Sonnets to Mark Houlsby
spinoza1111
well - loved late HLAS contributor Michael Martin. In creative
retaliation here are the sonnets I tossed off in response to him.
These are "modern" in Lennard's sense (cf. John Lennard, the Poet's
Handbook); although they follow the rhyme scheme of Shakespeare's
sonnets, I feel no compulsion to use iambic pentameter, since satiric
thoughts (cf Pope and Dryden) oft hexameter are, if only to pile
scorns upon scorns.
And so the Houlsby, jury of but one
Again the proclaim'd sham'd fool
A man of wax and a figure of fun
Self-objectified and a broken tool.
The maxim pompous and the weary saw:
"Life's not a popularity contest" groans he
Half human, he's Dr. Moreau's Sayer of the Law
An object of scorn, bate, beatings, and pity.
He slinks away having failed to make his point
To darkness, and the gnashing of teeth
Hurling meaningless imprecations loud but disjoint
In utter desolation, despair, and foul defeat.
The wise stifle their laughter but sharpen their pens
For when he returns from the swamp and the fens.
To men who fear that the light of day
Will shine upon their shame and their infamy
The greatest crime is innocence, I'd say:
To create to them is almost ... an obscenity.
Capitalism, per Zizek, has destroyed superego
Replacing it by advertising, money and power
Therefore, to be like the late Michael, original
Is to make a dickless wonder like Mark quite sour.
He rages on behalf of his target du jour
Because he's got a problem with boundaries
When we create and are vulnerable, he's sure
That he himself has been stripped nude by votaries.
It would be sad if it were not so very funny
I wist the guy would wise up and do it for money.
She signs, she says no word, that's fine
The monster is beyond all speech, all reproach
Houlsby ruined our ceremony like a dirty little swine
Words fail like Cinderella's pumpkin coach.
The guy has a mouth and has long gone south
One of these days he's going to fall into it
Organic exposure of secrets uncouth
Shall issue from the inverted monster intuit.
I shit you not, he makes me quite sick
He makes me lose my breakfast, my lunch
He'd be a grade A number one little dick
But dickless he is, as I've said...I've a hunch.
And so like Hitler in his final bunker
Rages Houlsby because for him, life's been a clunker.
To be or not to be serious, dear boy
You need to read and crack a book
Spinoza's Ethics you won't enjoy
But nonetheless...I suggest you take a look.
Cudgel thy brains, as second Digger said
Move thy sweet lips when thou readst:
Endeavor for a change to get it thru thy head
That sour music to the fool is to the wise, sweet'st.
If as Eliot said, fool's approval stings
It follows even absent Spinoza as night the day
That fools' censure to the wise sweet Music sings
Especially if thou posteth "your gay".
O cipher Null, continue thy sweet jargoning
From a pig like you, 'tis a dish fit for a king.
Mark Houlsby
Terrific. More please.
spinoza1111
If on the one hand you're being ironic
The tribute of vice to virtue as of old
But I detect a note of sincerity, you dick,
Have I converted lead to gold?
Is't possible the alchemist, I
Probably not does Wisdom whisper
He is pulling my leg, this guy
And screams he with brutish laughter!
But people are complicated vast and deep
Even this clown's got his mystery
Sure, it might look like the oil that did seep
When BP screwed up the Carib sea.
But even Mark is made of moving parts
Perhaps he's more than toe jam and wet farts.
Mark Houlsby
Brilliant. More, please.
Peter Farey
"Tossed off"? That figures.
Peter F.
<pet...@rey.prestel.co.uk>
<http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm>
"spinoza1111" <spino...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:caca359f-e66d-4eb7...@u4g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
Mark Houlsby
> "Tossed off"? That figures.
>
> Peter F.
Careful, Peter, some might think that you regard Nilges' "poetry" as
good....
Mark H.
spinoza1111
> "Tossed off"? That figures.
Here we go again, the Pedant comes
When the battle's over and the battle's won
Raging, for he has done so many sums
But his arithmetic is dead, of life it hath none.
He'll tell us how to listen and to hear
Destroying attention and spreading despair
He makes of beauty a thing to fear
Having of real poetry nary a hair.
He rages like Ben Jonson having no Johnson
Like Salieri he's basically out of tune
Ultimately he's destructive and he's no fun
The mark of me the man from the Moon
Like Cyrano Apollo I descend upon him
Laughing my ass off, o Peter, learn to .... swim.
>
> Peter F.
> <pete...@rey.prestel.co.uk>
> <http://www2.prestel.co.uk/rey/index.htm>
>
> "spinoza1111" <spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
spinoza1111
The big man is terrified of his Shadow,
As the gang leader of his disordered self
His language loses its power to harrow
His words have lost their meaning and their pelf.
Like unto the trader in equities
Who counted 'pon finding a final Fool
To buy his crap with foolish ease
He's hoist Petard and becomes his very own tool.
His "bad" is so "bad" it is also his Good
He's perverted language a second too long
Finds himself talking trash as trash he should
Dancing to my tune and singing my song.
Like Monostatos in the Magic Flute
He dances away to my music in a zoot suit.
Mark Houlsby
This really is too good. More please.
spinoza1111
It's easy to rhyme with a name like Farey
But what shall we do with Houlsby?
"Farey" is a name that is never contrary
But "Houlsby" is as fools be, a metrical misery,
A trochee of treachery, a dissonant sound,
A name as unfortunate as Hitler or history,
A dog's dinner, not a name but a wound.
O be christen'd anew, Mark of the Dark,
Mark of the merry men who make fun of you,
Get thee new parents, like Lois and Clark,
So we can continue our songs to renew
And sing them round campfire when it gets dark.
But as for Peter, with patronym Farey
Welcome back your name doth make us all merry.
(Syncopation is the despair of pedants for it shows that any fixed
rhyme scheme is as Euclid of Lobachevski)
Mark Houlsby
...and its employment was extraordinary.
More please.
spinoza1111
To count to ten iambly, scan so dull
Confines one's words and thoughts to prison dank
And dreary even if enjambement null
Ifies the sense to make the sound go clank.
'Tis better just to let it flow, you know
Like a stream of white water on which we scream
Down the rushing Russian River we go
Using poetry to make the unseeming seem.
But the dull inactive of body, it makes 'em squeal..
And if they're also pedants they will try
To "prove" it "bad"...because they no longer feel
Much of anything, being neutered numb not wise but sly.
They have not the attention span
To read it, so they say, it don't scan.
spinoza1111
It seems the Charm has worked its will
Upon its mark, the savage beast so fell
See Houlsby dance to Orpheus' tune so shrill
See he beholds himself in Narcissus' well.
Thus doth Music and the gentle arts do be
The locus of the savage and of his taming
Apollo descends and Lights the mystery
Of a general scorn and universal shaming.
Like me, Mark Houlsby just wants attention
There is nothing wrong with that
In a world of despair and environmental tension
We all stand in need of Dionysius, or, the Cat in the Hat.
And yes, I wasn't born yesterday
Even if he's ironic...his very words do his irony, betray.
11:16 AM Causeway Bay 25 Aug 2010 Edward G. Nilges. All sonnets in
this thread guaranteed no-shit on the level original.
spinoza1111
That really should be Marysas' tune so shrill, since Orpheus play'd
sweetly upon the lyre. But then I would have had to reconcile the
nobility of my song with its concomitant baseness, including my use of
modern phrases such as "dickless wonder". My point is that we no
longer deserve Apollo but get Marysas, who has learned through
suffering that he is our Apollo.
Hey does anybody like military poetry used to keep men of the US Army
in step? And what if Shakespeare wrote it?
I gotta girl she lives on a hill
She won't go to't but her sister will
Head in the kitchen and feet on the sill
Fairest wench and her name is Jill
Hup two three four
Bob Grumman
admire McGonigall's poetry.
--Bob
Melanie Sands
No, you're being unfair. I like Nilges poetry, I think he's wasting
his talent
on the Grossoulsby, but it's his talent, so he has the right to waste
it -
actually, no, one should never waste one's talent...
I like Nilges' sonnets, that's all.
The only military/arms song I know is
"You're missing the girl you left
Youre right"
To help one march properly, but of course
some people get left and right mixed up so
it wouldn't work for them...
Melanie
spinoza1111
I'd wot you need to learn to read, oh Bob:
While McGonigall and I both like internal rhyme
Afraid I am that's where he finishes his job,
And has only begun the work that's mine.
His metre is clumsy and mine is not,
Albeit mine is syncopated cleverly:
My comparisions literate his, not a jot
You're not well-read enough to see this clearly.
We both write clearly, he low, I, high
Which is rare in this age of pretension
But for you to make him my simile
Shows stupidity and lack of comprehension
Next time you your unform'd opinion air
Do your homework, Bobster. Take care.
spinoza1111
> On 25 Aug., 13:21, Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>
> > Edward, the way you write poetry, one can almost believe you really do
> > admire McGonigall's poetry.
>
> > --Bob
>
> No, you're being unfair. I like Nilges poetry, I think he's wasting
> his talent
> on the Grossoulsby, but it's his talent, so he has the right to waste
> it -
> actually, no, one should never waste one's talent...
> I like Nilges' sonnets, that's all.
A kind word is rare, from one wise and fair
Which now, vain I, I am certain you are
Given your words to this wight, your knight
Now that Apollo arrives in his real nice car.
But you do deck me like Witches three
Did deck Macbeth in borrow'd robes
(That was actually an herald but it's all the same to me)
For am no professional poet with poet's ear lobes.
My sonnet goeth off the rails but here's the thing
In poetry, there's no moneymaking
It's just a form of amusement and fun, fun, fun, fun:
For more see Wordpress - spinoza one one one one [1]
Thanks for your kind words, Bob's are for the birds
He's OK but these ain't McGonigall's turds.
[1] www.spinoza1111.wordpress.com
To relapse into prose, Melanie, I was conducting an experiment to see
if I could chill Mark out. It seems to have succeeded, for (I believe)
he being unable to respond in kind was forced first into the bully's
irony, which folded into itself such that the only reply he could make
was ironic, saying he wanted more as if he loved it.
Shakespeare believed we are constructed by language to the extent that
when we use the language of love (like Bertram or Benedick) we are
forced sooner or later to mean it as I believe was Mark.
I was very offended by his trash talk about Michael but a frontal
assault would have resulted in what Ted Hughes calls Shakespeare's
tragic equation, for I would have not given an inch. I decided a
poetic assault would work, and possibly it has.
As to "wasting my talents". I am too old to want to be a BBC success
for then I would be associated with a Pop culture I despise. I think
Culture has been trashed and that fool's approval stings and their
honour stains. I try my best to cry in the market place and prophesy,
possibly piss into, the wind.
However, I now associate with Hong Kong actors in our theater
community and am working on some plays. I will keep HLAS informed.
It would be cool if a collective resistance to the pompous Internet
gods could emerge from this louche venue, amidst the postings about
Hot Girls. How about a thread in which the only rule is you must speak
blank verse iambic pentameter? I wouldn't be able to "syncopate".
>
> The only military/arms song I know is
> "You're missing the girl you left
> Youre right"
> To help one march properly, but of course
> some people get left and right mixed up so
> it wouldn't work for them...
I miss the lady I left
My right
She was buxom she had heft
Your right
As fat as Juno great with child
Your left
And in her arms she drove me wild
Your right
Alas I am bereft of her
Your left
Left me for Edmund Spenser
Your right
>
> Melanie
Bob Grumman
> On Aug 25, 7:31 pm, Melanie Sands <Melanie_Sa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 25 Aug., 13:21, Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>
> > > Edward, the way you write poetry, one can almost believe you really do
> > > admire McGonigall's poetry.
