Craft

[Appalachian Writer]

A few weeks ago, I was asked to judge a chapbook contest, partly because I enjoy a little recognition locally and partly because it's hard as hell to get someone to judge these things. I just finished going through the stack of pocketfolders that cradled the entries.

YUK! After I finished, I almost wanted to cry. Most of the "poets" who entered this contest knew nothing about the craft. I'm a great proponent of free verse, but I found very few entrants who knew anything about meter (a requirement, I would think, for all poetry). More than half had compiled a long list of love poems, mostly ranting about betrayal, with very few that went beyond that standard "he left me and I'm really pissed off." Please, please comfort me with your understanding of what makes a good poem. What are the elements that compose well crafted work?

[ddgryphon]

rhythm, meter, sound--good use of metaphor or at least an excellent hand at drawing a scene in words. A good poem, like a good song will be internally consistent, play with images:

Perhaps this (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=563693&postcount=1)will make you feel better

[JBI]

I completely understand what you are saying. Free verse is supposed to be even more structured than metric poetry. But I feel that the majority of aspiring poets (me included at times) fail to grasp this. In addition, the common consciousness, especially amongst young poets I have critiqued (I post on 4 poetry related forums) seem as you have said, to talk of betrayal at love. I think this has to do with the lack of excitement people find in ordinary life, and the basic fact that romance has been so heavily over dramatized in media for the past 50 years (more, but the copious amounts of romance novels and bad love songs, not to mention mediocre movies help create this allusion).

To make a great poem, you need both perfect structure, in terms of sound, word choice/placement, metre (even in free verse), line breaks, etc.

You also need a unique concept. If it has been said before, only better, the poem seems to lose my interest.
That being said, the great critic and writer (though a mediocre poet) Oscar Wilde said, "All bad poetry is sincere." The most sincere of the free verse stuff I have come across seems to be rubbish, only fit for a family photo-album, or to read to those involved. It is good poetry that goes beyond personal experience, and pushes towards a relatable collected consciousness in the world population.

The theme and the structure must both play off of each other, and the content must be fresh, and must deal with something more than the writer cares about, or can relate to, or learn from.

[Appalachian Writer]

Thank God! For a while there I thought I was losing my mind! A few weeks back, there was a thread in this forum asking why people didn't read poetry. Now, after this experience, I understand why more than ever. Judging from the entrants in this particular contest, it appears that the study of craft is no longer a part of the aspiring poets portfolio. I pose another question, based on the answers you've given to the first: Is the loss of interest in poetry due to the this lack of craft? Is it because the so-called poets that are springing up in colleges and universities are too impatient to learn the technicial aspects of craft?

[JBI]

There are still popular and read poets. I thought that thread rather comical in many regards, since it wasn't asking "Why do people not read poetry" but was really asking "Why do people not read my poetry". I would think the free versification of poetry has killed most interest, since many people don't know what they are doing, but society has deemed a "Say it is art, and it is art." (I can't remember which artist said that).

There are some great contemporary poets, Thilias Moss, Rita Dove, Jayne Cortez, Li-Young Lee, Seamus Heaney, Jay Macpherson, Daryl Hine, etc. all of which have sold, and do sell.

I think, now that the new formalist movement has pretty much ebbed, people need to take more care with how they write their verses, instead of just stringing some images together (I have done this at times too, we all have, but the internet creates this allusion that we need to post everything). I think, also, that people, especially those who write poetry, need to read a lot more of it, and need to read more free verse poetry if they intend to write it. I know my education dealt mostly with canonical poets writing in metric lines, and it wasn't until I started my real education that I came across a good form of free verse. Even T. S. Eliot doesn't read like free verse to contemporary readers. Free verse has gone beyond that, and even beyond a down motion, to the point where you can have writing anywhere on the page, and can read in more than one direction. People who are writing, I find, have not encountered that, unless they look for it.

[Ken]

I don't think metre matters much,
or any of that other technical huppla.
Poetry is about reaching down deep.
If your verse does that it's successful,
no matter how clumsily it's crafted.
The reason why poetry has become unpopular is do to poets insistence of sticking to the old rules of constructing verse, which stike most moderns as artificial and as a substitute for substance.
It's like looking at a woman with lots of makeup on. Maybe she really is beautiful under all that guck, but one tends to doubt it, otherwise she wouldn't have bothered with all that eyeliner and shadow and lip gloss, etc.

ps I read one of your posted poems App and liked it, so don't take this critique personal.

[William Haskins]

a mere commitment to formalism without the talent to execute it properly hardly makes for solid craft.

yet a commitment to free verse with the talent to execute it properly can make for a poem with the force and complexity of a thousand hacked-together sonnets.

the "modernist vs. traditionalist" conflict is vastly overblown. but division and accusations of "splitters" and "purists" always occur when any group competes for a smaller and smaller group of adherents. and that is where we are at.

a few centuries ago, novels were novel, music was performed, not broadcast, and poetry flourished because it had a valuable seat at the table.

now it's, in many ways, a relic. but i digress.

the "elements that compose well-crafted work" are invisible when successful.

all the reader sees of a clump of language that has somehow triggered something inside them.

whether you get there by parroting templates that worked in the past, or can harness the chaos and creeping surrealism in the modern psyche, is irrelevant.

[skelly]

the "elements that compose well-crafted work" are invisible when successful.

