Haskins: Bastard

William Haskins · Jul 13, 2007

last night, in the thread regarding the potential restructuring of the poetry critique subforum, i posted a (in retrospect, an inappropriate) post.

the post was as follows:

if there were
an "other" option,
that would be my vote.
hate the password system,
hate the excessive subforums.
a poetry discussion forum
with one subforum
for posting work is
all that's needed.
doors wide open to the world.
inviting and accessible.
as it stands,
it's an inbred
mutual masturbation society.
symptomatic
of the absurd
commoditization
of poetry.

tear down this wall.

while i want to make it clear that this is an accurate representation of my thoughts on the issue, i also recognize that it was counterproductive in that particular thread.

more importantly, however, i want to make it clear that my comments were in no way a criticism, or indictiment, of poetinahat and the fine work he has done.

he has been an incredibly dedicated and creative moderator and a wonderful ambassador for poetic pursuits in this community. he's also a fine poet.

i have long nursed a frustration about poetry's marginalization in our culture, whether it's rooted in the sequestered, incestuous halls of academia, or the elitist gatekeepers of the lit mags or, in this case, the all-too-cautious use of password-protected forums and micro-managed subforums.

i also understand that the forum has grown to be set up in the way it is organically and in response to the concerns of its members. i know all of the reasons, from "first rights" issues to IP theft, that some people feel more comfortable having layers of protection between their work and the roving eyes of editors and google spiders.

still, i would wager that if you added up the amounts that everyone from this board since its inception has earned from poetry that was shared or workshopped here, it would likely buy you a dinner for two at red lobster.

perhaps i'm wrong, but even still, there's something distasteful to me about treating poetry as a product and that seems to be the primary impetus for cloistering ourselves away here, while the vast majority of members and visitors see that silly "never" beside the poetry forum link.

anyway, i've had my say. i don't expect that anyone will agree with me, and that's fine. i'll continue to post and read and critique here because it's a home of sorts for me and i like the people.

i just don't want this to be read as a slam of poetinahat who, in my estimation, has done nothing more than try to provide the forum that its users want.

sorry again, rob. you read me completely wrong. i don't for a moment regret my endorsement of you as poetry mod and i fully recognize the wonderful things you've done here.

but outside the walls of "citrus", poetry is dying.

dclary · Jul 13, 2007

In Microsoft's C# programming language, one object inherits the characteristics of another object with the colon. But objects can do more than just inherit properties and methods, they can add new ones, overload the existing ones, and can end up something quite different than the base class.

So... base class Bastard may be the best one to start from, but William Haskins : Bastard is so much more than that.

Stew21 · Jul 13, 2007

Nice lesson on C# Clary. when I interview people for C# jobs, I ask them about base class errors, exceptions in code, trycatchfinally blocks, forms of authentication, the different ways of managing state, the use of constructors, dataset, datareader, etc,

but I never thought it had anything to do with William Haskins.

Trish, learns something new every day.

dclary · Jul 13, 2007

You enamour me more every day.

William Haskins · Jul 13, 2007

indeed.

trumancoyote · Jul 13, 2007

I don't think you gotta worry about it, man. When you're hung like Poet, there ain't nothin' in the world that'd ever make you second-guess your badassitude in every facet of life.

They say he's smart as a horse and hung like Einstein.

I mean, erm... you know what I mean.

skelly · Jul 14, 2007

it's an inbred
mutual masturbation society.
symptomatic
of the absurd
commoditization
of poetry.

Every poetry forum that I have ever participated in turns out like that. Face it, most people who write poetry these days don't have the faintest idea as to what poetry actually is, they haven't the faintest idea how to critique it, and they don't particularly care to be bothered by those who do. I think I might use the term "mutual support society" as opposed to the one you chose--people post their poems here for encouragement and commentary--but your point is well made. I suppose this forum is what the people who participate in it make of it, which, as near as I can tell, is more of a "workshop" than a critique forum.

poetinahat · Jul 14, 2007

Sure, William's post stung. But I asked the question. And it was, essentially, a crit; the current Forum structure (the sub-forums and password) was my decision, so I don't think I got him entirely wrong. That's what crits are for, and I'm bloody glad when people speak their minds, even if it hurts. As long as it's fair and honest, it's good. We can't have a good forum without freedom of expression - any more than we could do it without respect for one another.

Let's answer Mac's question about the crit forum. If you care, please vote in her poll. If you've got ideas or strong feelings about how this forum would work best, post them in the poll thread, or here. Or PM me.

I'll do what I can to help make this place a fertile ground for all poets who want to be here. But it's not the password or the sub-forums that make or break this community. It's us - and what we put into the discussions here.

William Haskins · Jul 14, 2007

sorry again about taking the other thread temporarily off-topic.

kdnxdr · Jul 14, 2007

I appreciate the dialogue and the freedom to have it, so, thanks to all.