>
> > > --Bob
>
> > No, you're being unfair. I like Nilges poetry, I think he's wasting
> > his talent
> > on the Grossoulsby, but it's his talent, so he has the right to waste
> > it -
> > actually, no, one should never waste one's talent...
> > I like Nilges' sonnets, that's all.
>
which they're not. There's nothing wrong with not scanning, but
sonnets by definition have to scan.
--Bob
Bob Grumman
I suspect you mean uninformed
> Do your homework, Bobster. Take care.
I'm probably better read than you, Eddy--but that's irrelevant. Only
grinds think expertise comes from studying the texts rather than from
using one's brain. In any case, I certainly know the difference
between doggerel like yours and verse by people like Frost, Keats and
Wilbur. You're clever in a trivial way but have very little idea what
good poetry is.
--Bob
spinoza1111
Ye ken not know what you talk about, boy:
All texts do scan, this trivially is true:
Because that is the way tho' may annoy
We all thus speak: in stress, both I, and you.
You cannot legislate what pleases, Bob,
'Tis mark of fellow dull and dead to sound
'Tis mark of pedant, philistine and slob
Who as teacher the students doth wound.
The teacher, the creature, the jerk and cunt
Who ruins lives with red pen and stupidity
Who for "right answer" only doth hunt
And creates he nought but dull apathy.
You don't read in the real sense of the word
So shove it, and here's the bird.
>
> --Bob
Mark Houlsby
Just brilliant. More, please.
spinoza1111
> On Aug 25, 8:32 am,spinoza1111<spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Aug 25, 7:21 pm, Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>
> > > Edward, the way you write poetry, one can almost believe you really do
> > > admire McGonigall's poetry.
>
> > > --Bob
>
> > I'd wot you need to learn to read, oh Bob:
> > While McGonigall and I both like internal rhyme
> > Afraid I am that's where he finishes his job,
> > And has only begun the work that's mine.
> > His metre is clumsy and mine is not,
> > Albeit mine is syncopated cleverly:
> > My comparisions literate his, not a jot
> > You're not well-read enough to see this clearly.
> > We both write clearly, he low, I, high
> > Which is rare in this age of pretension
> > But for you to make him my simile
> > Shows stupidity and lack of comprehension
> > Next time you your unform'd opinion air
>
> I suspect you mean uninformed
>
> > Do your homework, Bobster. Take care.
>
> I'm probably better read than you, Eddy--but that's irrelevant. Only
The assertion bald with naught to back it
Is pissing now in the wind, futility
Relieves itself upon a sticky wicket
But bowls for nothing, in its misery.
O tell us of your great learning, teacher.
Behold, a pile of scientifiction and trash
Assigned to high schoolers without a future
Save running a register and collecting the cash
At Walmart, Costco, and Steak and Shake:
And androids dream of electric sheep,
Having done the assigned reading to make
Grades that are worthless, paper to keep.
To be in your way "better read"
Is to be better off ... dead.
> grinds think expertise comes from studying the texts rather than from
> using one's brain. In any case, I certainly know the difference
> between doggerel like yours and verse by people like Frost, Keats and
The names trumpeted are meant to silence,
As in the theology of the Bible,
Where it's in the interests of the clergy of violence,
To give new wine to new prophets: their voices, to idle.
Man's heart yearns for a new Revelation
It's even in that song by the Animals:
"We gotta get out of this place", this nation
Lest we die every day in corporate cubicles.
And so the substitute teacher is sent
To speak of the Gods who have written
Everything that needs to be in print
And make what the student has writ, mere shit that was shitten.
This I say is child abuse:
The monsters it creates on what's left of culture fare loose.
Mark Houlsby
Just brilliant. More please.
spinoza1111
Bob's mistake is made frequently by those forced to study poetry in
some dull school strictly in order to "get a good job".
Today, schools teach meta-lessons, such as timetabling, conformity,
and relieving one's anger at Power by bullying the weak, and these are
meant to be the important "material" (to use that ugly word of the
educational bureaucrat), not what the angry bureaucrat or incompetent
teacher is apt to call, in unguarded moments, "all that Culture shit",
exposing the genesis of Fascism that underlies an administered world.
For example, if you have an advanced degree but an employee chances to
be more literate than you, just redescribe her literacy as verbosity.
Now, as to poetry. "It doesn't scan" is the typical reply of the
British A-level with a posh job who's far, far more interested in sex,
drugs and rock and roll than in reading poetry. The hatred of
"successful" people, who have jobs promoting Culture and/or degrees
from posh and Cultured venues for subaltern cultivation is refined and
well-developed, beginning with British hatred for "Westernized
Oriental Gentlemen" or "wogs" like Gandhi. The reason for the hatred
is also obvious: everyone likes a monopoly and we're all mercantilists
at heart.
But the problem with "it doesn't scan" is that trivially, all texts
"scan" in that a sensible assignment may be made to their syllables of
weakened and strengthened stress: this is a basic property of English
which uses stress and not silence to separate spoken syllables (to
speak alliteratively by accident).
Of course, only a subset of such universal patterns will be
"pleasing". The person who says "it doesn't scan" means to say "it
does not please", which to be anything more than an uninteresting
report of a feeling has to be, in the A-level world, carefully
justified, but is in fact almost never justified. Bob is no more
capable of producing a literate and informed analysis of my poems than
he is capable of replying with a sonnet, or any decent poem
whatsoever.
Certain patterns such as the canonical iambic pentameter are
canonically said to be and therefore known to be pleasing, and
memorable...although Shakespearean iambic pentameter irritates many
first listeners, they know not why. Iambic pentameter, however, was
not developed to be pleasing, but to be easily remembered by English
actors using a language which doesn't provide too many rhymes.
What Shakespeare was able to put into this Procrustean bed counts, and
this wheel of fire assisted his subconscious, for the machinery of the
rules is the poet's Other, perhaps an artificial subconscious. It is
said, foolishly enough, that "free verse unlocks the subconscious";
the reverse is true, for when questioned directly the subconscious is
mute, or an Id, or a mirror that repeats conscious desires. What's
needed, especially by the irreligious, is a new voice, and being
forced to rhyme or scan prevents the poet from using conscious
thoughts exclusively.
But: no scholar or substitute teacher can tell what should and should
not please. If a novel structure, such as was the Shakespearean sonnet
in the 16th century, pleases, it becomes anything from an amusing
crossword puzzle to the aforementioned path to the subconscious to try
to use it. It gets a name.
McGonigall, the "bad" poet, is "so bad he's good" for at some level,
the reader realizes that while it may not have been McGonigall's
intention to write poems that suck, he did because he deliberately or
by accident violated all rules except rhyme, continually departing
from the conventions of Victorian poetry to create atonality, which
far from being "atonality" consists of continual changes to tonality.
Once we learn to recognize his style it pleases because we can
anticipate that he will shoot himself in the metrical foot and are
glad when he does.
Shakespeare's "mechanicals" in A Midsummer Night's Dream are "so bad
they're good" because with familiarity we see their structure: Peter
Quince is the smartest mechanical but not very smart, Bottom dreams of
higher things and yearns for transformation like Ancient Pistol in
Henry IV/V. Being able to "parse" them so makes us await their next
move with interest and amusement.
Ed Wood's "Plan Nine from Outer Space" becomes the art of making
movies with pie plates, fading actors, transvestites and black haired
women with nice tits.
Once we realize that a thing doesn't have to and wasn't made to serve
a material need it becomes potential art with its immanent laws. If we
can't figure them out, it isn't even real: a collection of words
doesn't make a text. But in understanding a new art form, we are
participating in creation as in the morning of the world when we
invented language.
The form is invented by the reader and only then does the artist
realize she's been using it in this case.
The fact that a poet can produce pleasing effects without a plan
violates the bourgeois work ethic, but it appears that McGonigall had
no such plan, and even Shakespeare seemed to have simply, at first,
intended to do a job of work: writing in iambic pentameter so drunken
sots could remember their lines, and make some money to buy beer. It
means that there is a world we can access without desert, which of
course is redemption.
We all need an Other to talk to, otherwise we're trapped in our own
desires which either make us repine or we surfeit. Many people pray. I
submit that the rules of poetry, whether imposed by a canon or
immanent, form such an Other for the structure forces us to say
something Other than what we were going to say. For example, it forced
me to say "take care" to Bob, reminding me that I don't hate this guy,
that we've had friendly exchanges in the past, and that he's not a
dumb bastard all the time.
spinoza1111
For every 100 people who have been superficially educated and
therefore "know" that a "sonnet" "must" have fourteen lines in abab
rhyming pattern and iambic pentameter, less than one knows a far more
important rule: the quatrain must be a complete thought...a sentence.
I violate it here in the ninth line, and the effect is unpleasing.
I wanted, like Stephen King, to bring to the American reader the news
of his triviality by way of brand names.
The flaw is easily fixed along with others in this rewrite
The bald assertion with naught to back it
Is pissing now in the wind; futility
Relieves itself upon a sticky wicket
But bowls for nothing, in its misery.
O tell us of your great learning, teacher!
Behold, a pile of scientifiction and trash
Assigned to high schoolers without a future
Save running a register and collecting the cash!
At Walmart, Costco, and Steak and Shake,
The androids dream of electric sheep,
Having done the assigned reading to make
Grades that are worthless, no paper to keep.
Oh Bob! To be in your way "better read"
Is to be far, far better off stone dead.
(1) There is no need to change adjective and noun order in the first
line for metre.
(2) The second quatrain violates the rule that each quatrain be "one"
complete thought. However, I believe that *more than one* complete but
connected thoughts strengthen the following of that rule.
(3) The ninth and tenth lines allow me to, Stephen King-like,
enumerate brands and connect it with a piece of trash that is of the
sort of "assigned" reading Bob is probably thinking of when he claims,
without a shred of proof, that he's "better read". I draw attention to
the fact that many high school students are fed garbage by teachers
who lazily claim that their students, especially when minorities,
won't appreciate Higher Things...because the teachers are
alternatively frightened or bored by their own limited exposure to
Higher things.
(4) If pronounced correctly, the couplet is iambic and it's obviously
pentameter now. In the second line the speaker must unexpectedly
stress "to" and not "be and differentiate the stress of "far", the
repetition of which was meant to echo Dickens' Tale of Two Cities.
"Scanning" is not something that can be learned in school, especially
not in a modern school, with its demi-Fascistic hatred of civilization
and capitalist control. In fact, most people are dead to the sound of
poetry because most people are physically out of shape. They lack the
control and strength of their bodies needed to speak in other than a
scream or monotone, and do not hear language spoken other than us from
their fellow sheeple. In my direct experience, the best way to learn
to appreciate and read, and therefore be able to write, poetry is to
run twenty miles a week.
Mark Houlsby
That wasn't Bob's point, o fuckwitted one. His point was that
*sonnets*
scan.
Which is true.
> The hatred of
> "successful" people, who have jobs promoting Culture and/or degrees
> from posh and Cultured venues for subaltern cultivation is refined and
> well-developed, beginning with British hatred for "Westernized
> Oriental Gentlemen" or "wogs" like Gandhi. The reason for the hatred
> is also obvious: everyone likes a monopoly and we're all mercantilists
> at heart.
>
Except for those who are not.
