[Rant] Why so Traditional? + a short poem about metre
SKA666
In article <19961229211...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, SKA666
<ska...@aol.com> writes
>
I wrote the comments below. Mr SKA666 (I love all things beastly &
skavoovish btw), *please* learn to quote properly,-- those funny right
angle brackets are not just an attractive border designed to enhance the
overall effect. Only, you understand, so your beautiful words are
clearly separated from my own base utterances.
>In article <19961228215...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, SKA666
><ska...@aol.com> writes
>>I have noticed a defininte trend in this newsgroup towards the
>>"Traditional" view of modern poetry.
>
>This could just mean so many things eg
>
>(a) RAP is reactionary and hostile to the modern (=contemporary) poetry
> being produced by new writers; or
>(b) Modern means modernist and RAP subscribes to the notion of
> modernism as just too high falutin' and difficult; or
>(c) Modern means post modern and RAP hates those kids.
>
>But later in your post we discover that modern doesn't mean modernist,
>it doesn't mean contemporary and it doesn't mean new, and "view" appears
>to mean modus operandi, not critique. Modern, it appears, refers to a
>poetic iceage that has lasted for the past 150 years.
>
>> Why isn't anyone here doing anything
>>which will help poetry evolve?
>>Poetry was not set years ago by a bunch of
>>now dead white males. There are things that have yet to be donein
poetry
>>and there are ideas and concepts which have yet to be brought into the
>>world of poetic expression.
>
>You can never prove that there are things undone in poetry (and that can
>be done). You can only show that there were by going and doing them.
>
>>Why should poetry stay where it has been for
>>almost a century and a half?
>
>Why are you saying it has? What's your argument? Poetry and the
>practice of poetry moves in all kinds of directions all of the time --
>unless you trap yourself in the petrified forest of the neo-formalists.
>I mean I think I *could* make an argument linking say Byron to Bukowski,
>or Christina Rossetti to Adrienne Rich. You haven't shown us you've
>tried. Examples could help.
>
>
>>What do you people think about this?
>
>I think you're saying a lot, but providing no evidence. Elsewhere in
>this thread you were having a go at mr smolens. I think him one the
>most unusual and interesting contributors to RAP -- because his language
>is interesting. For what it might be worth, I thought the three poems
>of yours I've seen here were pretty good, but anything especially fresh
>or new eluded my limited intelligence. Your use of spacing is quite
>effective, similar to post formal Adrienne Rich, though there are many
>precedents.
>
>>Why
>>are so many people stuck trying to rewrite "Ode to a Grecian Urn" or
>>"Ozimandias"?
>>Why are there so few truly fresh pieces posted on this
>>newsgroup and why aren't people looking for that?
>
>How can you know what people are looking for? What I think is that
>everything worthwhile leans on the work of others (it doesn't have to be
>poets though). Some read Keats and Shelley and end up sounding like
>masks of the same. Some read nothing and write dross. What I'm sure of
>is that you don't find a voice by sticking your fingers in your ears.
>
>>Christopher Garcia
>>Inspired Writer
>>Failed Goth
>>Cigar genius
>>and the Ayatollah of Professional Wrestling
>>
>
>shortpome'boutluv
>
> You
>-----
>o Yu
>
>
<end of my comments>
<mr ska's response>
>The problem is when a poet leans on his "master", the poet loses the
>essence of self in the work.
If you read one poet, have one master, you can be sure your stuff will
turn out much the same -- if the graft takes. If you read around a
little, everything can mulch down and you can grow your own voice.
I am trying to eliminate the essence of self in *my* work.
>I am not lumping the whole of 150 years, but
>there are strong themes that run through poetry from about 1840 on that
>have continued. There is more to the conection then most people see.
The
>use of spacing as an expression started around 1850, as did the idea of
>non-deliniated stanza breaks.
er, what is a non-deliniated [sic] stanza break, please? I seem to have
been asleep since the invention of the postage stamp. And believe me,
examples would be cool.
>I see that these have continued on, and
>maybe they should, but I would rather see something new done. There are
>infinite possibilites. \
urm from infinite possibilities, what follows? I feel a condensate
coming on. Could you, perhaps, name some writers who are doing the
kinds of things you're after, or are you really going it alone ?
>Christopher Garcia
>Inspired Writer
>Failed Goth
>Cigar genius
>and the Ayatollah of Professional Wrestling
>
haiku
-----------------------------
vers libre sucks, aut-
onymy's bad for the feet
- but binding is worse
--
a rattling and drinking
mr tim.
--
i cannot ride/this bicycle/of common sense/no more
--
Writers such as Darren McMayer, Beth Brewer, Steve Caskill and even to a
degree Peter Jay Shippy and Thomas Lux. I am alone in my feverish
thriving for a new style, as most of those who are writing in the style I
have espoused are not doing it on purpose.
Christopher Garcia
Inspired Writer
Failed Goth
Cigar genius
and the Ayatollah of Professional Wrestling