I believe I am one of those little bits of bastard floating in the commode. That said, Iapologize for helping to debase the intent of the poetry forum. Call me chicken, ignorant, whaever..........

I am speaking, writing, creating out of ignorance.........my sincere admission.

I do that at AW because I, too, like the people and feel safe here at AW.

Deleted member 42 · Jul 14, 2007

Stew21 said:
Nice lesson on C# Clary. when I interview people for C# jobs, I ask them about base class errors, exceptions in code, trycatchfinally blocks, forms of authentication, the different ways of managing state, the use of constructors, dataset, datareader, etc,

but I never thought it had anything to do with William Haskins.

Good code is poetry.

The best programmers I know are musicians, or writers, or both.

MacAllister · Jul 14, 2007

kdnxdr, you're not in the minority, you know? So far no one has voted to move the Poetry crit areas.

I'm gonna ramble a bit, here, folks -- so feel free to skim.

I eat, breathe, and sleep text in a way that it took me a long time to realize hardly anyone else does. Have done since I started reading at about three. And I'm a total piker, honestly -- there are people on these boards whose skill with both reading and with word building takes my breath away.

Words are important. Their history. The weight of centuries of connotations built into their very structure like fossils. It's deeply distressing for me when people say casually, "It's just a word, for heaven's sake, what's the big deal?" I mean distressing. That same sort of instant, someone-pissed-on-my-Bible sort of distress that only a true believer can really understand. And I honestly don't really get it when people are surprised and upset that I expect them to be in control of their words. That thing, "well, maybe that's how it looks, but that's just your reading. It's not what I meant regardless of what the words themselves say..." That gets no traction with me at all. We have to be responsible for our own words. So thank you, William, for being so forthright, and for saying what you meant, and meaning what you said. It's important, and I respect that deeply. Thanks to Poet, as well, for recognizing the value of those words -- even when they do sting on first reading.

That being the case, I forget that most of the people on these boards are either already in the business of, or want to be in the business of, selling text. That thing Haskins was talking about, words as commodity.

The thing is, there's nothing wrong with that. Language can fulfill both those functions, and a great deal more, besides -- it has to. We need it, on those levels and a great many more besides.

Poetry, too, can be a commodity.

Where things go awry is when poetry is only a commodity, and doesn't live and breathe in any other form.

I don't know what the answer is, though. I can't make people see words the way I see them -- and shouldn't. I can, and try very hard, to create a place where people who do see words that way are listened to, taken seriously, and respected.

I am deeply interested in seeing a culture on all these boards -- not just in this room -- where poetry is breathing, alive, and not about copyrights, money, or anything but love of words, carefully constructed, as living expression.

I'm going to need everyone's help with that.

jst5150 · Jul 14, 2007

Umm, where's the poll?

MacAllister · Jul 14, 2007

Here, Jst.

jst5150 · Jul 14, 2007

Found it and responded. Thanks.

I would have used the poll, however, the answers were focused too narrow.

William Haskins · Jul 14, 2007

ultimately, i don't necessarily resent anyone going after a buck with poetry. but my question is "why"?

there are very few mags that pay anything beyond a token payment or perhaps free copies. even if you go that route and publish enough to "establish a track record" among the gatekeepers to get a book deal, you're not going to even make minimum wage for the hours you've put into it.

and even if you publish a book, what does it really do for you? the prestige of being in a bookstore? presence in a library? to what end? to make you feel like "a published author"? start sewing leather patches onto all your shirts and jackets? do you really like pipe tobacco?

here's the thing (let me pause here to say that none of this is meant to suggest that i'm a poet of any significance)... my poetry appears one place: on the web. the only thing that stands between the reader and my work is the click of a mouse. no drive to the bookstore, no library card.

this is because:

i want my work to be read

i wouldn't make any money from it anyway

unlike libraries and bookstores, the web is immediately available and accessible to 1.08 billion people

my point, ultimately, is that the brass ring poets grab for today is but an echo of an earlier age. we don't need academic pedigree or publication credits or publisher backing to deliver poetry to the world. all we need are readers.

they don't want you to know this because they depend on the illusion.

kdnxdr · Jul 14, 2007

and to think anyone would think that you have no heart, William.

you really are much warmer and fuzzier than you would like to admit to

not trying to slight your passion, just admiring

William Haskins · Jul 14, 2007

i have so much love to give.

A. Hamilton · Jul 14, 2007

I write for the love of writing and reading. My participation here is to that end, whether mine or others. I'm actually more involved in other's writing lately than my own. I'm in a very slow groove with my own and interacting on the boards serves my need for words where I am lacking in productivity. And keeps my brain stretched.
I'm all for an active board, and will remain loyal wherever the little click on the thread takes me. If the password protection on the whole forum is holding us back somehow, and keeping participation down,then it's the wrong thing for the board.

louisgodwin · Jul 14, 2007

William Haskins said:
ultimately, i don't necessarily resent anyone going after a buck with poetry. but my question is "why"?

there are very few mags that pay anything beyond a token payment or perhaps free copies.