> But the problem with "it doesn't scan" is that trivially, all texts
> "scan" in that a sensible assignment may be made to their syllables of
> weakened and strengthened stress: this is a basic property of English
> which uses stress and not silence to separate spoken syllables (to
> speak alliteratively by accident).
>
Er...no, you dumb bastard. Bob's point was that your verse does
not do what sonnets do.
Which is true.
> Of course, only a subset of such universal patterns will be
> "pleasing". The person who says "it doesn't scan" means to say "it
> does not please",
Er...no, you dumb bastard. Clearly you have no fucking clue what
"to scan", in this context, actually means.
> which to be anything more than an uninteresting
> report of a feeling has to be, in the A-level world, carefully
> justified, but is in fact almost never justified. Bob is no more
> capable of producing a literate and informed analysis of my poems than
> he is capable of replying with a sonnet, or any decent poem
> whatsoever.
>
Guess again, o fuckwitted one.
> Certain patterns such as the canonical iambic pentameter are
> canonically said to be and therefore known to be pleasing, and
> memorable...although Shakespearean iambic pentameter irritates many
> first listeners, they know not why. Iambic pentameter, however, was
> not developed to be pleasing, but to be easily remembered by English
> actors using a language which doesn't provide too many rhymes.
>
I rather think that someone more literate than you are (which is
just about everyone) might have written: "...was devoloped not
to be pleasing..." rather than: "...was not developed to be
pleasing...",
which suggests that the object of its not being developed was to be
pleasing.
Do learn to read and write, Ed.
> What Shakespeare was able to put into this Procrustean bed counts, and
> this wheel of fire assisted his subconscious, for the machinery of the
> rules is the poet's Other, perhaps an artificial subconscious. It is
> said, foolishly enough, that "free verse unlocks the subconscious";
> the reverse is true, for when questioned directly the subconscious is
> mute, or an Id, or a mirror that repeats conscious desires. What's
> needed, especially by the irreligious, is a new voice, and being
> forced to rhyme or scan prevents the poet from using conscious
> thoughts exclusively.
>
Ummm...whatever.
> But: no scholar or substitute teacher can tell what should and should
> not please.
Prove that there is no scholar or substitute teacher who can tell
this.
> If a novel structure, such as was the Shakespearean sonnet
> in the 16th century, pleases, it becomes anything from an amusing
> crossword puzzle to the aforementioned path to the subconscious to try
> to use it. It gets a name.
>
Say what...?
> McGonigall, the "bad" poet, is "so bad he's good" for at some level,
> the reader realizes that while it may not have been McGonigall's
> intention to write poems that suck, he did because he deliberately or
> by accident violated all rules except rhyme, continually departing
> from the conventions of Victorian poetry to create atonality, which
> far from being "atonality" consists of continual changes to tonality.
> Once we learn to recognize his style it pleases because we can
> anticipate that he will shoot himself in the metrical foot and are
> glad when he does.
>
Your verse is not even that good.
> Shakespeare's "mechanicals" in A Midsummer Night's Dream are "so bad
> they're good" because with familiarity we see their structure: Peter
> Quince is the smartest mechanical but not very smart, Bottom dreams of
> higher things and yearns for transformation like Ancient Pistol in
> Henry IV/V. Being able to "parse" them so makes us await their next
> move with interest and amusement.
>
Ed, you're seriously deranged.
> Ed Wood's "Plan Nine from Outer Space" becomes the art of making
> movies with pie plates, fading actors, transvestites and black haired
> women with nice tits.
>
Er, no...it's simply bad moviemaking, of a type which is amusing.
Wood's
association with the great Bela Lugosi lent the former a certain
caché, too.
> Once we realize that a thing doesn't have to and wasn't made to serve
> a material need it becomes potential art with its immanent laws.
Besides your many other shortcomings, you really should learn to use
a spellchecker.
> If we
> can't figure them out, it isn't even real: a collection of words
> doesn't make a text.
Right. This applies to your attempts at verse.
> But in understanding a new art form, we are
> participating in creation as in the morning of the world when we
> invented language.
>
ROFLMAO!!!!
> The form is invented by the reader
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!
> and only then does the artist
> realize she's been using it in this case.
>
> The fact that a poet can produce pleasing effects without a plan
> violates the bourgeois work ethic, but it appears that McGonigall had
> no such plan, and even Shakespeare seemed to have simply, at first,
> intended to do a job of work: writing in iambic pentameter so drunken
> sots could remember their lines, and make some money to buy beer. It
> means that there is a world we can access without desert, which of
> course is redemption.
>
Really, Ed, have you considered a career as a stand-up comedian?
This is priceless.....
> We all need an Other to talk to, otherwise we're trapped in our own
> desires which either make us repine or we surfeit. Many people pray. I
> submit that the rules of poetry, whether imposed by a canon or
> immanent,
Spellchecker.
> form such an Other for the structure forces us to say
> something Other than what we were going to say. For example, it forced
> me to say "take care" to Bob, reminding me that I don't hate this guy,
> that we've had friendly exchanges in the past, and that he's not a
> dumb bastard all the time.
So he's quite unlike you, then....
Mark Houlsby
Newsflash: it's still shit.
> (1) There is no need to change adjective and noun order in the first
> line for metre.
>
There's no need to write shit in the first place, but you do.
> (2) The second quatrain violates the rule that each quatrain be "one"
> complete thought. However, I believe that *more than one* complete but
> connected thoughts strengthen the following of that rule.
>
Nobody of any significance gives a fuck what you think, shit-for-
brains.
> (3) The ninth and tenth lines allow me to, Stephen King-like,
ROFLMAO!!!!
> enumerate brands and connect it with a piece of trash that is of the
> sort of "assigned" reading Bob is probably thinking of when he claims,
> without a shred of proof, that he's "better read".
You're seriously deranged. All he meant was that he's read and
understood
more quality literature than you have.
Which is true.
> I draw attention to
> the fact that many high school students are fed garbage by teachers
> who lazily claim that their students, especially when minorities,
> won't appreciate Higher Things...because the teachers are
> alternatively frightened or bored by their own limited exposure to
> Higher things.
>
Why draw attention to that? It's irrelevant, and so it serves only to
make you...irrelevant.
> (4) If pronounced correctly, the couplet is iambic and it's obviously
> pentameter now. In the second line the speaker must unexpectedly
> stress "to" and not "be and differentiate the stress of "far", the
> repetition of which was meant to echo Dickens' Tale of Two Cities.
>
In that case, it failed.
> "Scanning" is not something that can be learned in school, especially
> not in a modern school,
Prove that--in school--nobody has learned scanning.
> with its demi-Fascistic hatred of civilization
> and capitalist control. In fact, most people are dead to the sound of
> poetry because most people are physically out of shape. They lack the
> control and strength of their bodies needed to speak in other than a
> scream or monotone, and do not hear language spoken other than us from
> their fellow sheeple. In my direct experience, the best way to learn
> to appreciate and read, and therefore be able to write, poetry is to
> run twenty miles a week.
>
You're seriously deranged.
spinoza1111
The charm is broken for certain, or Mark
Is off his meds again, poor little man,
The light fades and gathers the dark
And again he mutters "it doesn't scan".
This is because Grumman, the Dumb Man
Seems to Mark his new and only friend
One's company but two's the Ku Klux Klan
You two have fun, licking the other's rear end.
It's a dirty job but someone has to do it
Once more unto the breach go I
For never a Nilges will say that he blew it
And food for worms will I make of this guy.
Spewsby cannot reply in poetry, in kind
And that is driving him batshit and out of his mind!
[Hexameter finish, like Greek fire, pouring down scorn on Spewsby.
Dang I'm good. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". Mah man John
Keats said that! We gonna go to Sizzler!"]
Mark Houlsby
Brilliant. More, please.
spinoza1111
No, that's it, little man. Unless you start paying me. You were
encouraged by Grumman's ignorant contribution to think you had an
ally, but clearly you're a beggar who would seek to ride a racehorse.
Get fucked, Mark, and from now on speak well of the dead.
Mark Houlsby
Go fuck yourself, Ed. I *did not* speak ill of the dead. All I did was
avoid looking like a fucking hypocrite by denying that I'd repeatedly
pointed out that Michael Martin's beliefs were deranged.
You really need to learn to read and write, you deranged fuck.
spinoza1111
I mean, this is contemptible. Melanie spoke well of my poems, and this
filled Bob Grumman with sexual rage and anxiety, whereupon he
unleashed his ignorant remarks. Spewsby thought he had an ally, and
being a cheap bully, is afraid to fight alone and prefers a mob.
Get help, guys. And no more pearls from me before you pigs, until
further notice.
Mark Houlsby
Yes, but she's a fucking thick cunt.
> and this
> filled Bob Grumman with sexual rage and anxiety,
No, it didn't, you deranged fuckwit.
> whereupon he
> unleashed his ignorant remarks.
His remarks were considerably more informed than anything
you've written here.
> Spewsby thought he had an ally,
Wrong!
> and
> being a cheap bully, is afraid to fight alone and prefers a mob.
>
Wrong again!
> Get help, guys. And no more pearls from me before you pigs, until
> further notice.
Thank fuck for that, you deranged, illiterate piece of shit.
Make it a longer absence this time....
spinoza1111
I'll kick your ass sooner than look at you
So come on, punk, make my day
You're an ignorant, uneducated bucket of spew
Who's afraid that deep down he's probably gay.
You lost long ago when you failed to reply
With anything like decency or sense
And god forbid you should write poetry
That would confirm your homosexualense.
Come see me any time and say that to my face
And then offer to assault me
I'll then jump your bubble butt and ugly face
And make you cry most speedily
You make the members of this group quite sick
You're an ignorant fool who's down a dick.
spinoza1111
> > Get fucked, Mark, and from now on speak well of the dead.
>
> Go fuck yourself, Ed. I *did not* speak ill of the dead. All I did was
> avoid looking like a fucking hypocrite by denying that I'd repeatedly
> pointed out that Michael Martin's beliefs were deranged.
>
> You really need to learn to read and write, you deranged fuck.
Nice going, Grumman, you enabled this...
And shove it, Houlsby, nobody's scared of you.
You're a confused little boy, taking the piss
And here is the state that you have come to.
You actually seem to believe that a "hypocrite"
Is anybody that tries to do the right thing
Since for you all is appearance, and shit,
To do right for you is to be a false thing.
You're so "authentic" you make me throw up
A product of yob modern "culture":
Beyond language below decency, a Pup
A regurgitate vomit of the worst sort of vulture.
Shut your mouth lest your mouth you fall in
We don't want to hear the state you are in.
L'envoi
And if you don't like it, may it come to pass
That legally, in self-defense, I can kick your ass.
Mark Houlsby
I thought you'd fucked off already, you little shit.
Melanie Sands
> On Aug 26, 1:18 pm, Mark Houlsby <mark_houl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Get fucked, Mark, and from now on speak well of the dead.
>
> > Go fuck yourself, Ed. I *did not* speak ill of the dead. All I did was
> > avoid looking like a fucking hypocrite by denying that I'd repeatedly
> > pointed out that Michael Martin's beliefs were deranged.
Actually, what the mentally ill Grossoulsby really did was to claim
that Michael Martin died because he had "strange ideas".
I told you, Spinozza, you're wasting your time and talent on this
common, vulgar idiot. I like your poems, I think they're clever, and
I always said you write well - even though you always were the
fire-breathing dragon that burbles in the woods calloo calay - heck
you know
what I mean.