That's it, in a nutshell. It's like that deal in physics where, at some bizarre sub-atomic level, the act of merely trying to observe a certain particle or process renders it nonexistent.

If what you do captures people's hearts and souls, then in time others will imitate you and it will become a formal structure.

At which point it will--and rightfully so I think--begin to die.

[Stew21]

It really is one of the things I love about poetry. The things that make it work are invisible when done well. We've seen some incredible evidence of that here. Poetry is more than the sum of it's words. Choosing the right elements to make that so is not always easy. I hardly notice what it was that made a poem work when it is there, but I know something's missing when it doesn't. All of the elements/poetic devices seem to show when it doesn't work.

[temerity]

I thought that thread rather comical in many regards, since it wasn't asking "Why do people not read poetry" but was really asking "Why do people not read my poetry".


"That thread"--my thread?
JBI, surely I'm not as egotistical as that.

...out of all of my english teacher's (honors!) classes (more than 180 students), he knows of exactly two students who have even a little interest in poetry. Why aren't they reading Dove, Neruda, Cummings?

Again--why aren't people reading poetry?

[Ken]

"the "elements that compose well-crafted work" are invisible when successful."
good point, but do you think a work can still be good even if it doesn't have an underlying structure at it's core, if it is even possible to erect such an edifice?

[Stew21]

by "underlying structure" do you mean traditional poetic form?

[Ken]

Yes, or any other structure dictating how the words and whatnot should be arranged.

[Stew21]

I don't think metre matters much,
or any of that other technical huppla.
Poetry is about reaching down deep.
If your verse does that it's successful,
no matter how clumsily it's crafted.
The reason why poetry has become unpopular is do to poets insistence of sticking to the old rules of constructing verse, which stike most moderns as artificial and as a substitute for substance.
It's like looking at a woman with lots of makeup on. Maybe she really is beautiful under all that guck, but one tends to doubt it, otherwise she wouldn't have bothered with all that eyeliner and shadow and lip gloss, etc.

ps I read one of your posted poems App and liked it, so don't take this critique personal.

"the "elements that compose well-crafted work" are invisible when successful."
good point, but do you think a work can still be good even if it doesn't have an underlying structure at it's core, if it is even possible to erect such an edifice?

Yes, or any other structure dictating how the words and whatnot should be arranged.

I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be thick. You are starting to confuse me. You think underlying structures are or are not necessary in a poem being well-crafted?

Sticking with your original post, I do think some elements are required if poetry is to be considered a craft instead of a rant.
Those elements don't necessarily dictate the words or the order of them, though many forms of poetry can influence those things.
Even free-form poetry needs to use poetic device to be effective.

[Ken]

Confused myself. ;)
Okay, I think outright structure imposed on a poem, (ektoskeleton) is stuffy and a turn off to modern day audiences. But then Will raised an excellent point about good poetry having an internal skeleton or frame, which I acknowledged was fine, by contrast, though just as an aside, I wondered if that too might not be done away with, not necessarily to improve the poem, but just to give it a freer form, for the sake of experimentation.

[JBI]

"That thread"--my thread?
JBI, surely I'm not as egotistical as that.

...out of all of my english teacher's (honors!) classes (more than 180 students), he knows of exactly two students who have even a little interest in poetry. Why aren't they reading Dove, Neruda, Cummings?

Again--why aren't people reading poetry?
They all listen to music. At least some of that is good poetry (I think the best poet of them all would have to be Wagner).

Ask this question back, how many of them read real novels. It isn't poetry reading that is down, but reading in general, because of lack of interest.

[JBI]

Confused myself. ;)
Okay, I think outright structure imposed on a poem, (ektoskeleton) is stuffy and a turn off to modern day audiences. But then Will raised an excellent point about good poetry having an internal skeleton or frame, which I acknowledged was fine, by contrast, though just as an aside, I wondered if that too might not be done away with, not necessarily to improve the poem, but just to give it a freer form, for the sake of experimentation.
Structured verse is an older form than free verse. The reason isn't because it confines, but rather because it allows for rhythm, which helps trigger memory. I know Doctor Johnson used only to write half his poems out, because his memory could reconstruct the rest with just the rhyme. It is because of that that Homer, and the bards of old composed with metre.

Now we don't have that problem, but if a poem is scattered it takes away from the clarity of thought. There is no must for metre, but you look at most good free verse, and it is very metric. It has a sound, a feel, a pulse. You don't need to write a sestina to be metric. Walt Whitman's verses rely on assonance to create flow, Eliot's rely on repetition.

Look at the most famous poets of the day, they all have a hidden pulse in their poems which keeps the flow together.

[temerity]

They all listen to music. At least some of that is good poetry (I think the best poet of them all would have to be Wagner).

Ask this question back, how many of them read real novels. It isn't poetry reading that is down, but reading in general, because of lack of interest.

In class I know that we have all read "real novels" due to necessity. Yes, at least some read "real novels" for pleasure as well; however, even those who read "real novels" steer away from poetry. I know I did. The music?--mostly mainstream rap, though I have to stress mostly.

Anyway, my real point was to correct you--I didn't ask "why don't people read my poetry" but rather "why don't people read poetry." To suggest that I'm really just concerned with who reads my writing (not poetry) is as incorrect as it is insulting; let's look at the bigger picture.

