the Bard - partly because of the language problem. IMHO | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.5.88 |
There is a phrase that occurs twice in Shakespeare, only worded slightly differently each time. In HAMLET, it's, "The readyness is all," while I think it's better in KING LEAR: "Ripeness is all." I think this applies to anyone's response to Shakespeare, and other proved great works of art. There is a time and place for Shakespeare, like there's a time and place for Beethoven, or yes, CITIZEN KANE and Sgt. Pepper's. There's also a time and place for the ludicrous and laughably gruesome joys of BURIAL GROUND, a time and place when no Shakespeare will do.... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
Very true, Craig. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
This is the problem with creating "best of" lists (or with any forum in which artists are placed in competition with each other) -- Shakespeare competes with Milton and Eliot, KANE competes with LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and THE GODFATHER, Sgt Pepper competes with Ziggy Stardust and London Calling, Ulysses competes with Lolita and Absalom, Absalom. Each of these are a product of a specific time and place. How can they be compared? Given the degrees of complexity, innovation, and influence of each of these works, how can any one of them be deemed superior to another? Of course this holds true even for works of the same time period: ultimately how can one artwork be said to be "better" or "worse" than another? For similar reasons Roger Ebert, the eminent film critic, complains about the star ratings his readers love so much: If he gives three stars to a fairly well done summer blockbuster, does that mean the film is as good as a just-missed-the-mark Lars von Trier film he also gave three stars? Ebert gives star ratings, he says, according to how closely the film achieved what it set out to do: "If a director is clearly trying to make a particular kind of movie, and his audiences are looking for a particular kind of movie, part of my job is judging how close he came to achieving his purpose." That seems fair enough to me. But Ulysses and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, et al, came about as close as possible to achieving the purposes they set out to achieve. So how can we compare them? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
I suppose it comes back to the original poll here ... favourite poet, not necessarily the best one. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.228 |
I don't have the patience for poetry and never have. But if I had to pick someone Hillaire Belloc comes to mind | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Ogden Nash | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
From his posts generally - and in the nicest possible way - I sense JLP is an anti-intellectual. Or is this the Intentional Fallacy on my part? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.15 |
I seldom read poetry anymore, but I always keep T.S. Eliot's The Complete Poems and Plays within reach. Apart from that - the occasional poem by Byron or Wordsworth. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.10.20.129 |
Regarding Shakespeare,it is almost impossible to believe that just one man could have produced the completely astonishing body of work- be it the comedies, tragedies, whatever. Over rated- I'm afraid I would have to disagree completely. Poets: Keats- Donne- but I hardly read any poetry- and certainly no contemporary poetry- I wouldn't know where to start- not a clue. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
"Are we shaking because we are truly shaken or because we feel we should be shaken?" I'm trying not to take offence at that, Des. I don't appreciate (for example) Mozart, Wagner or Pink Floyd, despite the fact that I am supposed to. Shakespeare is a brilliant and unique writer diminished only by dull and reverential analysis and lousy school hall productions. His writing challenges conventional thinking about both political and personal issues, and allies startlingly modern characterisation to deep thought about wider issues. The ambition and intensity of his best plays (including King Lear, Macbeth, The Tempest and Hamlet) are exceptional. Our Internet-diluted vocabulary and attention span are in danger of placing these great dramas beyond our intellectual reach, but we will be vastly impoverished by an inability to enjoy them. Especially as the Victorians, whom we consider cultured, were unable to see these plays in these full form as the content and language were considered too shocking. We have the capacity to accept the raw sexuality and bleak violence of Shakespeare's tragedies – will we let fear of intellectual difficulty put us off? | ||
| Steve Jensen (Stevej) Username: Stevej Registered: 07-2009 Posted From: 82.0.77.233 |
Exactly, Joel. One only has to recall Orson Welles's remarkable adaptations of Shakespeare's work (Julius Caesar, Macbeth etc) to see how WS speaks to all ages. Honourable mention for Julie Taymor's striking Titus. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Our Internet-diluted vocabulary and attention span are in danger of placing these great dramas beyond our intellectual reach, but we will be vastly impoverished by an inability to enjoy them. Beautifully put, Joel. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