I don't know what kind of warped mental state this poor fellow is
suffering from, but we must just ignore him. He's a waste of space.
I think that suggestion about posting in iambic whatevers - well,
it's too difficult for me. But I'm game if your are. I might learn
something!
I think Ed Wood's story - I saw the Johnny Depp movie - was really
depressing - because every filmmaker then asks himself, am
I a delusional Ed Woods, working like an slave and all I churn out
is shit? That is the fear of all artists, probably.
On the other hand, he went out and actually DID something - I know
three or four people in this very town where I live who have all kinds
of movie
equipment - some of it quite expensive - equipment I can only dream
of having - and have never yet managed to complete even the simplest
five minute short film. Not one little itsbybitsy teenieweenie movie.
So - even if he made shit, he made SOMETHING. And he never
gave up. Like McGonnagall. So good for him.
Melanie
Bob Grumman
I note that Our Oyster never did recognize my simple point, which is
that sonnets, by
definition, have to scan. Even my being an EX-substitute teacher and
a dumb
bastard doesn't make me wrong about that. The poems Our Oyster wrote
don't scan,
so they are not sonnets. Wouldn't you agree with that, Melanie?
--Bob
Mark Houlsby
> On 26 Aug., 12:01, spinoza1111 <spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 26, 1:18 pm, Mark Houlsby <mark_houl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Get fucked, Mark, and from now on speak well of the dead.
>
> > > Go fuck yourself, Ed. I *did not* speak ill of the dead. All I did was
> > > avoid looking like a fucking hypocrite by denying that I'd repeatedly
> > > pointed out that Michael Martin's beliefs were deranged.
>
> Actually, what the mentally ill Grossoulsby really did was to claim
> that Michael Martin died because he had "strange ideas".
>
I did no such thing. I suggested the possibiilty that his deranged
beliefs, which frequently prompted him to seek conflict, may
have contributed to his ill health, which, in turn, may have
led to the fatal heart attack,
You really need to learn to read.
> I told you, Spinozza,
And to spell.
> you're wasting your time and talent on this
> common, vulgar idiot. I like your poems, I think they're clever, and
> I always said you write well - even though you always were the
> fire-breathing dragon that burbles in the woods calloo calay - heck
> you know
> what I mean.
>
Your aligning yourself with this deranged idiot serves only to
cause your own stock to fall.
> I don't know what kind of warped mental state this poor fellow is
> suffering from, but we must just ignore him.
I'm just fine, thank you. If anyone seems deluded, that would be
you.
> He's a waste of space.
> I think that suggestion about posting in iambic whatevers - well,
> it's too difficult for me. But I'm game if your are. I might learn
> something!
>
First time for everything.
> I think Ed Wood's story - I saw the Johnny Depp movie - was really
> depressing - because every filmmaker then asks himself, am
> I a delusional Ed Woods,
Who?
> working like an slave and all I churn out
> is shit? That is the fear of all artists, probably.
>
By no means. Many are supremely confident. Many harbour more than
one fear.
> On the other hand, he went out and actually DID something - I know
> three or four people in this very town where I live who have all kinds
> of movie
> equipment - some of it quite expensive - equipment I can only dream
> of having - and have never yet managed to complete even the simplest
> five minute short film. Not one little itsbybitsy teenieweenie movie.
>
Maybe if you spent less time hanging out with your fellow trolls, and
more time actually applying yourself.
I suggest, however, that your top priority should be to learn to read
and
write.
> So - even if he made shit, he made SOMETHING. And he never
> gave up. Like McGonnagall. So good for him.
>
> Melanie
You seem to be missing that the very act of writing about me ensures
that you are not ignoring me.
Think about it.
Mark
Mark Houlsby
Melanie agrees with anyone who appears to be willing to oppose me,
Bob.
She's religiously deranged. Her world view is horribly warped.
Gaze not upon the full moon of Melanie Sands,
--Mark
Peter Groves
>
> I note that Our Oyster never did recognize my simple point, which is
> that sonnets, by
> definition, have to scan. Even my being an EX-substitute teacher and
> a dumb
> bastard doesn't make me wrong about that. The poems Our Oyster wrote
> don't scan,
> so they are not sonnets. Wouldn't you agree with that, Melanie?
>
> --Bob
To agree with your point, Bob, which is unarguably true, one first has
to be able to recognize lines that scan and lines that don't.
Peter G.
Bob Grumman
Now, now, good Peter, Melanie, I'm sure
knows what doth scan, what not; most wrong thus you're.
Maybe not as good as our oyster, but close, right?!
--Bob
Mark Houlsby
I begin to doubt whether Melanie knows the relative whereabouts of the
arse
and the elbow, what with her consorting with the oyster, and
Neuendorffer,
and various other deranged trolls, simply on account of the fact that
--evidently--she perceives them as being opposed to me.
--Mark.
--Mark
Peter Groves
Spot-on.
Peter G.
Bob Grumman
> > Maybe not as good as our oyster, but close, right?!
>
> > --Bob
>
> Spot-on.
>
Of course, I'm only good for two lines at that level, he's good for,
what? Hundreds? Thousands?
--Bob
Mark Houlsby
Please, he just left.
--Mark
spinoza1111
> On Aug 27, 6:19 pm, Peter Groves <metrical...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I note that Our Oyster never did recognize my simple point, which is
> > > that sonnets, by
> > > definition, have to scan. Even my being an EX-substitute teacher and
> > > a dumb
> > > bastard doesn't make me wrong about that. The poems Our Oyster wrote
> > > don't scan,
> > > so they are not sonnets. Wouldn't you agree with that, Melanie?
>
> > > --Bob
>
> > To agree with your point, Bob, which is unarguably true, one first has
> > to be able to recognize lines that scan and lines that don't.
Some poets know what scans, and what flat falls
From study and from Swot, but others sing
Their native woodnotes wild where water falls,
What's the diff'rence in such sweet jargoning?
Bill Shakespeare went to Poet's school
From rosy dawn to the blue of night
But not all poets have learned ev'ry rule,
A codex merely meant for memory's sight.
To me, it's not the habit of a gentleman
To say o'erhasty with a supercilious sneer,
"My dear fellow, your poem does not scan":
It usually shows that the Reader has the tin ear.
In fine: in your insupportable pretension
There's little more than...low reading comprehension.
A poem is a journey with a wise man or a fool,
And Wisdom cries out in the common street:
So 'tis proved by naught more than a Logic rule
That one can never tell what might one meet,
If one travels the whisper'd word on the page
Smiling at dissonance with a reader's charity,
One might be rewarded one's suspend rage
With illumination of the heart of the mystery.
But the function of the schools is but to destroy
The simple virtues of the common sort
Replacing them with naught but sour annoy,
And of ceremonious innocence making sour sport.
You've learned two catch phrases, I am aphraid
"Verbose" for prose, "don't scan" for verse, you've said.
spinoza1111
> On 26 Aug., 12:01,spinoza1111<spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 26, 1:18 pm, Mark Houlsby <mark_houl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Get fucked, Mark, and from now on speak well of the dead.
>
> > > Go fuck yourself, Ed. I *did not* speak ill of the dead. All I did was
> > > avoid looking like a fucking hypocrite by denying that I'd repeatedly
> > > pointed out that Michael Martin's beliefs were deranged.
>
> Actually, what the mentally ill Grossoulsby really did was to claim
> that Michael Martin died because he had "strange ideas".
>
> I told you, Spinozza, you're wasting your time and talent on this
> common, vulgar idiot. I like your poems, I think they're clever, and
> I always said you write well - even though you always were the
> fire-breathing dragon that burbles in the woods calloo calay - heck
> you know
> what I mean.
Yes, I know what you mean. I am rather the Jabberwocky of this group.
I stopped at the end of August, because in a surprise move my employer
fired me whilst denying he was, claiming it was the end of a
contract...whilst I was in the Fall bulletin for the school. This is
going to arbitration with Hong Kong's Labour Relations Division. Of
course, I found other work quickly. I also have enough time to work on
my painting: cf. www.spinoza1111.wordpress.com for my art blog.
>
> I don't know what kind of warped mental state this poor fellow is
> suffering from, but we must just ignore him. He's a waste of space.
> I think that suggestion about posting in iambic whatevers - well,
> it's too difficult for me. But I'm game if your are. I might learn
> something!
Try it! It's easy. And if you go off the rails, you get back again
often by adjusting the next line. It's always the whole, the final
result, that matters.
>
> I think Ed Wood's story - I saw the Johnny Depp movie - was really
> depressing - because every filmmaker then asks himself, am
> I a delusional Ed Woods, working like an slave and all I churn out
> is shit? That is the fear of all artists, probably.
I've addressed that on my blog. For me, creating art (whether poetry
or painting) just feels good, and if I can by living simply do so, I'm
a lucky man.
>
> On the other hand, he went out and actually DID something - I know
> three or four people in this very town where I live who have all kinds
> of movie
> equipment - some of it quite expensive - equipment I can only dream
> of having - and have never yet managed to complete even the simplest
> five minute short film. Not one little itsbybitsy teenieweenie movie.
>
> So - even if he made shit, he made SOMETHING. And he never
> gave up. Like McGonnagall. So good for him.
In my painting, I am trying to reconcile schlock visual art such as
old movie posters from my childhood with the grand tradition. Some of
it sucks, and some of it starts out good and then gets worse. But
using technology (dumbass cellphone camera at this time) I can make
records of the earlier state and turn them into prints. Nyah ha ha.
This is because I use the "indirect" methods of the Old Masters, which
produce intermediate states (lines on canvas, black and white
grisaille, colour) that I find fascinating.
Ed Wood, at least as portrayed by Johnny Depp, was a happy guy. That's
the point.
>
> Melanie
spinoza1111
> On Aug 26, 12:19 am,spinoza1111<spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 26, 12:38 pm, Mark Houlsby <mark_houl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
But they are, you jerk. You've overdefined "sonnet". Like limerick, it
covers a range of scansion and rhyming patterns. A Shakespearean
sonnet is not the only kind of sonnet. I've shown this already by
reference to John Lennard's The Poet's Handbook, a companion volume to
the Norton anthology.
I really, really dislike "teachers" like you who ruin people's lives
by overdefinition of artistic forms, assigning the student of color or
woman a lower grade based on rubrics only.
Furthermore...I've produced a shitpile of SONNETS, and you are not
able to write even one, which makes you the fat gym coach who torments
the kids who cannot run a mile while not being able to run one
himself.
Dig me?
>
> --Bob
spinoza1111
Ah Peter but my poems do scan just fine
Your claim a lie, and you, a fool's own fool:
Whose lack of reading comprehension
Is cover'd rather poorly by the uttermost pretension.
Ah Peter but my songs go down like wine
What few poems you've writ are vinegar:
Crabbed and sour beyond all reason
Deform'd unfinished and grape out of season.
Ah Peter but you're a pedant's pedant
With learning little and of judgement, scant.
For on the one hand you want to disrespect me,
While shitting on Bob, one, two three.
But dear boy, if what Bob says is as you say, true,
That's called agreement, or my name is Sue.
spinoza1111
Thus spoke the Oyster from the Oyster bed
I have writ what I've writ, and said, what I've said,
I know how to scan and I know how to rhyme
It's as easy as lying with patience and time.
'Tis not a swot of the names of the rules
Developed by Pedants of the various schools:
These name the water as in sunlight it falls
But see! 'Tis gone, and new water calls.