About a year and a half ago I sold a poem to a magazine for the whopping price of $22. Honestly, I would have given it to them for free just so long as they published it. What held the most value for me in the deal was not the cash, but the publishing credit. While I love poetry, my ultimate goal is to eventually make a living from my fiction writing, and I'll take whatever credits I can get.

LimeyDawg · Jul 15, 2007

Some of us are trophy hunters. Like Louis, if I ever got the chance, I'd give my c**p to a magazine to publish sans fee. I'd love to have a wall full of magazines in frames with my work published. It wouldn't matter if I didn't earn a cent. When people asked me how much I'd made, I wouldn't mind saying "well, I'm out about eighty bucks for the cost of those magazines."

Norman D Gutter · Jul 16, 2007

The problem with publication

I sort of agree with William's original post: that a poetry board--any poetry board--eventually becomes in-grown and self-congratulatory, as opposed to remaining a place to receive rigorous critique. I've seen that happen on several boards. Preventing it from happening takes an incredible amount of dilligence. It also requires a constant supply of new members.

I also agree with him that poetry seems to have become "marginaliz[ed] in our culture, whether it's rooted in the sequestered, incestuous halls of academia, or the elitist gatekeepers of the lit mags or, in this case, the all-too-cautious use of password-protected forums and micro-managed subforums." This is a whole topic of discussion in itself, one that I have watched many places but never found any difinitive answer. Possibly there is no one cause. Has our culture moved beyond any point of appreciating poetry? Has the poetry community pulled away from the culture? Has the poetry community been left in the dust by the visual arts? Did poets kill poetry, or has technology signed poetry's death warrant? Valid discussion points, difficult to answer.

I disagree with William, however, about the value of publication. Of course, this is a matter of personal preference, not absolute truth. I have a poetry manuscript out at a major publisher right now, in hopes it will be packaged as a gift book, so obviously I value publication. But, should I structure my poems and my book according to what I like best, according to what I think an editor would accept, or according to what I think would sell?

In writing prose, unless we intend to stick it in a drawer and let our heirs take care of it, we write for editors and target audiences. Why should poetry be any different? I don't want to write something I don't like, and hope I never will do that. But, in chosing among the millions of topics and thousands of forms and billions of phrases, I don't see a problem of thinking about what others (editors and purchasers) might like to read. I don't feel like this cheapens the art at all. Quite possibly, with the exception of a few experimenters (Eliot and cummings come to mind), I'm not so sure but that the most successful poets through the ages had their audience in mind as they wrote. If poetry is to successfully communicate, it must be reader-centered, not writer-centered.

NDG

pconsidine · Jul 16, 2007

My opinion?

Poetry, like all the beaux artes, has childishly turned its back on the rest of the world out of revenge for losing its place as the one of humanity's greatest achievements. After all, what is modern painting but an ongoing punishment against erstwhile viewers for having forsaken what was once the repository of all that was heroic and admirable? It's as if the entire culture has been caught in a self-feeding cycle: ground-breaking work alienates audience; audience loses faith in the art form as a whole; artists become frustrated and express their frustration with ever more alienating work.

Not that I can fault that response, though. How long can anyone work at something when the only reaction is a resounding "so what?" Isn't the natural response to surround oneself with people who do care - in this case, other poets? Because the bottom line is that there really isn't a good way to make people care about something they simply don't care about. Even as a writer, I know that feeling.

I'm much more in favor of Haskins' pared down approach. Poetry will never be part of most people's regular media diet, but giving as many people as possible the chance to dip in now and then can only advance the cause.

Writer??? · Jul 17, 2007

Ok, well thanks guys and gals. We're all a bunch of lying sychophants unable or unwilling to tell the truth about a posted poems. Wonderful, makes me just want to jump right in and post some more.

Funny, I thought I was learning. I thought I might actually be improving. Both in providing informative and perhaps helpful critique, and creating works that others might find interesting or enjoyable.

Kind of hurts to find out I've merely been involved in a circle jerk and that I apparently can't rely on anything said there. kind of makes my whole experience here seem like...a messy waste.

But boy, am I really inspired to stay and keep at it. Yes sir!

LimeyDawg · Jul 17, 2007

Writer??? said:
Ok, well thanks guys and gals. We're all a bunch of lying sychophants unable or unwilling to tell the truth about a posted poems. Wonderful, makes me just want to jump right in and post some more.

!

Crap. That's never been an issue. Sure, we get our share of "Oh, I loved it" posts, but who is to say these aren't as genuine as the less than glowing responses. So poetry has become a subculture of the writing world as whole. Big deal. At least those who still attempt the art have the courage to do so. You tell it like it is quite often. People still post here, so I'm assuming that poetry is alive and well. We write poetry, therefore we am...I don't know the latin or that would be a pretty cool response.

Haskins: Bastard

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