Yes, beautifully put. When we reach down into ourelves we do know whether we are truly shaken or dutifully shaken. It takes some intellectual strength to do that. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
No it doesn't, Des - it just takes honesty. Being shaken, moved, by a piece of art is as honest an emotion I can think of. Intellectualism has little to do with true emotion. For example, I was as moved by Pixar's "Finding Nemo" as I was by Bergman's "Through a Glass, Darkly". | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
All IMHO, of course... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
I was referring to Joel's "will we let fear of intellectual difficulty put us off?" des | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Likewise, Stuart Little is between Kes and Deliverance on my video shelf. For no particular reason. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Karim – have a look at Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Tony Harrison and Seamus Heaney, just to start with. Or more recently, Carol Ann Duffy's Mean Time. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
And Gary McMahon's Rain Dogs is next to Elizabeth Bowen's Collected Stories on the bookshelf I can see in front of me as I write this. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Surely that's an insult to Bowen. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Alone From childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved alone. Then- in my childhood, in the dawn Of a most stormy life- was drawn From every depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still: From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain, From the sun that round me rolled In its autumn tint of gold, From the lightning in the sky As it passed me flying by, From the thunder and the storm, And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view. A quick pome I knocked up last night. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Now that's a poem... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
I am drawn to Shakespeare by the mystery as much as the beauty of the language which for me works equally well when read as when seen on stage. In fact reading the plays is preferable to a perfunctory performance and living in the cultural backwater that is Belfast I have precious little opportunity to see great stage productions. I have collected bit-by-bit most of the Arden annotated editions which are the only way for a modern reader (this one anyway) to fully appreciate the texts. I love coming across a baffling phrase and having to scan the notes at the foot of the page to make sense of it. I find the process is great for the brain and gives me the same sense of excitement and discovery that decoding some ancient manuscript must bring. The same goes for my editions of Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, Dante, Chretien de Troyes, Malory, Milton & Blake. In school you couldn't have got me to look twice at such fusty old "classics" but as I've got older I've found myself irresistibly drawn to them - initially to understand the roots of the fantasy genre but now because I've grown to love the musical flow of the language and the sheer undimmed quality of the stories... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
And how could I have forgotten the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Bronte - kindred spirits if ever there were!! | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.10.20.129 |
Thanks Joel, I will definately check them out. I did read some of Seamus Heaney's work in college, and I remember enjoying it. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Thanx Zed, just a quick bit of fluff I scribbled down in ten minutes or so... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
'A quick pome I knocked up last night.' Not so. We recognise it. Of course. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
I have been thinking further about the 'truly or dutifully shaken' part of this debate, its 'intellectual' or 'honest' rigor. I've just been listening to some ostensibly discordant string quartet music by Peter Maxwell Davies. Am I enjoying this becuase I am enjoying this? Or am I enjoying this for different or intangible reasons? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
I will admit to having help with some of the words... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
I'm aware that you're a poet yourself Joel and look forward to reading them as well as your fiction. I like the vibes I'm getting about your work. Anyone here read Lovecraft's poetry? The only part of his writing I don't have and been very tempted to order that complete collection 'The Ancient Track' compiled by S.T. Joshi. Even if the material is deemed "minor" I'd still like to read it. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.12 |
I do understand that emotional response, Des. I recently heard the entire John Zorn 50th Birthday Celebration series, twelve different sets with Zorn playing with Fred Frith, Yamataka Eye, etc. Many and much of these CDs is just, frankly - noise. Discordant, pattern-less, cacophonous chaos. But... I greatly enjoyed them. And I can't figure out to myself, why am I enjoying these?... am I enjoying these, or do I just think I am?... The bottomless pit of questioning, that becomes a cheesy joke, again though: Are you mad, or do you just think you're mad? Do you love me, or do you just think you love me? Did that hurt when I punched you, or do you just think you're feeling pain? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