[Appalachian Writer]

I don't think metre matters much,
or any of that other technical huppla.
Poetry is about reaching down deep.
If your verse does that it's successful,
no matter how clumsily it's crafted.
The reason why poetry has become unpopular is do to poets insistence of sticking to the old rules of constructing verse, which stike most moderns as artificial and as a substitute for substance.
It's like looking at a woman with lots of makeup on. Maybe she really is beautiful under all that guck, but one tends to doubt it, otherwise she wouldn't have bothered with all that eyeliner and shadow and lip gloss, etc.

ps I read one of your posted poems App and liked it, so don't take this critique personal.

Thanks for the compliment on my work. I appreciate readers. I put pieces up on the boards and count readers. I know that sounds strange, but I need to be read like I need to breathe.

I disagree, however, with your idea that the rules, the construction of poetry is artificial and a substitute for substance. If you want to be a rocket scientist, you have to learn. If you want to be a carpenter, you must be trained. You get my point here? Throwing your emotions on a page doesn't mean that you're affecting others, doesn't mean that your poetry is anything more than release from the pressures you face. Someone on this thread said that they'd read poetry that should only be read to the people involved. Is that poetry? I wonder.

[Ken]

I hear what you're saying JBI.
In my own work I rely on rhythm, not as a memory aid, but to make the material easier for the reader to digest, as they'll know what to expect, and also so that the dramatic points along the route jump out, rather than getting lost amid the shuffle. I still remain facinated, though, about the possiblity of eliminating structure and rhythm as is done in avante guarde Jazz compositions.

maybe you're right, App, maybe?
Writing a poem isn't quite like building a house.
If you neglect to put up enough support beams in the later, the whole thing will collapse.
With poetry though...
Still you do have to be able to write very well to be a poet.
I'm not denying that for a second. You just may not have to be versed in the technical stuff, like rhythm and metre. Then again maybe you do. Must give the matter more thought...

[P.H.Delarran]

a lot to ponder here.
I've become aware that some of my work is self focused and after stepping away a bit, I see much of it as just an emotional vent.
rather immature and not very inviting.
yet I am not ready to ditch some of the themes I explore-(family, personal history and how it molds, other self modifiers,) I need to step outside of my personal relationship to the events and attract the reader .. and perhaps meter is is a key there? it lends a predictability that draws others. personal experiences are universal and yet unique in perspective. i.e; most have lost a loved one, or had a heart broken.
interactive events. you have to be in the ring to experience them.
can one get some enjoyment as an observer, if the presentation is right?

many classic poets explore personal themes, but don't appear full of angst.
I have no examples, not one that can spout off the classics, and this is one lesson I'm learning here... read more.

[ddgryphon]

a mere commitment to formalism without the talent to execute it properly hardly makes for solid craft.

yet a commitment to free verse with the talent to execute it properly can make for a poem with the force and complexity of a thousand hacked-together sonnets.


the "elements that compose well-crafted work" are invisible when successful.

all the reader sees of a clump of language that has somehow triggered something inside them.

whether you get there by parroting templates that worked in the past, or can harness the chaos and creeping surrealism in the modern psyche, is irrelevant.

emphasis, mine.

Here is the crux of the matter. It is simple and direct--whatever tools you use to put a poem together should seem invisible--that's the art, that's the trick.

[LimeyDawg]

Bunk. Every popular song today is an extension of poetry, all wrapped in a structure of metrical and rhymed verse set to music. The problem with modern audiences, and here I'm generalizing, is that they need immediate gratification. Poetry doesn't deliver, instead forcing people to think beyond the immediate now. This is why poetry is unpopular to most modern audiences, IMHO.

Confused myself. ;)
Okay, I think outright structure imposed on a poem, (ektoskeleton) is stuffy and a turn off to modern day audiences. But then Will raised an excellent point about good poetry having an internal skeleton or frame, which I acknowledged was fine, by contrast, though just as an aside, I wondered if that too might not be done away with, not necessarily to improve the poem, but just to give it a freer form, for the sake of experimentation.

[JRH]

I'm not going to try joining in this discussion as I've laid it all out before in an Essay, "On Writing Poetry" http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90376 which only Norman Gutter replied to, and a Poem, "Writing Poetry?" http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85143 which only Poeticpiers commented on.

What is the point in discussing what one likes or dislikes in "Poetry" without understanding the basic "Philosophies" and "Elements of Craftsmanship" on which such is based.

Read some texts on the elements of Poetry and read my Essay and my Poem,
Maybe then, you'll have the groundwork to understand what you are trying to discuss.

Jim Hoye,

[Appalachian Writer]

emphasis, mine.

Here is the crux of the matter. It is simple and direct--whatever tools you use to put a poem together should seem invisible--that's the art, that's the trick.

And there are tools. Poets should read poets, should understand meter, should be able to employ poetic device, should consider line breaks as important as the words. Poets should KNOW words; they should be able to express sentiment without using overt sentimentality. I could go on, but my fingers are tired.