You'd put Dionysius in one of your schools
Set him to labour at spooling your spools,
And so he'll labour if for a time
It amuses our Bacchus, your name of the rhyme.
But out back in the pitch he's rogering your daughter
Laughing to scorn you with loud ringing...laughter
(And that was a "sight rhyme", wasn't it just,
Laughs the god as he slakes divine lust,
But one of the best you ever will see,
You gut bucket swine you pitcher of pee.)
But the only toad who I above so address
As a gut bucket swine and pitcher of pee,
Is of course that swine who Snark Foolsby, be,
Whilst exempting Peter and Bob and of course Melanie!
Bob pisses me off but he knows who he is,
Peter is gracious when he runs out of Fizz
And whilst in the past Melanie and I
Have creamed each other with a rare custard Pie,
It is not the intention of such a one as I
To bring Melanie shame in the public's great Eye!
Mark Houlsby
Out of the mouths of babes and fuckwits.....
> and you are not
> able to write even one,
Let's be thankful for small mercies.
> which makes you the fat gym coach who torments
> the kids who cannot run a mile while not being able to run one
> himself.
>
No, not really. He aspires to "gym coach" (notwithstanding Woody
Allen's assertion).
> Dig me?
>
A grave? With pleasure.
Look--Dan Schneider devoted an entire webpage to our Bob:
http://www.cosmoetica.com/D33-DES24.htm
Says it better than you ever could.
spinoza1111
A death threat? Watch out for measure, for measure.
spinoza1111
>
> Some poets know what scans, and what flat falls
> From study and from Swot, but others sing
> Their native woodnotes wild where water falls,
Damn. An Identirhyme and as such an Homeric nod
I'll be dipt in shit and be rogered with a rod.
spinoza1111
And Lo! As the bright sun doth pierce the lowering Cloud
Returneth Apollo, to the Hosannahs of the Crowd:
Returneth power, pleasure, and gracious lumentary Light
Banisheth it weakness, pain and the darkness of the Night
In Chariot Aflame he comes again, Pedantry to shame
Sing, o Muse, the just measure of bright Apollo's name.
Descends the Crown of Laurel, flees Houlsby in his sorrow
Smitten by Furies' Rods never to see the Morrow.
Shout choirs of angels and smite thy lyre Cecilia
Apollo comes with heavenly balm and Music that will heal ya.
spinoza1111
Spot-on, spot-on, replies Peter G,
Hoping through a certain lack of verbosity
To be accounted to have replied most wittily,
But alas! There's a spot on he,
Egg it is for surety,
For we don't fuck all glean his meaning or his intention,
Other than to show off with what again must be called rudeness and
pretension.
spinoza1111
Gibber on, oh gibber on,
In the growing light of dawn,
Grey of face, and whey of face,
Lacking in grace,
A thing from outer space,
Nobody likes you
You make us all to spew
And that is true, so rue,
Cry me a river of salty tears
For I have confirmed your fears
Of being less than zero for so many years.
>
> --Mark.
>
> --Mark
spinoza1111
"Not even close" the Oyster said,
As he gravely puffed on a runcible Pipe:
"Let me enumerate the way thou'rt dead
On arrival despite all your self-hype."
"I shall begin at the beginning, and not at the end,
That would make Melanie go 'round the bend:
She doesn't have a stress on the final syllable
Which causes your iamb to be less than wonderful."
"But your most egregious error,
Your most fatal of flaw,
Is that the final contraction is a terror
Which fucks up the inversion of words."
And so the Oyster struck Grumman dumb
Through shock and an awful lot of awe
He's passed out, dead, and to sensation he's dumb
Before the majesty of poetic law.
>
> --Bob
Mark Houlsby
Mark Houlsby
More, please....
spinoza1111
To use prose. I think that all poets (who manage to write what is
recognized by common folk as traditional metrical and/or rhymed verse,
eg., verse that can be set to melody) fall into one of the following
classes:
1. They learn prosody and consciously apply it
2. They learn prosody and do not consciously apply it
3. They do not learn prosody and do not consciously apply it (but
manage to write metrical and, as needed, rhyming verse, where we
recognize metre as more important than rhyme since metre appeared in
English verse rather late)
I BELIEVE I have succeeded, far more than anyone else here, in writing
traditional rhyming and metered verse, although do to my insufficient
training I cannot always recognize when I've written a form above the
line; for example, I'm damned if I could tell you what is a villainous
villanelle. Therefore I fall mostly into class 3 and only somewhat in
1. Native woodnotes wild and all that rot.
I think that up to the twentieth century, most English poets were
rudely forc'd in schools to learn formal prosody, with the paradigm
case being Shakespeare, but even in the case of Shakespeare, I do not
think he rudely forc'd himself to write in a particular form. I think
that when Shakespeare sat down to write for cash, he resolv'd only to
write iambic pentameter, rather more rhymed than the ignorant, casual
reader might know, so his new best friends, the lads at the Globe
willing to pay him cash money, could remember their lines.
[The RTHK announcer just said that Telemann didn't study music
formally!]
There are similar classes in art and even in music (as I am now
hearing in the unschool'd Telemann), although music is most subject to
the rules of the schoolmen.
Vers libre is not (cf Lennard, The Poet's Handbook, since my copy is
in storage at my former employer, who's being pissy and won't mail it
to me) la la la hoy day freedom, but the reassembly of verse according
to rules which are known after the poem is done. Atonal music is quite
strict, as seen in Stravinsky versus Schoenberg: Stravinsky's
departures back into tonality really suck. And in my direct experience
as a painter (www.spinoza1111.wordpress.com), abstraction is much,
much harder than realism. My figures are beautiful my backgrounds not
so good; cf. Ophelia's Resurrection at the blog.
The main point in formal study of prosody, classical art, and
classical music is avoiding stupid errors of the type I make, whether
an unintended identirhyme (falls with falls) as opposed to an amusing
sight rhyme (daughter with laughter), or a "realistic" figure that is
realistic only like a cartoon of Wonder Woman; since I've seen Wonder
Woman bodies at marathons, I try in art to remind people of a
possibility.
But the rules are after the fact. I think that in temperate abundant
climes such as obtained for hunter gatherers people spoke every day in
metre, were able as at Lascaux to capture movement in art, and sang
instead of spoke ceremoniously during everyday tasks. I think the ruin
of body and personal relations by industrial civilization creates the
personality, like I have been, unable to fit words together, draw a
line, or compose music, and the schools merely rebuild this
personality at best (but at worst they kill it again).
But if you wanna write poetry in traditional mode or classical art, my
view, based on my own limited success, is that you must play sports
and exercise vigorously every day.
My figure drawing is successful only insofar as I can feel within
myself the thrust of a thigh. My poetry's beat, such as it is, is the
natural beat of the human who must walk fifty miles to the fair and
dance all night.
In poetry, you also must read classical verse, and memorize long
passages. For example, I have memorized Satan's first speech in
Paradise Lost and recited it to toasted software engineers at orgies.
In art you must go to the museums a LOT and copy many works.
That is my experience.
Mark Houlsby
So...what you're saying is: you know little, and understand less.
spinoza1111
> On 16 Oct, 04:55,spinoza1111<spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
No. I know less than say an English PhD from a good school, but far
more based on reading alone than anyone here about the subject matter
at hand, and that includes our pedants Groves and Farey. And, I can
write. So fuck off, asshole.
Mark Houlsby
So, what you're saying is: you know little, and understand less, and
when challenged about what you have revealed voluntarily, you have no
better riposte than the adolescent: "...fuck off, asshole.".
spinoza1111
This guy is a super freak
I think his pump has sprung a leak
He loves it when I abuse him
Is that not called masochism?
Pain! Pain! Pain!
Mark Spewsby loves to be humiliated
It's his *raison d'etre*
He wants to be vigorously penetrated
But sorry, sweetie, it's not even *peut etre*!
Pain! Pain! Pain!
I am neither maso nor sado sweetie pie
I like it sweet and slow
If you get off when I make you cry
You gonna have to find somewhere else to go
Pain! Pain! Pain!
Mark Houlsby
Brilliant! More, please....
spinoza1111
Gee I guess your newsreader is broken
Or maybe it's sprung like you a leak
For you missed my poetry which when spoken
Shows you a fool with no right to speak.
But hey, you jagoff, I'm game:
I'll compose you a most learned fugue:
On the words "fuck off asshole" to shame
You and and your family name.
So...
Fuck
Off
Asshole
Asshole fuck off
Off fuck asshole
Hole ass fuck off.
Mark Houlsby
Exceptional! More, please....
spinoza1111
> On 26 Aug., 12:01,spinoza1111<spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Aug 26, 1:18 pm, Mark Houlsby <mark_houl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Get fucked, Mark, and from now on speak well of the dead.
>
> > > Go fuck yourself, Ed. I *did not* speak ill of the dead. All I did was
> > > avoid looking like a fucking hypocrite by denying that I'd repeatedly
> > > pointed out that Michael Martin's beliefs were deranged.
>
> Actually, what the mentally ill Grossoulsby really did was to claim
> that Michael Martin died because he had "strange ideas".
>
> I told you, Spinozza, you're wasting your time and talent on this
Few more thoughts, Melanie.
Yes, I have submitted to poetry contests and lost. The only one I won
was in 1999 when I didn't know that the schlock contests will always
let you win. But one thing I notice in both art and poetry today
compared to the Sixties when I was in art school is that even given
Modernist and Post-Modernist permissiveness, the art and poetry that
"wins" real contests is better than mine by pre-existing measures
which if anything are even stronger in response to the fear of
universal license.
Look at winning poems at sites like Winning Writers. The "winners"
have mastered either strict macro forms above the line or have an
easily recognizable Modernist style so that the judges, who are
pedants with extensive knowledge (which is what a pedant has, when you
drain the word of connotation) recognize the winners. And, another way
to win is to be of fashionable age, race and gender (and this is
partly just given white male oppression in the arts, which was a
reality when I was young). Whereas I'm ignorant and untutored *just
enough* (but more knowledgeable than most people here) to produce
effects that the judges find unrecognizable and as such offensive.
And, of course, in corporate sponsored contests, the restrictions on
sexual language and experience are if anything even more strict than
in community sponsored events.
For a really good writer of humorous prose who could never win a
modern contest, see Miss "Vodka and Ground Beef" at
vodkaandgroundbeef.com (I have contributed no end of filthy limericks
to her comments). Contests supported by corporations such as the
pompously and absurdly named "carpearticulum" contest at Border's
would never accept her work despite the fact that she celebrates
Border's, mostly by committing sex acts at Border's.
[There oughta be a law. Unless you studied Latin for at least two
years in high school or uni, you may NOT use Latin to name your event.
Jews won't let me use Yiddish, so I can be nasty too.]
I don't want to win carpearticulum and meet Jeff Goldblum. The only
honest way for me to meet Jeff Goldblum would be for me to break out
of my only involvement in film to date (extra) into a minor role, and
start bullshitting with him about something that we're interested in,
such as the Thirty Years War (intelligent celebrities often have
unusual and intense interests).
Poetry for me is merely gammon and a tic, like Soduku, at this time.
If there were a way I could make a LOT of money from it, I'd be on the
motherfucker night and day. But apart from doing what makes me money
(teaching) I prefer to pursue my old dream of reviving old master
techniques, not to create Masterpieces but to creates series of
studies for video and serial exhibition. Call it Serialism and call me
when you can show me the money. www.spinoza1111.wordpress.com.