HPL's Sonnet Sequence 'Fungi From Yuggoth' had a major effect on me in the Sixties. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
Exactly, Craig. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
Craig, you should listen to 'Metal Machine Music' by Lou Reed if you're into "discordant, patternless, cacophonous chaos" lol. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Lovecraft's poetry is mostly either dull or just dreadful, but the 'Fungi From Yuggoth' sequence and a handful of stand-alone poems are effectively weird. The Ballantine paperback of his Selected Poems, possibly titled Fungi From Yuggoth, is mostly quite good. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.12 |
But looking over my own silly questions above, Des, I can dovetail this back to Shakespeare, because these are the themes he explores when he's at his best, and he does it best in the realm of LOVE. Shakespeare explores issues of LOVE to its very terribleness - he strives as he might to cross the event horizon of that concept/thing, exploring what it is, LOVE, what it means, what it does, and so on. The greatest writers and artists all venture into the nightmare otherworld of LOVE, imho. The touchy-feely love of rom-coms and romance is worlds away behind, to where the greatest artists go in their explorations. ANTONY & CLEOPATRA is, to me, one of Shakespeare's strangest plays - it's structured and fashioned in a way that still seems ahead of us. And it, to me, is one of Shakespeare's most penetrating analyses of the theme of "What is LOVE?" It nearly crosses into horror even, as these two characters venture into the otherworld of that silly question, and beyond: "Do you love me/Do I love you, or do you/I just think you love me/I love you?" Both character are driven to madness by this speculation in the course of this play - Antony more the victim than the wily Cleopatra, but both going to places they shouldn't have gone... (all, of course as I read it). Shakespeare's asking the same questions we are here, in his plays. What is, or is not, X? Do I experience X, or do I just think I do? Hamlet does this a lot - most of his soliloquies are about the nature of being itself, and what is at the uttermost of one's own consciousness. One of his best lines: "It depends on what the definition of IS, is...." Wait - that was Hamlet, wasn't it? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
And people thought existentialism was a modern concept... | ||
| Darren O. Godfrey (Darren_o_godfrey) Username: Darren_o_godfrey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 207.200.116.133 |
Dante Poe Shakespeare Yeats | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.220.33 |
I like this one by Dylan Thomas - FERN HILL Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, The night above the dingle starry, Time let me hail and climb Golden in the heydays of his eyes, And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves Trail with daisies and barley Down the rivers of the windfall light. And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, In the sun that is young once only, Time let me play and be Golden in the mercy of his means, And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold, And the sabbath rang slowly In the pebbles of the holy streams. All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air And playing, lovely and watery And fire green as grass. And nightly under the simple stars As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away, All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars Flying with the ricks, and the horses Flashing into the dark. And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all Shining, it was Adam and maiden, The sky gathered again And the sun grew round that very day. So it must have been after the birth of the simple light In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm Out of the whinnying green stable On to the fields of praise. And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless ways, My wishes raced through the house high hay And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs Before the children green and golden Follow him out of grace. Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is always rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly with the high fields And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. I love the sentiment that that poem evokes. As I enjoy it recreated in any medium. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
Having re-read some of that fasinating thread from everyone, I do apologise if some of my own brainstorming implied things it was never meant to imply. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.229.90.65 |
From his posts generally - and in the nicest possible way - I sense JLP is an anti-intellectual. Or is this the Intentional Fallacy on my part? Well that's the sentence that kept me awake for a little while last night once I was back from seeing Dracula AD 1972 on the big screen & I still don't have an answer I'm afraid. Considering that in my professional life I'm actually considered too intellectual by many of my highly educated colleagues I suspect I fall between two pillars. Or rather sit elegantly between them with a beautiful girl on my knee | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.181.247 |