[William Haskins]

And there are tools. Poets should read poets, should understand meter, should be able to employ poetic device, should consider line breaks as important as the words. Poets should KNOW words; they should be able to express sentiment without using overt sentimentality. I could go on, but my fingers are tired.

but it's important to remember that none of what you (correctly) point out above relies on formalism.

in fact, to deny a poem can be so without formal structure is to ridiculously assume that poetry burst into existence fully-formed, already with structure. surely this is not the case. surely, poetry existed as a very separate thing from prose (indeed from conversation) prior to being formalized.

this were times of a mostly illiterate populace that depended on memorizing verse to retain it or perhaps having it read aloud to them, both of which were enhanced by predictable rhythm and meter.

in the age of near global literacy, in the age of the printed page, poetry can do more. it can play with the eye as much as the ear.

furthermore, as with the visual arts, as with music, as with theater, convention is made less important by accessibility in our age. poetry is no longer only about exalting god or exalting heroes or exalting love (though it can certainly be so), it's about anything and everything.

with this freedom comes the freedom (and rightly so in my opinion) to break the walls imposed by history.

remember that with any formal school came a history whose shackles the young turks cast off. they were all revolutionary and without the sentimentality many of us now harbor for them.

[JBI]

What a sophism. memorize this skivaskiv swivslivswig svinswig abnaganabagamba verses this hello my name is bob, I live in a big tree. Clearly the second is far easier. if a poem is 4 words, maybe you don't need metre, but if a poem is long, how is the reader supposed to remember what goes on at the beginning? how can memory retain the development. You have all the freedom in the world to write without form, and your readers the right not to read you.
Patterns help our mind develop the ideas, and retain the value. Take for instance 100 notes of music, randomly generated, what sort of music is that? Why bother listening to such noise. Now take 100 randomly generated words. What sort of poem is that.

[William Haskins]

yes, there's absolutely no middle ground between formalism and randomly-generated words...

[JBI]

Formalism is different than writing with structure. Formalism implies a form, such as Sonnet, whereas all poetry has a structure, some structures just happen to be better than others.

[JRH]

Until the mid-20th Century, the purpose of Poetry was perceived as communication of all forms of experience, be it physical/personal, intellectual, emotional, or observed in such a manner as to convey MEANING and INSIGHT into human nature and the world around us from ALL possible perspectives in as CLEAR and CONCISE a manner as possible using elements of craftsmanship based on Purpose, Continuity, and Cohesiveness of Images and Thought, organized in a structure that was Unified and Complete.

This is the structural foundation for all Classical/Traditional Poetry and is just as acceptable for working with "Free Verse" as for working with any established "Form" because "Free Verse", as I've stated before, is simply another "Form" and the differences between "Traditional" and "Modern" Poetry lie, not in the "Forms" they use, but in the differences between their Philosophies, because "Modern Poets" have rejected structure and form and the communication of meaning and insight and concentrated on intense depiction of personal experience as seen through complex associations of intense images and sophisticated wordplay, which I call "Experiencial Imagism", and which has, in the opinion of many, alienated them from common reader and established an in-bred elite that treats poetry as a competive occupation and set itself apart from the classic role of Poetry in society, thus isolating them from the general public, and this has been exerbated by the fact that the proponents of this philosophy control the Universities, the Publications and the Contests that are the interface between Poets and the Public, which makes it difficult if not impossible for any alternative forms to find an audiance.

The results of this isolationship has lead to the concept, even within the "Modern" poetic community, (which is generally associated with "Academics"), that "Poetry" as a force in our culture has, in fact, died. It hasn't, and lives in Song Lyrics, Greeting Card Verse, Poetry Raves and Forums like these, (although most of these never rise above being Verse)

As I've attempted to explain several times before, 'Modern Formalism" is not a return to "Traditional" Forms and Values, it is an attempt to disquise "Modern" Principles and Philosophies by arbitarily cloaking them within accepted Formal structures but without accepting "Traditional" Values.

I've been accused of being a "Formalist" and highly prejudiced in favor of such. I am NOT. What I am is a proponent of "the Principles of Craftsmanship' developed out of and still identified with Classical/Traditional Poetry, and the Forms they developed and utilized are secondary to their Principles, although I don't seem to be able to make some people understand that distinction.

The bottom line is that Poetry is based on Communication of Meaning and Insight and it requires a unified coherant Structure in order to do it, and Obscurity, whatever arguments are used to defend it, is the refuge of incompetance.

Think About It.

James R. Hoye, (JRH)

[bluntforcetrauma]

A few weeks ago, I was asked to judge a chapbook contest, partly because I enjoy a little recognition locally and partly because it's hard as hell to get someone to judge these things. I just finished going through the stack of pocketfolders that cradled the entries.

YUK! After I finished, I almost wanted to cry. Most of the "poets" who entered this contest knew nothing about the craft. I'm a great proponent of free verse, but I found very few entrants who knew anything about meter (a requirement, I would think, for all poetry). More than half had compiled a long list of love poems, mostly ranting about betrayal, with very few that went beyond that standard "he left me and I'm really pissed off." Please, please comfort me with your understanding of what makes a good poem. What are the elements that compose well crafted work?

Sewned 'em all a do-it-yourself goth kit. And don't forget the knives.

[Ken]

attn P.H.:
Any subject is ripe for exploration in a poem, no matter how everyday, ordinary, or personal so long as one or more of the many requisite, and often intangible, elements that make up a great poem are present. So just follow your own course and I'm sure you'll arrive at where you want to be in time :)
As to me, I think I'll bow out of this convo and pick up a book on poem composing, as suggested...