As one who grew up in a big family, I think I subconsciously fear
being singled out for recognition for sibling rivalry caused me a lot
of pain when I was growing up. I am sick of this business of singling
people out for shame or fame. As Glenn Gould and Ed Wood both knew,
what's important for the artist is to communicate his passion and joy
in the act of creation to the audience.
Melanie, if you're on Facebook, there are two people on FB named
Edward Nilges. One lives in DC and is a great guy, my cousin. The
other is Jabberwocky here. I welcome your Friendship if you use FB.
> common, vulgar idiot. I like your poems, I think they're clever, and
> I always said you write well - even though you always were the
> fire-breathing dragon that burbles in the woods calloo calay - heck
> you know
> what I mean.
>
> I don't know what kind of warped mental state this poor fellow is
> suffering from, but we must just ignore him. He's a waste of space.
I think he's a masochist in the good old Kraft-Ebbing way. He wants my
abuse.
> I think that suggestion about posting in iambic whatevers - well,
> it's too difficult for me. But I'm game if your are. I might learn
> something!
I teach "how to write like Shakespeare":
1. Have a thought such as "I want to write in iambic pentameter"
2. Mark its stress: i WANT to WRITE in iAMbic penTAmeter
3. See? You already start out with two iambs. You just need three
more.
4. Try following WRITE with the "iamb", which is what the word "iamb"
is: i WANT to WRITE iAMB
5. OK. Shakespeare often contracts adverbs into adjectives: i WANT to
WRITE iAMBic: you are setting up a crisp beat reminiscent of Whitman,
"I sing the body electric", although that's not iambic.
6. Add "poems" for octet: i WANT to WRITE iAMBic POEMS
7. This is the point where many writers have difficulty. You see,
you've written a complete thought and this causes many writers to run
out of gas. You could just add a two-syllable adverb such as "today"
to get an iambic pentameter that's dull: I want to write iambic poems
today (zzz).
8. But in poetry as in life, when all else fails, get gay. And, the
miracle for some writers at least is that getting the first line right
generates the poem:
I want to write iambic poems so gay
So full of love for gentle forest things
That naked nymphs with me would Antic Hey
And round me dance in pretty faery rings.
[Didn't say it wouldn't suck]
>
> I think Ed Wood's story - I saw the Johnny Depp movie - was really
> depressing - because every filmmaker then asks himself, am
> I a delusional Ed Woods, working like an slave and all I churn out
> is shit? That is the fear of all artists, probably.
>
> On the other hand, he went out and actually DID something - I know
> three or four people in this very town where I live who have all kinds
> of movie
> equipment - some of it quite expensive - equipment I can only dream
> of having - and have never yet managed to complete even the simplest
> five minute short film. Not one little itsbybitsy teenieweenie movie.
>
> So - even if he made shit, he made SOMETHING. And he never
> gave up. Like McGonnagall. So good for him.
>
> Melanie
Mark Houlsby
You're modest, withal.
> 1. Have a thought such as "I want to write in iambic pentameter"
> 2. Mark its stress: i WANT to WRITE in iAMbic penTAmeter
> 3. See? You already start out with two iambs. You just need three
> more.
Wow, this is really easy, then. Just like "painting by numbers".
> 4. Try following WRITE with the "iamb", which is what the word "iamb"
> is: i WANT to WRITE iAMB
> 5. OK. Shakespeare often contracts adverbs into adjectives: i WANT to
> WRITE iAMBic: you are setting up a crisp beat reminiscent of Whitman,
> "I sing the body electric", although that's not iambic.
> 6. Add "poems" for octet: i WANT to WRITE iAMBic POEMS
> 7. This is the point where many writers have difficulty. You see,
> you've written a complete thought and this causes many writers to run
> out of gas. You could just add a two-syllable adverb such as "today"
> to get an iambic pentameter that's dull: I want to write iambic poems
> today (zzz).
> 8. But in poetry as in life, when all else fails, get gay. And, the
> miracle for some writers at least is that getting the first line right
> generates the poem:
>
> I want to write iambic poems so gay
> So full of love for gentle forest things
> That naked nymphs with me would Antic Hey
> And round me dance in pretty faery rings.
>
> [Didn't say it wouldn't suck]
>
Neither did Shakespeare. About your effort, I mean.
spinoza1111
Indeed. Shakespeare would not have wanted to be a cultural icon and as
such a justification of oppression. The way this is done is through
mystification and obscuring of technique.
>
> > 1. Have a thought such as "I want to write in iambic pentameter"
> > 2. Mark its stress: i WANT to WRITE in iAMbic penTAmeter
> > 3. See? You already start out with two iambs. You just need three
> > more.
>
> Wow, this is really easy, then. Just like "painting by numbers".
When I teach it, it is.
>
>
>
>
>
> > 4. Try following WRITE with the "iamb", which is what the word "iamb"
> > is: i WANT to WRITE iAMB
> > 5. OK. Shakespeare often contracts adverbs into adjectives: i WANT to
> > WRITE iAMBic: you are setting up a crisp beat reminiscent of Whitman,
> > "I sing the body electric", although that's not iambic.
> > 6. Add "poems" for octet: i WANT to WRITE iAMBic POEMS
> > 7. This is the point where many writers have difficulty. You see,
> > you've written a complete thought and this causes many writers to run
> > out of gas. You could just add a two-syllable adverb such as "today"
> > to get an iambic pentameter that's dull: I want to write iambic poems
> > today (zzz).
> > 8. But in poetry as in life, when all else fails, get gay. And, the
> > miracle for some writers at least is that getting the first line right
> > generates the poem:
>
> > I want to write iambic poems so gay
> > So full of love for gentle forest things
> > That naked nymphs with me would Antic Hey
> > And round me dance in pretty faery rings.
>
> > [Didn't say it wouldn't suck]
>
> Neither did Shakespeare. About your effort, I mean.
What do you mean, o babbler?
Mark Houlsby
You must be the most highly-paid teacher in the world, then.
Presumably your students are all established poets now. Or are going
to be.
>
>
>
>
>
> > > 4. Try following WRITE with the "iamb", which is what the word "iamb"
> > > is: i WANT to WRITE iAMB
> > > 5. OK. Shakespeare often contracts adverbs into adjectives: i WANT to
> > > WRITE iAMBic: you are setting up a crisp beat reminiscent of Whitman,
> > > "I sing the body electric", although that's not iambic.
> > > 6. Add "poems" for octet: i WANT to WRITE iAMBic POEMS
> > > 7. This is the point where many writers have difficulty. You see,
> > > you've written a complete thought and this causes many writers to run
> > > out of gas. You could just add a two-syllable adverb such as "today"
> > > to get an iambic pentameter that's dull: I want to write iambic poems
> > > today (zzz).
> > > 8. But in poetry as in life, when all else fails, get gay. And, the
> > > miracle for some writers at least is that getting the first line right
> > > generates the poem:
>
> > > I want to write iambic poems so gay
> > > So full of love for gentle forest things
> > > That naked nymphs with me would Antic Hey
> > > And round me dance in pretty faery rings.
>
> > > [Didn't say it wouldn't suck]
>
> > Neither did Shakespeare. About your effort, I mean.
>
> What do you mean, o babbler?
Shakespeare didn't say it wouldn't suck. Keep up.
Bob Grumman
I'm chagrined that you didn't include me with Groves and Farey, which
I take to indicate you consider me so much your inferior as to not
need mention. Which, I have to say, I take as a bit of an insult. I
won't call you an asshole or a teacher of heathens, though. In fact,
I'll praise you as at least trying to work out a self-analysis--and
reveal it in public for feedback, something others rarely do, but I
tend to do quite a bit. Your problem is that you are not capable
either intellectually or emotionally, if not both, of seriously making
the best case you can against yourself. You either are seriously
ignorant of poetry, or refusing, probably unconsciously, properly to
consider it.
Ignorance of poetry is common to high school students first developing
something like an adult interest in it. They have only a few
textbooks (usually) and the help of teachers who probably know more
than they do but for whom poetry is probably not a vocation, or even a
serious interest. They are bright, so quickly gain superficial
understanding of meter as dah dum dah dum, or dah dum dum dah dum dum,
and so forth. They already know what rhymes and similes are. And
they are satisfied with this knowledge, not recognizing that what they
know about, they know about only superficially, and that there is a
great deal they don't know about, some of it much more important than
anything they know. What they know, though, is enough for them to be
clever with and get good grades with, and perhaps some applause from
each other. And from the ordinary people you think the sole audience
worth writing for.
I feel I know such clever teen-agers well because I was one myself,
and perhaps remain one in certain ways. I think I went a step beyond
many of my peers when around age 19, I understood, or got a feel for,
the power of imagery. I'm not sure you have this. It's the basis of
lyrical poetry, and you have yet to present us with a lyric poem.
Like most bright beginners in poetry, I thought things some poets were
doing, some devices they were using, attempt to fool the public, the
standard philistine reaction: they didn't make sense to me, so they
didn't make sense. At 19 I learned how poetic devices like those E.
E. Cummings used did make sense, but certain more conventional ways of
using the language took several years for me to grasp, as with
Stevens's poetry. But by the time I got into his poetry, I at least
had learned that if I didn't understand a poet's words, it was
probably my fault, because almost all poets sincerely tried to be
understood--without saying less than they wanted to.
A problem for beginners is realizing how many different kinds of
poetry are out there--because they take it for granted that the few
standard anthologies are comprehensive. This is one of your
problems. Another is failure to recognize cliches, because the best
poets used them. The beginners don't understand that they used them,
usually, before they became cliches, so repeat them oblivious of how
bad they sound to anyone with any taste at all in poetry.
The unfortunate beginner rabidly defends what he does too long.
Everyone should defend his writing when it is criticized, but realize
when he's lost. You won't. And you can't get away with just ad
hominemizing your critics as pedants; you have to show why they are
wrong, which you don't do (and can't). For intance, it you want to
convince any fair judge that those of your sonnets we say are not
sonnets, you can't just say all your critics are fools, you have to
quote a fair number of poems considered for years to be sonnets and
show that each of them has what we call errors of prosody as bad as
yours and in the quantity that your "sonnets" have them. You can't
just cite some sonnet line of Shakespeare's that's 13 syllables long
as evidence a 13-syllable line in a "sonnet" of yours is okay unless
you can show that the sonnet by Shakespeare with the 13-syllable line
also has as many other prosodic flaws as your text.
In passing, an impression: that I can tell with many of your poems
whether they are intended to be entertaining horrible, or to be taken
as serious attempts at superior tradtional poetry. They seem often to
be doggerel. You seem to go for something you think clever or a rhyme
regardless of metrical concerns.
Your silliest need is to call your poems, "sonnets." They can be
first-rate and not be sonnets, but you can't seem to understand this.
Beofre deciding you know more than I and Peter Groves, Edward, you
ought to consider writing multiple books on poetry, writing multiple
articles on poetry for peer-reviewed publications or even lesser
publications or contributing to refence books on poetry, as both of us
have. Ones that writers with Ph.D.'s from Highly-Regarded
Universities also contributed to. (But you really should try to
recognize that what counts is what a person produces, not his
credentials, for others besides you, who have no credentials
whatever.)
--Bob
Mark Houlsby
Bob, you're a moron. I just got rid of Nilges.
--Mark
spinoza1111
And what is an audience worth writing for?
The turd, the envious, the vicious and the Bore?