My favourite poet is Thomas Hardy. Much as I love his novels, I prefer his poetry in many ways. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.148.243.36 |
"Well that's the sentence that kept me awake for a little while last night once I was back from seeing Dracula AD 1972" The fact that you would want to see Dracula AD 1972 on the big screen means you must be anti-intellectual Lord P! gcw | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.237 |
I was waiting to see which of you intellectuals would pick up on that! And the prize of a pat on the head with a mallet next time I see them goes to Il maestro himself Mr Cole-Wilkin! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
Nostalgia is intellectualisation of an earlier self within the setting of an alien self that one has since become. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.15 |
Curses! Here's a Dracula I haven't seen! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
The fact that you would want to see Dracula AD 1972 on the big screen means you must be anti-intellectual Lord P! I'm just hoping it comes here!! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
The great artists for me always possess that quality that's been called the 'thrill of recognition': our own lives laid intimately bare on stage or in book form, etc. Shakespeare is FULL of that. That's what makes him universal. As for the suggestion that we might only like him because we're told to like him, well, sure, if you care more about your social self than you do about authentic experience. I suggest that we all go through a period of that - principally when we're young and interpersonally insecure - but that we eventually grow out of it once experience has its way with us. Although nothing springs to mind just now, I'm convinced Shakespeare has at least a few lines to put this better than I ever could. And that is just part of his genius. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 81.155.31.72 |
I'm old enough to know I don't grow out of things that easily. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
You're right. We don't grow out of it. That's why the concept of 'guilty pleasures' always elicits a smile: that tension between what our treacherous selves crave and how we generally see our-selves. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
That's not my definition of a guilty pleasure. Guilty pleasures are thing we know are crap/bad for us/unhealthy but we like them anyway...like proper fried chips, shitty horror films and cheap women. I grow out of things on a daily basis. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
They're guilty because they don't fit in with how we like to view ourselves, aren't they? Or how we like others to view us? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Not for me. I don't care how others view me, and I know myself well enough to accept that I like trash just as much as I like the other stuff. For me, they're guilty because I know they're bad for me in so many ways... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
>>>I don't care how others view me Oh, give over. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Do you honestly think I'd prance about the way I do if I cared how others saw me?  I'm not 12. Although I often act it. To be serious, though, of course I don't care how others see me. Why should I? It doesn't even cross my mind (or are you suggesting we all do it subconsciously?). If one goes through life caring how others sees one, then one is a bit of a sad fuck, IMHO. (Got stuck in the "one" thing there, didn't I?) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Actually, I suppose I care that people don't see me as some kind of mentally retarded blob of flesh who feeds through a tube. So, yeah, I suppose you have a point. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
I think posturing like this proves you care how others see you. And yes, I do think you care how others think of you. I do think you tacitly second-guess what others think of you every time you speak or type (especially when you don't say/write what you might have said/written in the 'heat of the moment'). How could it be otherwise? It's true of us all. This is the very basis reflexive consciousness. Excessive self-regard, however, is another matter. Maybe that's what you mean. But it's not what I mean. As Des said above, we never tug ourselves completely free of this: even seeking feedback for a story has some of this stuff. There's a bit of David Brent is all of us. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Posturing? Now that's funny. I'm physically posturing, too, as I type this. I do think you tacitly second-guess what others think of you every time you speak or type What exactly do you mean by that, though? If you mean subconsciously, then I can't argue with that - maybe we do. What I'm saying is that anyone who actually consciously modifies their behaviour, or what they say or type, because they're worried what others think has some serious issues. This is the very basis reflexive consciousness. Can't argue with that, either, because I don't know what it means. I's a bit thick, innit.  | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.157.30.167 |