[Norman D Gutter]

AW:

So many questions you ask; so little time have I to answer. Alas, the Ides of April loom large ahead, and my taxes (and my mother-in-law's) are not yet done. I've scanned the early posts in the thread, and want to respond, but only after reflection and deep thought. I don't know when that will come, given my current pressing responsibilities. I will chime in with my thoughts, however, be they late or not.

NDG

[Appalachian Writer]

AW:

So many questions you ask; so little time have I to answer. Alas, the Ides of April loom large ahead, and my taxes (and my mother-in-law's) are not yet done. I've scanned the early posts in the thread, and want to respond, but only after reflection and deep thought. I don't know when that will come, given my current pressing responsibilities. I will chime in with my thoughts, however, be they late or not.

NDG

Thanks, Norman. I'm always interested in what you have to say.

[JBI]

Who says poetry is only alive in song lyrics and the like. First of all, most of our perceptions are heavily ethnocentric, leaving out the poetry of many other countries who perhaps are having a growth in poetic writer because of increase in literacy. In addition to this, there are still many successful contemporary poets. How do you explain them. You toss the term Modern around where it should say contemporary, and you make no distinction between the modernist and post-modernist movements. Post-modern poetry is very different in philosophy and in form than modern poetry. Poetry readership may be down (I haven't seen the statistics) but that is no proof that the poetry is dead, or that it only exists in song lyrics and the like.

Songs were highly lyric based before (especially in the German Lieder tradition). How is that an argument for lyrics being poetry based? If anything they are less poetic now then they were before, unless you are counting the words to rap music, which I would argue, has also decayed severely.

Now, instead of fighting with all of you on this issue, let me ask a better question, one that perhaps may enlighten this thread: How many of you guys go out and buy new poetry anthologies. How many of you go and get poetry periodicals, or any poetry books written in the passed 50 years. The truth is, that even if you did, because of new communications, it would be impossible to know every poet now. That is why we must look for the poets with the most memorable lines. That is why structure is essential to poetic creation.

By the way, ever thought that it was just reading that was down (which I have argued before) and not poetry. Maybe it is just that people are too busy ranting about their lives, or going about trying to get ahead of the game, or are just living in a virtual world where everything is viewed from behind a screen. Maybe it is just that people no longer reading.

[Norman D Gutter]

A few weeks ago, I was asked to judge a chapbook contest, partly because I enjoy a little recognition locally and partly because it's hard as hell to get someone to judge these things. I just finished going through the stack of pocketfolders that cradled the entries.

YUK! After I finished, I almost wanted to cry. Most of the "poets" who entered this contest knew nothing about the craft....
AW:

Okay, after saying I wouldn't get to this for a while, I decided to use my lunch hour to do this instead of planned things. The wind at 30 mph and the threatening rain are excellent excuses to not take my noon walk.

Concerning the quality of the poems submitted to the contest, I would like to know to whom the contest was opened. The general public who might have seen a contest notice? High school students? University students? Members of a local poetry society? That's important to know, because for each group we would expect a different aggregate quality of the entries. If entrants are people who responded to a notice posted in the library and in a newspaper, we would expect pretty poor quality. If these are English majors in college, we would expect something better. Since these are chapbooks and not individual poems, that tells me the entrants are more serious poets than the population at large, in which case the lack of quality is more disturbing.

We tend to think that there is more dreck being passed off as poetry today than at times past in history. I wonder, however, if that is true. Dissemination is so easy today, due to technological advances not available to poets in a ruder era, that more people see the dreck. But maybe, as a percentage of all poetry written in any given era, we have no more today than in eras past. Mercifully only the best of those eras survive; we don't see the dreck that was written simultaneously as Keats' odes, or Shakespeare's sonnets, or Chaucer's epochs.

This might not be true when one factors in the expansion of literacy, as Haskins said. More literate people, as a percentage of the population, might indeed produce a higher percentage of crap than did a people in the past. Either way, sponsor a chapbook contest in 1800, and I'll bet you'd get plenty of chapbooks at which you'd want to gag. Again, all those chapbooks were destroyed by knowledgeable heirs who found them tucked away in chests and realized the judges were correct in writing on it, "Foresooth, these stinketh."

Other parts of your post will have to wait for a later time.

Best Regards,
NDG
P.S. I guess there's something to be said for lack of notoriety; no one is asking for me to judge anything. May it ever be so.

[Appalachian Writer]

AW:

Okay, after saying I wouldn't get to this for a while, I decided to use my lunch hour to do this instead of planned things. The wind at 30 mph and the threatening rain are excellent excuses to not take my noon walk.

Concerning the quality of the poems submitted to the contest, I would like to know to whom the contest was opened. The general public who might have seen a contest notice? High school students? University students? Members of a local poetry society? That's important to know, because for each group we would expect a different aggregate quality of the entries. If entrants are people who responded to a notice posted in the library and in a newspaper, we would expect pretty poor quality. If these are English majors in college, we would expect something better. Since these are chapbooks and not individual poems, that tells me the entrants are more serious poets than the population at large, in which case the lack of quality is more disturbing.

We tend to think that there is more dreck being passed off as poetry today than at times past in history. I wonder, however, if that is true. Dissemination is so easy today, due to technological advances not available to poets in a ruder era, that more people see the dreck. But maybe, as a percentage of all poetry written in any given era, we have no more today than in eras past. Mercifully only the best of those eras survive; we don't see the dreck that was written simultaneously as Keats' odes, or Shakespeare's sonnets, or Chaucer's epochs.