>
> I feel I know such clever teen-agers well because I was one myself,
> and perhaps remain one in certain ways. I think I went a step beyond
> many of my peers when around age 19, I understood, or got a feel for,
> the power of imagery. I'm not sure you have this. It's the basis of
> lyrical poetry, and you have yet to present us with a lyric poem.
Omigosh what an Eleusinian mystery!
"Bob" knows the "power of imagery"!
>
> Like most bright beginners in poetry, I thought things some poets were
> doing, some devices they were using, attempt to fool the public, the
> standard philistine reaction: they didn't make sense to me, so they
> didn't make sense. At 19 I learned how poetic devices like those E.
> E. Cummings used did make sense, but certain more conventional ways of
> using the language took several years for me to grasp, as with
> Stevens's poetry. But by the time I got into his poetry, I at least
> had learned that if I didn't understand a poet's words, it was
> probably my fault, because almost all poets sincerely tried to be
> understood--without saying less than they wanted to.
And this lump of a retired substitute teacher groans
Of how many years it took him, how many paycheck loans
>
> A problem for beginners is realizing how many different kinds of
> poetry are out there--because they take it for granted that the few
> standard anthologies are comprehensive. This is one of your
> problems. Another is failure to recognize cliches, because the best
> poets used them. The beginners don't understand that they used them,
> usually, before they became cliches, so repeat them oblivious of how
> bad they sound to anyone with any taste at all in poetry.
This could only be written by an American dope
Who's never seen Yourup, you know, where dey got da Pope?
Baroque sculpture for one is a cliche of Greece and Rome
But it's called pastiche, asshole, you better stay home.
>
> The unfortunate beginner rabidly defends what he does too long.
> Everyone should defend his writing when it is criticized, but realize
> when he's lost. You won't. And you can't get away with just ad
> hominemizing your critics as pedants; you have to show why they are
> wrong, which you don't do (and can't). For intance, it you want to
> convince any fair judge that those of your sonnets we say are not
> sonnets, you can't just say all your critics are fools, you have to
> quote a fair number of poems considered for years to be sonnets and
> show that each of them has what we call errors of prosody as bad as
> yours and in the quantity that your "sonnets" have them. You can't
> just cite some sonnet line of Shakespeare's that's 13 syllables long
> as evidence a 13-syllable line in a "sonnet" of yours is okay unless
> you can show that the sonnet by Shakespeare with the 13-syllable line
> also has as many other prosodic flaws as your text.
Bob, far as you're concerned and by law,
Unless you can identify it...it's not a flaw
>
> In passing, an impression: that I can tell with many of your poems
> whether they are intended to be entertaining horrible, or to be taken
> as serious attempts at superior tradtional poetry. They seem often to
> be doggerel. You seem to go for something you think clever or a rhyme
> regardless of metrical concerns.
Oh, this unwashed asshole he burns
He furrows his brow, he twists! He turns!
For he has indigestion and "metrical concerns"!
>
> Your silliest need is to call your poems, "sonnets." They can be
> first-rate and not be sonnets, but you can't seem to understand this.
But that's what the word means, Green Jeans:
A sonnet is a class of forms and not a fix-ed form.
You want a rule for your little school
To fail the blacks and Hispanics
And because you're a racist, turd and fool,
You've not learned poetry you have learned tricks.
>
> Beofre deciding you know more than I and Peter Groves, Edward, you
> ought to consider writing multiple books on poetry, writing multiple
> articles on poetry for peer-reviewed publications or even lesser
> publications or contributing to refence books on poetry, as both of us
> have. Ones that writers with Ph.D.'s from Highly-Regarded
> Universities also contributed to. (But you really should try to
> recognize that what counts is what a person produces, not his
> credentials, for others besides you, who have no credentials
> whatever.)
You ought to be ashamed of yourself for playing such a stupid game
Get this, you piece of shit, and get it good:
Just because you contribute to Stupidpedia and so does Noam Chomsky
Doesn't mean you are anything more than a fool, lout, fat retard and
Chumpsky.
The story is old and the story is sad: you've been had,
Hoist by your own petard, a failure,
And when someone such as I writes with vulnerability
You tear him apart because of your own fragility.
" I just wanna know how one becomes a janitor because Andrew here is
very interested in pursuing a career in the custodial arts."
The Breakfast Club
>
> --Bob
spinoza1111
...the incredibly simple-minded assumption that The Best People Are
Highly Paid, which inside Mark has curdled into hatred and resentment
as he is maddened by false promises and true miseries.
I do teach, but only in the pure free-market sense: there's a lot to
be said for the free market.
As usual in these newsgroups, the "dominant" characters are
incompetents and creeps. At least Spewsby isn't verbose like Grumman.
Grumman the dumb man dearly wants to sit in judgement over his fellow
man, for after a life of failure he has only been judged, and found
wanting, and when he finds someone who shows his arse to the judgement
system, he's aghast. But I sense a real potential for violence in
Spewsby.
So, this visit of Apollo is finito and I am winched from the stage to
the roof.
Oyster...I like that. Clever.
Mark Houlsby
LOL! Way to generalise to the point of seeming ridiculous.
> I do teach, but only in the pure free-market sense: there's a lot to
> be said for the free market.
>
Sure. It destroys whole economies and generally behaves like a
sociopath.
> As usual in these newsgroups, the "dominant" characters are
> incompetents and creeps.
So why are you here, if you're superior?
> At least Spewsby isn't verbose like Grumman.
> Grumman the dumb man dearly wants to sit in judgement over his fellow
> man, for after a life of failure he has only been judged, and found
> wanting, and when he finds someone who shows his arse to the judgement
> system, he's aghast. But I sense a real potential for violence in
> Spewsby.
>
Again, your senses fail you.
> So, this visit of Apollo is finito and I am winched from the stage to
> the roof.
>
> Oyster...I like that. Clever.
>
Yeah. Brilliant.
Bob Grumman
Interesting question I may not have considered at the length it
deserves. I compose for people with a love of poetry and the
flexibility to appreciate many varieties of it.
> > I feel I know such clever teen-agers well because I was one myself,
> > and perhaps remain one in certain ways. I think I went a step beyond
> > many of my peers when around age 19, I understood, or got a feel for,
> > the power of imagery. I'm not sure you have this. It's the basis of
> > lyrical poetry, and you have yet to present us with a lyric poem.
>
> Omigosh what an Eleusinian mystery!
> "Bob" knows the "power of imagery"!
If you know it, why do you never evoke it?
> > Like most bright beginners in poetry, I thought things some poets were
> > doing, some devices they were using, attempt to fool the public, the
> > standard philistine reaction: they didn't make sense to me, so they
> > didn't make sense. At 19 I learned how poetic devices like those E.
> > E. Cummings used did make sense, but certain more conventional ways of
> > using the language took several years for me to grasp, as with
> > Stevens's poetry. But by the time I got into his poetry, I at least
> > had learned that if I didn't understand a poet's words, it was
> > probably my fault, because almost all poets sincerely tried to be
> > understood--without saying less than they wanted to.
>
> And this lump of a retired substitute teacher groans
> Of how many years it took him, how many paycheck loans
I'm not groaning, just reporting, absurdly thinking that it may make
you re-consider your belief that you've learned just about all anyone
not a Ph. D. from Harvard or the like can know about poetry after a
year of study.
> > A problem for beginners is realizing how many different kinds of
> > poetry are out there--because they take it for granted that the few
> > standard anthologies are comprehensive. This is one of your
> > problems. Another is failure to recognize cliches, because the best
> > poets used them. The beginners don't understand that they used them,
> > usually, before they became cliches, so repeat them oblivious of how
> > bad they sound to anyone with any taste at all in poetry.
>
> This could only be written by an American dope
> Who's never seen Yourup, you know, where dey got da Pope?
> Baroque sculpture for one is a cliche of Greece and Rome
> But it's called pastiche, asshole, you better stay home.
Your doggerle is full of cliches--too many of them to be funny if
you're making fun of bad poets.
>
> > The unfortunate beginner rabidly defends what he does too long.
> > Everyone should defend his writing when it is criticized, but realize
> > when he's lost. You won't. And you can't get away with just ad
> > hominemizing your critics as pedants; you have to show why they are
> > wrong, which you don't do (and can't). For intance, it you want to
> > convince any fair judge that those of your sonnets we say are not
> > sonnets, you can't just say all your critics are fools, you have to
> > quote a fair number of poems considered for years to be sonnets and
> > show that each of them has what we call errors of prosody as bad as
> > yours and in the quantity that your "sonnets" have them. You can't
> > just cite some sonnet line of Shakespeare's that's 13 syllables long
> > as evidence a 13-syllable line in a "sonnet" of yours is okay unless
> > you can show that the sonnet by Shakespeare with the 13-syllable line
> > also has as many other prosodic flaws as your text.
>
> Bob, far as you're concerned and by law,
> Unless you can identify it...it's not a flaw
I and Peter Groves and John Kennedy and others have identified many of
your flaws.
> > In passing, an impression: that I can tell with many of your poems
> > whether they are intended to be entertainingLY horrible, or to be taken
> > as serious attempts at superior tradtional poetry. They seem often to
> > be doggerel. You seem to go for something you think clever or a rhyme
> > regardless of metrical concerns.
> Oh, this unwashed asshole he burns
> He furrows his brow, he twists! He turns!
> For he has indigestion and "metrical concerns"!
> > Your silliest need is to call your poems, "sonnets." They can be
> > first-rate and not be sonnets, but you can't seem to understand this.
>
> But that's what the word means, Green Jeans:
> A sonnet is a class of forms and not a fix-ed form.
> You want a rule for your little school
> To fail the blacks and Hispanics
> And because you're a racist, turd and fool,
> You've not learned poetry you have learned tricks.
> > Before deciding you know more than I and Peter Groves, Edward, you
> > ought to consider writing multiple books on poetry, writing multiple
> > articles on poetry for peer-reviewed publications or even lesser
> > publications or contributing to refence books on poetry, as both of us
> > have. Ones that writers with Ph.D.'s from Highly-Regarded
> > Universities also contributed to. (But you really should try to
> > recognize that what counts is what a person produces, not his
> > credentials, for others besides you, who have no credentials
> > whatever.)
>
> You ought to be ashamed of yourself for playing such a stupid game
> Get this, you piece of shit, and get it good:
> Just because you contribute to Stupidpedia and so does Noam Chomsky
> Doesn't mean you are anything more than a fool, lout, fat retard and
> Chumpsky.
>
> The story is old and the story is sad: you've been had,
> Hoist by your own petard, a failure,
> And when someone such as I writes with vulnerability
> You tear him apart because of your own fragility.
>
> " I just wanna know how one becomes a janitor because Andrew here is
> very interested in pursuing a career in the custodial arts."
>
> The Breakfast Club
>
> > --Bob
Sorry Nilges, I forgot you were hopelessly insane.
spinoza1111
>
> > > Ignorance of poetry is common to high school students first developing
> > > something like an adult interest in it. They have only a few
> > > textbooks (usually) and the help of teachers who probably know more
> > > than they do but for whom poetry is probably not a vocation, or even a
> > > serious interest. They are bright, so quickly gain superficial
> > > understanding of meter as dah dum dah dum, or dah dum dum dah dum dum,
> > > and so forth. They already know what rhymes and similes are. And
> > > they are satisfied with this knowledge, not recognizing that what they
> > > know about, they know about only superficially, and that there is a
> > > great deal they don't know about, some of it much more important than
> > > anything they know. What they know, though, is enough for them to be
> > > clever with and get good grades with, and perhaps some applause from
> > > each other. And from the ordinary people you think the sole audience
> > > worth writing for.