If I had to choose one, I would say Charles Baudelaire is my favourite poet. But I also really love the work of Shelley, Byron, Keats, Emile Nelligan, Rimbaud, Blake, Joseph Payne Brennan, Aleister Crowley, Ramprasad, Rumi, Poe, Gwendolyn McEwan, and Yeats. It might not be a popular opinion these days, but my evaluation of poetry, and indeed of art in general, is rather conservative and echoes the notion put forth by Robert Graves in The White Goddess: "The test of a poet's vision is the accuracy of his potrayal of the White Goddess and the island over which she rules. The reason why the hairs stand on end, the eyes water, the throat is consticted, the skin crawls and a shiver runs down the spine when one writes or reads a true poem is necessarily an Invocation of the White Goddess, or Muse, the Mother of All Living, the ancient power of fright and lust --- the female spider or the queen bee whose touch is death." Given this defintion, I have no interest in or respect for poems that revel in trivial banalities of daily life for their own sake. Poetry is not the language of the everyday, it is the Invocation of the ineffable (which Graves personified as the White Goddess). Without the touch of Other, that hint of the primal terror of the infinite, poems are simply word-salad with nothing to say at all. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
>>>What exactly do you mean by that, though? If you mean subconsciously, then I can't argue with that - maybe we do. Probably mostly subconsciously, but probably more consciously than we like to admit. >>>What I'm saying is that anyone who actually consciously modifies their behaviour, or what they say or type, because they're worried what others think has some serious issues. Yeah: David Brent. Which brings us neatly back to the theme of this thread: what great art gives us. The Office succeeds here in presenting an exaggerated portrait of a man stuck in an extreme mode of being with which we can all identify cos it is us. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Yeah: David Brent.  Which brings us neatly back to the theme of this thread: what great art gives us. The Office succeeds here in presenting an exaggerated portrait of a man stuck in an extreme mode of being with which we can all identify cos it is us. I certainly agree with that. Or am I just saying that so you'll think I'm dead cool? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
Are you just trying to proactively distance yourself from such fundamental neediness because you want to present yourself as ruggedly independent and not subject to the interpersonal frailties of the common man? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
It's about 6 o'clock, but unfortunately I can't make it to the party. (That is what he asked, right?) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.110.23.32 |
Kids, the Wriggling Clown will not, alas, be performing today. | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.136.90.130 |
I'm coming quite late to this discussion. Anyway, I read a little poetry from time to time and my fave must be Elizabeth Bishop, who was not yet mentioned here. For example, google for her "Large Bad Picture". | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.220.229 |
Sorry, Richard: I like some of the poets you list (especially Baudelaire and Rimbaud), but I think poetry that affects special mystical knowledge and a 'transcendence' of the real and the human is just pompous nonsense. By and large, writers who claim to be beyond 'the mundane' are staggeringly parochial and insular in their view of the real world. They have no true depth of perspective. Great poetry does indeed focus on important themes, not on banalities – but pseudo-themes like 'the White Goddess' are hollow, pretentious denials of experience and responsibility. There is great poetry with religious themes – Donne, Hopkins, Eliot, Rilke, Heaney, R.S. Thomas, Jack Clemo – but it isn't the superior, elitist posturing of 'occultist' writers, it's motivated by a desire to share a human vision. Josph Payne Brennan always claimed his poetry was the victim of a 'modernist' conspiracy to deny him his rightful status. This at a time when the most popular and acclaimed American poet was Robert Frost! The truth is that Brennan's poetry, for the most part, lacked originality and had little to say. I don't see 'the White Goddess' in Baudelaire or Rimbaud: I see a bitter awareness of lived experience and an engagement with real and serious human issues. Their heirs are not the likes of Brennan but Eliot, Rilke, Lorca, Neruda and even Ginsberg. To look at poetry in the twentieth century, I think, it helps to start with two great milestones: Eliot's Four Quartets and Rilke's Duino Elegies (the US translation is superb). Both, in fact, are concerned with metaphysical themes, but both are deeply humane and rich in feeling and awareness. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.39.3 |
I don't think one can generalise (not that Joel was generalising as such) about the purpose of literature vis a vs responsibility or irresponsibility, visionary or mundane etc. - because of the bluffs (single, double, triple etc) or 'seven types of ambiguity' that can lead to areas of truth and responsibility beyond the poet's conscious intentions. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.187.123 |
Why limit oneself to what one considers worthy subject matter (or the way of approaching it) in poetry? I don't care whether a poem concerns itself with the everyday or the transcendent, as long as it moves me in some way and is well crafted. Some of my favourite poems are Chinese and Japanese, and they succeed in bringing together both the mystical and the mundane at the same time. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.39.3 |