This might not be true when one factors in the expansion of literacy, as Haskins said. More literate people, as a percentage of the population, might indeed produce a higher percentage of crap than did a people in the past. Either way, sponsor a chapbook contest in 1800, and I'll be you'd get plenty of chapbooks at which you'd want to gag. Again, all those chapbooks were destroyed by knowledgeable heirs who found them tucked away in chests and realized the judges were correct in writing on it, "Foresooth, these stinketh."

Other parts of your post will have to wait for a later time.

Best Regards,
NDG
P.S. I guess there's something to be said for lack of notoriety; no one is asking for me to judge anything. May it ever be so.

The contest was opened to undergraduate poetry students (not necessarily English majors) and to graduate students (necessarily English majors.) Thus, I was horrified. Not so long ago, I judged an open contest and the postman won. He had the most effective communication, the most powerful metaphors, his images were pristine and unusual. He instinctively included meter, even though he wrote free verse, and any time the meter changed internally, he had done so for effect. He had a high school education and talent. Hopefully, the entrants into this latest contest have a high school education, but there the similarity to my postman ends. The collections I read had no punctuation. One very polished looking folder contained misspellings...droop was spelled drupe (that's the one that stands out in my mind.) Another of these collections was an ongoing rant about a boyfriend that had ended up in prison while his cohort in crime walked free (multiple entries on that subject). I felt like burning them all, because by the time I finished the whole group, I had to struggle to remember that ONE undergraduate had some potential and some talent. Woe is me!

[Ken]

* opens arms to give Appalachian a hug, but is rebuffed *

[Appalachian Writer]

* opens arms to give Appalachian a hug, but is rebuffed *

I never rebuff a hug, unless, of course, the hugger is a bear.

[Ken]

:Hug2:

[Appalachian Writer]

:Hug2:
Thank you!

[Norman D Gutter]

AW: Here's the next installment in my response to your original post.

More than half had compiled a long list of love poems, mostly ranting about betrayal, with very few that went beyond that standard "he left me and I'm really pissed off."
Yes, the rotten angst poems of youth. That’s rotten poems about angst, not poems about rotten angst. These become tiring after a while. You read one; comment on it; have the young ranter get upset; write them off as a not-serious poet; and move on. Then the next one comes along, and it seems like they haven’t read any of the previous angst poems or the critiques thereon. I have some thoughts on this, thoughts that have developed into a theory that helps me from going ape when encountering a rotten angst poem.

1. Young poets lack things experienced poets have, the most important of which, IMHO, is perspective. We who have lived five and a half decades have three and a half decades more perspective on life than does a 20 year old. We look back on the many years of working for a living, dealing with big problems of life (like death and taxes), and the angst of teenage years, which sometimes bleeds over into young adult years, seems like unimportant memories that now provide good laughs. Once they grow up fully they will gain perspective, and find other things to write about.

2. Young poets, on average, lack experience in poetry that old codgers do. This, however, is not always determinative. An old codger like me, who shunned poetry for three of his adult decades, could easily have less experience writing poetry than a much younger poet. But, in general, if a poet is dedicated to improvement, and never stops learning, time yields experience, and experience will be huge in moving beyond rotten angst poems, hopefully at least to good angst poems, full of craft.

3. Another thing I see is the inability of some people to separate the importance of the message from the quality of the poem, this trait being more prevalent in youth. “I’m hurt—he (or she) hurt me, and they’re gonna pay in this poem!” Or, “I’m so sad that Janie (or Johnny) dumped me and is now with that idiot.” This is an important message that the world needs to hear (so thinks the poet), and the poet cannot see how it is important to communicate an important message with a huge dose of craft. This also seems to be true of political poetry, which is mostly poorly done, in an angst sort of way, with the poet seemingly more intent on getting the point across than writing an excellent poem. Politics and angst: what strange companions.

Years of dedication to being a better poet with give perspective and experience, which will help the poet find a broad range of subjects to write about, yet when a strong message poem must be written, can be done with much craft in a way that may just convince someone of the correctness of the poet’s message.

At least, we can hope so.

[JBI]

These aren't even young poets. These are college students. I'm a young poet, and I have never written a depressing she dumped me poem. Keats was 26 when he died, remember that.

[Appalachian Writer]

Norman, I am in agreement about the experience thing. A more experienced poet or a poet who has experienced more life is always preferable over the opposite situation. My original rant came, maybe because I expected too much, some real poets in the pile of work I was given to judge. I did find one with promise, but most were just angry or just without talent. Some had no perspective. Most had little ability to use the tools of the poet's trade. Alas. I was weakened by the whole experience, but I thank you all for your comments because they are uplifting. Now, I pose another question: Are poets whose work doesn't conform to the concept of "RAVE," those shouting, screaming recitals of a poet's work, or is there still room for the subtle? Must we generate physical excitement, or can we just appeal to the quiet reader?

[Norman D Gutter]

These aren't even young poets. These are college students. I'm a young poet, and I have never written a depressing she dumped me poem. Keats was 26 when he died, remember that.
Congratulations, JBI, for being one of the unusual ones. I hope that results in an excellent career for you.

College students are young, very young. The maturing process is far from complete at that age.