>
> > And what is an audience worth writing for?
> > The turd, the envious, the vicious and the Bore?
>
> Interesting question I may not have considered at the length it
> deserves. I compose for people with a love of poetry and the
> flexibility to appreciate many varieties of it.
Oh dear Bob let me give you imagery
Of people who say things "me have love of poetry",
As they foregather at Borders, or Barnes and Noble
For their weekly Poetry Round-table.
First of all the standard American aurochostegasaurus
The enormous Fat Man, whose very sore at us
Who are slender, us who are slim,
And who would have us believe that within him
Lurks a Beautiful Soul
And not an overweight ass most assuredly whole!
Then in trip various Females
Some tripping gaily but most fat, and moving like snails
Ready too ready to be virtuously shocked:
On their spirit and soul the key has been lost
And the lock is most certainly locked.
They troop in, declaring themselves not to be of the common herd,
Because they "love poetry" and have learned like you, the occasional
buzz word
But when I start to speak they call Security
Being covered in years of falsity they know not purity.
>
> > > I feel I know such clever teen-agers well because I was one myself,
> > > and perhaps remain one in certain ways. I think I went a step beyond
> > > many of my peers when around age 19, I understood, or got a feel for,
> > > the power of imagery. I'm not sure you have this. It's the basis of
> > > lyrical poetry, and you have yet to present us with a lyric poem.
>
> > Omigosh what an Eleusinian mystery!
> > "Bob" knows the "power of imagery"!
>
> If you know it, why do you never evoke it?
I really don't know what you're talking about,
And I suspect that you do not either,
"Grey of face, and whey of face" in reference to Dark Mark
Is imagery just like a pitcher of Lois and Clark.
My descent of Apollo was imagery, of course,
Unless you've never slept on a beach or ridden an horse,
But park your fat ass in front of TV
Every night promptly until a quarter to three.
(Your steatopygian ass is an image,
But one I do not care to evoke...being sage)
Most of the imagery escapes you
Because you're without culture or experience of nature,
And what you think imagery
Is what's on TV.
>
> > > Like most bright beginners in poetry, I thought things some poets were
> > > doing, some devices they were using, attempt to fool the public, the
> > > standard philistine reaction: they didn't make sense to me, so they
> > > didn't make sense. At 19 I learned how poetic devices like those E.
> > > E. Cummings used did make sense, but certain more conventional ways of
> > > using the language took several years for me to grasp, as with
> > > Stevens's poetry. But by the time I got into his poetry, I at least
> > > had learned that if I didn't understand a poet's words, it was
> > > probably my fault, because almost all poets sincerely tried to be
> > > understood--without saying less than they wanted to.
>
> > And this lump of a retired substitute teacher groans
> > Of how many years it took him, how many paycheck loans
>
> I'm not groaning, just reporting, absurdly thinking that it may make
> you re-consider your belief that you've learned just about all anyone
> not a Ph. D. from Harvard or the like can know about poetry after a
> year of study.
I agree with you Bob you lousy great Yob
That it'd be pretentious oh very of me
To claim that I know everything about Poetry, I'd be outa my tree.
But I make no such claim bold, have never of old:
Instead this is my claim here to fame:
It's that I know ten times as much
As you and those who are such,
And furthermore you will never learn
Because all you've ever cared about is the money you earn.
>
> > > A problem for beginners is realizing how many different kinds of
> > > poetry are out there--because they take it for granted that the few
> > > standard anthologies are comprehensive. This is one of your
> > > problems. Another is failure to recognize cliches, because the best
> > > poets used them. The beginners don't understand that they used them,
> > > usually, before they became cliches, so repeat them oblivious of how
> > > bad they sound to anyone with any taste at all in poetry.
>
> > This could only be written by an American dope
> > Who's never seen Yourup, you know, where dey got da Pope?
> > Baroque sculpture for one is a cliche of Greece and Rome
> > But it's called pastiche, asshole, you better stay home.
>
> Your doggerle is full of cliches--too many of them to be funny if
> you're making fun of bad poets.
Let me try again to parse it for ya, Petunia:
Let me try again to explain,
It's not a cliche when used a new way
Michelangelo's David ain't hackneyed
Even though he evoked Greek stones, making dry bones
Alive, again after one thousand years.
And don't dog me with that silly word doggerel
(If you must, learn how to spell it)
All it means is I write real swell
And this burns your ass, you twit.
Your posts do not hurt me you're a complete fool,
I reply because of what happens in school,
Where substitute teachers become vicious gate keepers
Taking their rage out on innocent kids,
Who are being tracked to lives of misery or the skids
Because they are black, or brown, or (in past times) just Yids.
>
>
>
>
>
> > > The unfortunate beginner rabidly defends what he does too long.
> > > Everyone should defend his writing when it is criticized, but realize
> > > when he's lost. You won't. And you can't get away with just ad
> > > hominemizing your critics as pedants; you have to show why they are
> > > wrong, which you don't do (and can't). For intance, it you want to
> > > convince any fair judge that those of your sonnets we say are not
> > > sonnets, you can't just say all your critics are fools, you have to
> > > quote a fair number of poems considered for years to be sonnets and
> > > show that each of them has what we call errors of prosody as bad as
> > > yours and in the quantity that your "sonnets" have them. You can't
> > > just cite some sonnet line of Shakespeare's that's 13 syllables long
> > > as evidence a 13-syllable line in a "sonnet" of yours is okay unless
> > > you can show that the sonnet by Shakespeare with the 13-syllable line
> > > also has as many other prosodic flaws as your text.
>
> > Bob, far as you're
>
> ...
>
> read more »
Bob Grumman
poety--i.e., for lyrical purposes. So far as I am aware, you have
never composed a lyric poem. You may have the resources to do so,
although I suspect you don't, for you seem to be unaware that poetry's
foremost value is not conveying a message but, but you certainly lack
the resources to compose a lyrical poem of even minor value.
--Bob
Mark Houlsby
But but nut'n'but Bob but,
Nilges is deranged, and you keep treating him as if he isn't. Like all
of your other ideas, this is a bad one.
spinoza1111
This twitt'ring world is not imaginable
I do not want to picture you, o Bob:
A fat and old man gruesome, horrible,
A lout, a bore, a cad, a creep and slob.
Is this the place to launch a thousand ships,
That eager part the blue ocean like whales,
And burn the topless towers of Illium,
Threatening Troy with angry sails?
The world has outgrown lyrical verse
It is the time of the Troglodyte
A keen vein satirical suits the imp perverse,
So I invite you to my crank to bite.
There are pearls that are fit for swine
But not high lyric words, they are too fine.
Bob Grumman
Please, Spinny. This is too moronic even for me to respond to, and I
want to be able to annoy our schoolmarm by responding to you. She's
really the pits, don't you agree?
--Bob
Mark Houlsby
It's interesting that you would /seek/ agreement with a deranged
person. You don't annoy me, I think you're HLAS' greatest comedian,
funnier even than "Thick Lizzy" Weir.
p.s. Your blog is hilarious.
spinoza1111
Bob, if you are talking about Melanie
Then with you I don't agree
Your values are for shit
You dine on garbage and think it fit.
At the ends not beginnings of meaningless subservient and wasted lives
You and Mark are spewing resentment
At someone better than you.
Yes, Bob, better than you.
>
> --Bob
Mark Houlsby
Ed, your writing shit like that reinforces Bob's position. By all
means write shit, but not shit which helps Bob.
spinoza1111
> On Oct 18, 8:10 am,spinoza1111<spinoza1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Oct 17, 7:16 pm, Bob Grumman <bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net> wrote:
>
> > > True, I didn't say so, but I meant imagery as used by the greatest
> > > poety--i.e., for lyrical purposes. So far as I am aware, you have
> > > never composed a lyric poem. You may have the resources to do so,
> > > although I suspect you don't, for you seem to be unaware that poetry's
> > > foremost value is not conveying a message but, but you certainly lack
> > > the resources to compose a lyrical poem of even minor value.
>
> > > --Bob
>
> > This twitt'ring world is not imaginable
> > I do not want to picture you, o Bob:
> > A fat and old man gruesome, horrible,
> > A lout, a bore, a cad, a creep and slob.
> > Is this the place to launch a thousand ships,
> > That eager part the blue ocean like whales,
> > And burn the topless towers of Illium,
> > Threatening Troy with angry sails?
> > The world has outgrown lyrical verse
> > It is the time of the Troglodyte
> > A keen vein satirical suits the imp perverse,
> > So I invite you to my crank to bite.
> > There are pearls that are fit for swine
> > But not high lyric words, they are too fine.
>
> Please, Spinny. This is too moronic even for me to respond to, and I
No, Bob, it's not too moronic,
It's not moronic at all. To play this sort of clever trick
Requires culture and vocabulary which you don't have at all, at all.
You trouble this thread with your idiotic comments
You waste our time with your stupid remarks
As he with rotten inflaming gums
Worries his last tooth:
The tooth of truth, Bobster,
And I your truth faery,
Whispering to you in the night.
spinoza1111
And you're a potential murderer
With serious problems in your head
Someone needs to call the cops on you
Before a child is raped and left for dead.
I'm talking anger management, Bubba,
I'm talking impulse control,
You are a piece of shit and nothing but trouble
A dickwad and a troll.
And if you don't like what I'm saying to you, scumbag
You know where I live and reside:
I'll kick your ass six ways from Sunday
And whip your fat white hide.
spinoza1111
Gee I think I'm gonna have a cow
How dare I think to be the equal
Of such a cynosure with no sequel?
But let me ask you a question, byotch,
Let me propose you think a thought
Is a PhD in Chemistry
Gonna know 'bout Poetry?
Oh so oh ho you mean an English PhD
Now, you are telling me:
Well let me explain it all to you
I'm the truth faery and what I say is true.
Brutal educational inequality
Savage and covered with children's blood
Creates this superstition in the ignorant man
That a "Harvard PhD" is no man but God.
Well, I then am Prometheus from Princeton
Where I worked for a while as a nerd
And during that time I got a good view
Of what you consider such a sacred word.
I am sitting in a vegetarian cafe
Listening to Bach, and grinding out this:
Because it's simple a matter of culture
On which school systems piss.
And you're the gatekeeper of that system
Children's hopes you do destroy:
Therefore you cannot write a line of verse
And in you there is neither hope nor joy.
It's not a question of a PhD, jerk face
Any real writer could tell you that
The university destroys the writer
And makes his writing equivalent to the Cat in the Hat.
It's a matter of vocabulary and reading
And this is precisely what is destroyed
By the schools in which you have been working
Killing the delighted, murdering the joyed.
So take it and shove it
Up your hairy ass
You know nothing and you love it
When the black and brown you don't pass.
spinoza1111
Bob wants me
To "evoke the power of imagery"
A phrase straight out of the textbook
A hook, to trap the unwary.
Gee, Bob, how shall I
Evoke the power of imag ar Y?
How about an image of your car
Driven into the swamp near your home
With you in it?
Naww...too violent as are most images today.
How about an image of you getting lucky for a change?
Remember to compliment her
Tell her she doesn't sweat too much for a fat girl.
The problem is you've been humiliated
Emasculated
Eviscerated
Tersivigerated
Penetrated
Shamed
Un-famed
Properly named
As pompous fool lout and jerk
By my poetic work
And you can't stand it
It makes you want to cry.
Mark Houlsby
Brilliant. More please.
Mark Houlsby
Brilliant. More please.