I agree with Huw. There's 'concrete poetry' too. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.0.106.15 |
For me it's the beauty - or music - of the language and the subconscious dream-like associations it sets off in the mind that turns me onto poetry. The subject matter could be mystical, spiritual, emotional or mundane though given my love of fantasy literature it's only natural that my favourite poets will be those (like Dante, Poe, even Lovecraft etc) who plough a similar field. No one need apologise for what turns them on... if it does it does. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.157.30.167 |
Joel, Thank you for your response. I won’t touch on everything in it since I feel that some points come down to down to one’s personal aesthetics. I put your comments in quotation marks: You wrote: "Sorry, Richard: I like some of the poets you >list (especially Baudelaire and Rimbaud), but I >think poetry that affects special mystical >knowledge and a 'transcendence' of the real and >the human is just pompous nonsense. By and >large, writers who claim to be beyond 'the >mundane' are staggeringly parochial and insular >in their view of the real world" Although I’m loathe to open the door in any sort of esoteric discussions/debates, I will say that great poetry is not a “’transcendence of the real and the human’,” as you phrase it, rather it is a moment of awakening. As I stated in my initial post, Graves uses the White Goddess as a *personification*. It is a reflection of this full-on Being; a symbol for the interaction between a stirred, awakened individual who, through a poem, a song, a story, achieves a peak experience and becomes briefly aware of the vastness of things. They come away transformed. Mystical needn’t be such an ugly word. I think of it as being a personal, internal experience from which one emerges transformed. We cannot plan them, we sometimes don’t expect them, but our lives are always enriched by them. Now, in terms of writers claiming to be “beyond the mundane”…well, I don’t think much of people who “claim” anything, but I think everyone should bloody well be striving to get as far “beyond the mundane” as they possibly can, especially those involved with any creative expression. To me, the mundane does not refer to a social class or one’s level of education. Rather it is the thoughtless, shrugging acceptance of the staid conditions of a dull, seemingly helpless existence. ('Well, this is as good as it gets. Everything’s been said and done. All the good stuff’s been taken. So I’ll just watch some T.V. ‘cause there’s nothing else worth doing.') The mundane is thinking --- and secretly hoping --- that tomorrow will be just like today. It is scoffing at notions such as excellence and originality. Mundane is a state of mind, a state of being; one that everyone --- not just poets or artists --- should be fighting against. If someone’s vocation is plumbing, they should strive to be a master of plumbing, to plumb better than anyone has before them. "They have no true depth of perspective." Why, because some poets refused to use the parlance of the street? Because some of them wrote of a very specialized experience that was never meant to be undertaken/enjoyed by everyone? The Tibetan Buddhists have written some of the most exquisitely lush verse describing the visions they experienced through the Book of the Dead realization rituals. Now, here you have poets who are “insular” in the sense that they are monastic and often living outside the apparent world. But their perspective runs far, far deeper than most peoples’. There are infinite ways of interacting with the universe and infinite ways of expressing one’s interactions. Just because the experience being described by a poet isn’t one that every man, woman and child on Earth can relate to doesn’t mean it lacks perspective. It could simply mean that its perspective is focused on something removed from the everyday life of most people. "Great poetry does indeed focus on important themes, not on banalities – but pseudo-themes like 'the White Goddess' are hollow, pretentious denials of experience and responsibility." I fail to see how Graves’s theory that great poetry should give the reader a shudder-inducing thrill of awakening to the vastness of existence winds up being a “pretentious denial[s] of experience and responsibility.” The White Goddess is not a theme, it is a crucial element of that great poetry evokes. "There is great poetry with religious themes – Donne, Hopkins, Eliot, Rilke, Heaney, R.S. Thomas, Jack Clemo – but it isn't the superior, elitist posturing of 'occultist' writers, it's }motivated by a desire to share a human vision." Again though, I never claimed that all poets should deal “with religious themes.” Initially I mentioned no themes whatsoever. The “test of a poet’s vision” that Graves describes can take *any* form and deal with *any* theme. It could be a deceptively simple haiku about rain, a piece of concrete poetry, a song; but the poem acts as a springboard that launches the reader elsewhere, perhaps even well beyond what the poet was intending. I think that thrill of recognition, the awakening, will vary from reader to reader. Also, I don’t think that just because something deals with occult (i.e. hidden) themes (such as my Tibetan ritual example) or expresses something in a cryptic, occult