Keats' age has nothing to do with anything I said, except to say he was the genius exception to the rule. Any rule has an exception. No doubt Shakespeare was ahead of others his age. Probably the best in each generation was ahead of others at an early age. Who knows what Keats might have produced had he not died young of his chronic illness.

I stand by everything I said.

[JBI]

I find it rather ironic, it being that most major poets started off writing when they were young. Prufrock hit the markets when Eliot was 24 I believe. It is not that the poets are young, it is that they are bad. They all just happen to be sending their mediocre work to the same spot. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of older poets who are just as bad, but instead of writing about how much their life sucks, write about a bunch of sentimental rubbish.

[Ken]

example of poetry with substance:

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep--
He hath awakened from the dream of life--
"Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife
Invulnerable nothings.-We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

Percy Bysshe Shelley / Adonais / An elegy on the death of Keats / : (

[Jenny]

Improving my craft is a big reason I post poems here for crit. (The other reason is the feeling of community -- here, writing poetry isn't seen as weird.) So this question on what we think of as craft got me thinking -- what exactly am I trying to learn?

To say more with less words. This isn't a goal for all poets, but it is with me. People here have noticed this obsession and been wonderfully helpful in pruning verbiage.
To make words sing. This is meter and rhythm and all those wonderful things which lead me to sit and mutter words, trying to hear where the accent lies. I'm very bad at this and am still looking for a "Accents for Dummies" book, a cheat sheet would be nice :)
To remember that poetry is communication. I'm including this in craft only because it's a choice I've come to make in my style and choice of subjects. Sometimes poetry is primarily for the originating poet; there is something that just has to be expressed -- but it is not to be shared. I'm trying clumsily to say that I feel uncomfortable reading poems which have little meaning beyond the poet, and I'm trying to correct this in my own work.

Ok, I'm sure there's tons of other stuff, but these are my starting point for craft. Oh, and choosing titles that intrigue and contribute to the poem.

[Ken]

Book on poem composing:
Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, Paul Fussell, 1965
(listed in back of a poetry anthology. planing to pick it up myself, maybe.)

[Jenny]

Legend! Thank you :)

On the other hand, Stephen Fry's Ode Less Travelled is gorgeous. I've borrowed it from the library, but maybe owning it and using it as a textbook would work best. So I checked out prices from an Australian bookseller. Would you believe, an electronic copy is $5 dearer than a paper one?!!

[Appalachian Writer]

These aren't even young poets. These are college students. I'm a young poet, and I have never written a depressing she dumped me poem. Keats was 26 when he died, remember that.

Some say he was as young as 24. His gravemarker says it all. He was so confident he'd died so young that he'd made no mark on the world, he wrote his own epitath: Here lies a man whose name was writ in water.
I think of that often. Even in death, the metaphor of his own concept of his life is beautifully poetic.

[Appalachian Writer]

I find it rather ironic, it being that most major poets started off writing when they were young. Prufrock hit the markets when Eliot was 24 I believe. It is not that the poets are young, it is that they are bad. They all just happen to be sending their mediocre work to the same spot. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of older poets who are just as bad, but instead of writing about how much their life sucks, write about a bunch of sentimental rubbish.

Bad poets, I agree, come in all ages. As a matter of fact, bad writers come in all ages. The exceptions, like Eliot (I love the line "I have heard the coachman snicker) and Keats and many others, are not exceptions, not in the real sense. They're talented people. That sad thing about the group I had the misfortune to judge is that they carry their drivel with them to Poetry Slams, claiming the title "poet." OUCH! and OUCH for all of us who want to grow in the craft.

[Appalachian Writer]

Improving my craft is a big reason I post poems here for crit. (The other reason is the feeling of community -- here, writing poetry isn't seen as weird.) So this question on what we think of as craft got me thinking -- what exactly am I trying to learn?

To say more with less words. This isn't a goal for all poets, but it is with me. People here have noticed this obsession and been wonderfully helpful in pruning verbiage.
To make words sing. This is meter and rhythm and all those wonderful things which lead me to sit and mutter words, trying to hear where the accent lies. I'm very bad at this and am still looking for a "Accents for Dummies" book, a cheat sheet would be nice :)
To remember that poetry is communication. I'm including this in craft only because it's a choice I've come to make in my style and choice of subjects. Sometimes poetry is primarily for the originating poet; there is something that just has to be expressed -- but it is not to be shared. I'm trying clumsily to say that I feel uncomfortable reading poems which have little meaning beyond the poet, and I'm trying to correct this in my own work..

"To make words sing"...what a lovely thought. As for saying more with fewer words, I'm reminded of Hemingway and his "Iceberg" theory on writing, believing that like an iceberg 80 percent of the story should be unwritten. When challenged to write a short story with only six words, he submitted this: For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn. Think about that! In many ways, that is poetry, the subtle, groaning use of words to tell a story, make a point, or take notice of simple things.

[Ken]

Stephen Fry's Ode Less Travelled is gorgeous.

Thanks. Will check this one out too. : )
(I'm a lean freak too when it comes to prose.
Like to see some of your stuff, sometime.)

[Dichroic]

One argument I haven't seen in this discussion is that sometimes the structure of poetry is paradoxically freeing. Humans often don't do well with an entirely blank slate, and if you have to chose one of all the words in the world to fit a slot in your poem, the choice may be so large that you are drowned in words. (Three metaphors in one sentence... Eep! Apparently some of us need structure more than others.) If you are constrained by rhyme or meter, it may be easier to find the perfect word. Structure also gives you another degree of freedom: you can do things like using a rigid meter to enforce a martial idea, or contrast a playful rhyme scheme with a grim message to make people wonder if there's another point you're making.

As for young poets and perspective, I don't think the issues of youth are unimportant - in fact they're likely to be the most important of all. ("Why am I here?" "Why are *you* here?" "As long as we're both here, can we have sex?") One perspective that's missing is on how universal some of those themes are. What gets old really fast is endless poems how my girlfriend left me and my dog just died and no one understands me, no one has ever felt pain like this before. Better is when you get young poets writing about an idea that really is unique ("Beauty is truth and truth, beauty, that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know") or else recognizing when an experience is universal (one thing the ubiquitous Baby Boomers *did* manage - I'd argue Cat Steven's "Father and Son" is a good example). Actually, that's probably not specific to young poets.

Dichroic

[William Haskins]

great post, dichroic.

and bonus points for the "father and son" reference, which is one of my all time favorite songs, precisely for the reasons you point out.

for anyone not familiar with it, i urge you to treat yourself:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iAXP_7-3kuo (http://youtube.com/watch?v=iAXP_7-3kuo)


Father:
It's not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to know.
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy,
To be calm when you've found something going on.
But take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you've got.
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.

Son:
How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again.
It's always been the same, same old story.
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.

Father:
It's not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to go through.
Find a girl, settle down,
if you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

Son:
All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside,
It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.
If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them you know not me.
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.
I know I have to go.

[Ken]

freedom is hell. Think someone said that sometime, or should have, if not.

[Dichroic]

freedom is hell. Think someone said that sometime, or should have, if not.

And conversely, "the prison, unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is:" whether that's sonnet form or villanelle or something you've just invented.

(No idea why I'm spouting Wordsworth today. But speaking of poets who were also capable of absolute crap as they got older....)

[Appalachian Writer]

One argument I haven't seen in this discussion is that sometimes the structure of poetry is paradoxically freeing. Humans often don't do well with an entirely blank slate, and if you have to chose one of all the words in the world to fit a slot in your poem, the choice may be so large that you are drowned in words. (Three metaphors in one sentence... Eep! Apparently some of us need structure more than others.) If you are constrained by rhyme or meter, it may be easier to find the perfect word. Structure also gives you another degree of freedom: you can do things like using a rigid meter to enforce a martial idea, or contrast a playful rhyme scheme with a grim message to make people wonder if there's another point you're making.

As for young poets and perspective, I don't think the issues of youth are unimportant - in fact they're likely to be the most important of all. ("Why am I here?" "Why are *you* here?" "As long as we're both here, can we have sex?") One perspective that's missing is on how universal some of those themes are. What gets old really fast is endless poems how my girlfriend left me and my dog just died and no one understands me, no one has ever felt pain like this before. Better is when you get young poets writing about an idea that really is unique ("Beauty is truth and truth, beauty, that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know") or else recognizing when an experience is universal (one thing the ubiquitous Baby Boomers *did* manage - I'd argue Cat Steven's "Father and Son" is a good example). Actually, that's probably not specific to young poets.

Dichroic

Thought provoking. However, Cat Stevens (where is he anyway?) aside, the idea that a reader would find the angst of love unrequited interesting goes to the idea that the young are self-absorbed, at least, some. There may be those who can look beyond the mirror. I've known a few, but they're getting harder and harder to come by. I've met ambitious, hard working young people, driven to succeed, driven to improve their understanding of poetry and I've found those who are less than serious at best, and one young man who wrote romantice drivel that he spouted at jams because, according to him, it made the women hot.

[LimeyDawg]

Cat Stevens is singing songs on the other side of the pearly gates.

[William Haskins]

Cat Stevens is singing songs on the other side of the pearly gates.

no, he is alive and well and living as yusef islam.

[LimeyDawg]

crap. I thought he died...I guess I need to get my Google on...

[Dichroic]

Thought provoking. However, Cat Stevens (where is he anyway?) aside, the idea that a reader would find the angst of love unrequited interesting goes to the idea that the young are self-absorbed, at least, some.


I think we *do* find the angst thing interesting, if it's well enough expressed, because we've all been through it. (Why else do people read each other's blogs?) I can probably sit around picking out famous and excellent examples (poems, not blogs!) until all those young poets die of old age, but just for a few,

"My heart, being hungry, feeds on food / the fat of heart despise"
and
"Yet she / will be / False, ere I come, to two or three"

And so on.

[Norman D Gutter]

Why else do people read each other's blogs?
You read blogs for angst? The only blogs I read are writers', agents', and editors' blogs (well, plus one political blog), and find very little angst on them.

NDG

[Dichroic]

You read blogs for angst?
NDG

Actually, I don't; I read them for wndows into other people's worlds, and if they're well written I find them endlessly fascinating. Some of the writing ones are faascinating too, particularly the large number of articulate F/SF writers on LJ who are serious about their craft. (They're ruined me for a lot of more "literary" writers.)

However, if you look at personal blogs in general (not political or professional ones) the ones that garner the greatest readership do tend to be the angsty ones and the trainwrecks.

[Ken]

I read blogs to stay in touch with the average joe and jane.
To fill up on angst I turn to film noir flicks from the forties.