manner automatically makes it “elitist posturing.” And why is something that conjures images or ideas that are beyond the apparent of daily life not part of the “human vision”? Even poems that mention gods or monsters or fabulous plateaus, are these types of visions not human ones? "I don't see 'the White Goddess' in Baudelaire or Rimbaud: I see a bitter awareness of lived experience and an engagement with real and serious human issues. Their heirs are not the likes of Brennan but Eliot, Rilke, Lorca, Neruda and even Ginsberg.” Though I never said that any of the poets I listed were heirs to anything, there are unquestionably some mystical/transcendental elements in Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Rimbaud’s concepts of the “derangement of the senses” and “the Monstrous Soul” leap immediately to mind in this regard. These aren’t about showing the world as it is, they are about shaking up perceptions and viewing the worldly deeply and askew, in a lingering disquiet or outright deranged horror and lust. "To look at poetry in the twentieth century, I think, it helps to start with two great milestones: Eliot's Four Quartets and Rilke's Duino Elegies (the US translation is superb). Both, in fact, are concerned with metaphysical themes, but both are deeply humane and rich in feeling and awareness." And there we are, my friend: “rich in feeling and awareness.” The key to great poetry. We agree after all! Sorry to ramble so long there, Joel & everyone! Best, Richard | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.188.115 |
Richard, I appreciate your well-argued and considered response to my somewhat hasty posting. I suspect we appreciate different instances of an essentially similar kind of poetry. However, if 'refusing to use the language of the street' is one of the criteria of great poetry, where does that leave Rimbaud? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 129.11.76.229 |
In the interests of responsible moderation, may I suggest you both settle this contentious debate with a punch-up? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Gary Fry - always the peacemaker | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.110.174.71 |
Gary, Not to worry. Joel and I settled our impassioned discussion offline, conducting ourselves like true poets: we got stinking drunk at a brothel, started a random brawl, puked in a nearby gutter, begged for some spare change and then cried ourselves to sleep under a starry climes. A good night all in all. Viva la poete! All jokes aside, for me, just finding another person who actually cares about poetry, let alone one who can truly discuss/debate its finer points like Joel, is a refreshing change. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.171.167.39 |
My view is that poetry is literature's form of intarsia - wherein we can all either get lost or find our way .... or both. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.171.167.39 |
The question also remains: to what degree should poetry (or any literature) be didactic, committed, engaged before it becomes 'using' art rather than experiencing it for its own sake? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Everything is for the sake of life, Des. Whether that means wholesale engagement with themes or detached enjoyment of what 'looks nice', it's all about meaning and resonance at some level. Bizarrely, no-one questions the use of literature to explore love or death, but its use to explore human social and economic relations is frequently condemned. Politics (in its broadest sense) is for us what sex was to the Victorians: not something to be raised in the arts or in polite company. That is because we are as afraid of politics as the Victorians were of sex, and as bad at dealing with it. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I know little about poetry (sadly), but the older I get the more I think that art should be used rather than experienced for it's own sake. The concept of "art for art's sake" always struck me as a somewhat middle class conceit anyway; art should have a purpose, IMHO, even if that purpose is simply to tell a meaningful story. (I'll put my tin hat on now ) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Richard, I was struggling yesterday to bring to mind the Canadian poet who most clearly shows the influence of Rimbaud. Late last night I remembered: it's actually a duo who wrote in collaboration under the names 'Terrance and Phillip'. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 129.11.76.230 |
Art has generally been regarded as the woolly-minded sibling of practical science - the one you'd never ask to give you directions. As Oscar Wilde once said, however, that's a load of fucking bullshit. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.171.167.39 |
Well, my question was answered. I have no quarrel with the answer: 'life'. It is what embues everything, even the differing views of politics. For eample, I am left-wing politically. But middle-class artistically. ;) Good story, Zed, is not, I feel, 'using' literature to tell it because good literature IS a good story, good for whatevre reason of plot or other aspects. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Ah, that's where we disagree, Des. I think art, like most things, is a tool - a tool for getting a message across, whatever that message might be. it's actually a duo who wrote in collaboration under the names 'Terrance and Phillip'. That made me chuckle, Joel...  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
You don't need literature to tell a good story, IMHO...spoken word: signs and gestures. Like I said: art is just another tool. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.171.167.39 |
Exactly, Zed. My point. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.110.174.71 |
Joel wrote: "...it's actually a duo who wrote in collaboration under the names 'Terrance and Phillip'." Indeed!  Joel wrote: "no-one questions the use of literature to explore love or death, but its use to explore human social and economic relations is frequently condemned. Politics (in its broadest sense) is for us what sex was to the Victorians: not something to be raised in the arts or in polite company. That is because we are as afraid of politics as the Victorians were of sex, and as bad at dealing with it." Now that's an interesting point, Joel. I'd never thought of fear (and perhaps bewilderment) as being one of the reasons why some people shy away from political themes. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.110.174.71 |
Zed wrote: "...art should have a purpose, IMHO, even if that purpose is simply to tell a meaningful story." Hear, hear. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
As I've just noted on another thread, there are writers who shouldn't go near politics because (a) their views are tedious and/or (b) it's not what they're good at. I'd rather read good love poetry than bad political poetry. Mind you, great political poets can also be great love poets – Pablo Neruda being a case in point. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.171.167.39 |
Good stories come in various forms and audience-sensitive according to needs and tastes. Is entertainment-to-didacticism a spectrum or a single overlapping thing? One can be more didactic or meaningful by not being didactic or meaningful. With un-self-conscious subliminal or subconscious effects. Is David Lynch didactic or just providing nightmares for the nightmare-hungry? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.171.167.39 |
Is politics tedious when it is dealt with tediously or when it is simply wrong? Or both? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Is a bell necassary on a bike when you have a horn on? ;-) | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
If you're flexible enough, you can use your horn to ring the bell. Or are you thinking of a different horn? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.177.37 |
'Concrete' poetry. Yes, there is a lot of good stuff in that. As long as it lives, is the answer, for to experience life intensly or truthfully is to transcend also. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.177.37 |
When I go to see Shakespeare it's the actors and directors who are as responsible for the plays being effective as much as he is. I've not seen many but Hamlet last year blew my socks off - for the most part. It depended on the actor I was watching, the positioning of a light bulb. I think we undervalue the group effort in art; we seem to like the lone voice. To see the reading of a piece by another who really understands it - or feels something for it - can really sway our opinion. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.177.37 |
With stories (or indeed any art) it's ok to feel taught but not at all to be lectured. Also, stories can be timeless, newspapers not. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.177.37 |
And some guilty pleasures are really 'showy-offy' pleasures - it's like admitting to being naughty. Which we all do! Sorry these replies are so fractured; I'm sure you can all guess the posts I'm referring to. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.171.167.39 |
Just had an ear syringed. Now I can hear again in stereo. And a horn and bell on Zed's bike would be better than Harry Partch. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I have no fear of discussing politics at all. Left wing socialism is striving toward the betterment of humankind while right wing conservatism only strives for the protection of the accepted order and the betterment of the individual. One is a noble if sometimes naive pursuit the other is ignoble and selfishly blinkered. Morality should never be detached from politics. If anything it is more important that we trust those who actually rule our lives than those who merely comment upon it. Artists like Dickens & Chaplin understood that and I'm very much in their camp. It's about time modern artists took their gloves off and started making a difference once more! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.171.167.39 |
Politicians muss up. Nothing has or ever will be made better by Politics. Only art and story-telling makes things better permanently.... Well that's a fiction, I suppose. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.177.37 |
Capote says art is the only thing that survives a civilization. Des, I hope you've read him by now! | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
I could not get into In Cold Blood. I thought it was tedious and just did nothing for me. I gave up after 80 pages. I'm probably going to be shot now. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
In Cold Blood is one of the best books I've ever read. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Des, you've eloquently summed up why politics should belong to the people and not the politicians. |