Poetry studying

[sighyoung]

Color me very impressed.[/quote]

Thank you. I wasn't trying to show off--it's what (and how) I teach. (Not Shakespeare, but poetry in survey classes and other courses.)

[Leroy]

Remember that it's a sonnet--follow the rhyme scheme.

Sonnets often state a problem (whether about a loved one, or a social problem), and attempt to work through the solution during the course of the poem. (A sonnet reflects a mind at work, searching for a solution.)

Shakespearean sonnets are divided into four parts: three four-line sets (abab cdcd efef) and a final couplet (gg). Additionally sonnets have turns (or voltas) in which the mind turns from reflecting upon a problem, toward the achieved solution (or, at least, some conclusion about the problem).

In Shakespearean sonnets, the volta (or turn) from problem to solution (or acceptance) usually takes place after the first three quatrains (between lines twelve and thirteen). (This sonnet is slightly different, but don't worry about that for now.)

Mind you, you can't solve many twelve-line problems with a two-line solution--all you can do is be a smart ass. And that's what Shakespearean sonnets are known for--witty (or smart-ass) comments on the task at hand.

****But remember that poems aren't just about the subject at hand--sonnets allude to (are in conversation with) other sonnets. Writers write sonnets not only because of the form, but because they are talking back to/interpreting/ prior sonnets. So Shakespeare's sonnet is not only about a loved one, but about sonnet writing and appropriate ways to write about love and desire.

To understand what Shakespeare is up to, it helps to know how Shakespeare is responding to prior love sonnets (including those written by his contemporaries). Essentially, Shakespeare's sonnet takes up a standard challenge for poets of the time--how can I show off my wit while describing your beauty and my desire? This sonnet takes a different tack, deflating the artificial comparisons of the day. I'll comment more fully when I have time.

The sonnet you've quoted has some misspelled words, which makes reading it more difficult. Later, I'll try to find a more accurate version of the poem, though.

Well, I'll shut up for now. And don't worry--it's fine not to like it. But it's useful to know what's going on in the poem, too.

The more you try
to impress
I realize
it's just bs.

[sighyoung]

For you Leroy:

Little Tommy Tripper
(Naughty little nipper)
Stuck broken glass up his *ss
And circumsized the skipper.

[JCShutout]

I don't like most poetry. I don't think it's for lack of understanding. It's much in the same way I know I don't like theatre, or musicals. To me it's an inferior way to communicate an idea. I know many people who think it's the highest literary form there is, but even making such a claim unsettles me. So there's probably an iconoclastic aspect to my dislike.

There are exceptions to that, though. Always liked Walt Whitman, and EE Cummings.

I'm going to have to disagree with the notion that poetry/art is an inferior way to communicate an idea. Sometimes concepts that are important to a people or culture are very difficult to quantify, and the best way to explain it is through story or other literary devices.

I'll use Jesus as an example since I'm a Theology grad student. Jesus preached the most about the Kingdom of God. (Better translation is "Reign of God", and I almost prefer, "Kin"dom of God as a modern understanding)

Jesus could have said, "The Kindom of God is one of justice for the poor and oppressed and widows, egalitarian relationships..." etc etc, and while that would have described it, concepts and ideas like "justice for the poor" are so vast and difficult to quantify that He used parables/stories instead.

Some concepts are too "messy" to be fully fleshed out without art, especially when you want to redefine how one thinks about said concept, like Jesus did in His parables.

[sighyoung]

For those of you who appreciate true art:


Venus di Milo

Though she's armless,
She isn't charmless.

The best of some Melian artist's oeuvre,
She's shown in the Louvre.

[sighyoung]

Here's another one:

Delmar At Night


On Delmar at night,
The crime gives everyone a fright.
Oh! It is such a terrible sight,
Particularly, oh, say around midnight.

Miles away, the rich gorge on
The fresh, new eggs of sturgeons,
But the violence on Delmar, it burgeons!
There, bleeding like stuck pigs, the victims are in need of several skillful surgeons.

Oh, it nauseates me no end
To think of the innocent women, children, and men
Who will meet their pitiful end
On that boulevard of iniquity and sin.

[doe_boy]

This one got me back in American Literature 2. I've been a fan of Mr. Hughes ever since.

Theme For English B by Langston Hughes

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you--
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem,
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:

It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me--we two--you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York, too.) Me--who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records--Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?

Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white--
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me--
although you're older--and white--
and somewhat more free.

This is my page for English B.

[Arthur Dent]

I don't like most poetry. I don't think it's for lack of understanding. It's much in the same way I know I don't like theatre, or musicals. To me it's an inferior way to communicate an idea. I know many people who think it's the highest literary form there is, but even making such a claim unsettles me. So there's probably an iconoclastic aspect to my dislike.

There are exceptions to that, though. Always liked Walt Whitman, and EE Cummings.

It took me years to like poetry--the more I read, the more I tended to like it. (I do most of my research on poetry.) It helps to read many poems by a particular writer to begin to see what that writer is doing.

I don't think it's inferior, just different. I agree, though--it's useless and pompous to uphold up one literary genre as the acme of literary achievement. (I get tired of pompous twits who use literary texts as bludgeons against others' intelligence.)

Funny you should like Whitman and Cummings--although stylistically different, I've long thought that Cummings and Whitman shared certain ideas and influences.

With a few exceptions, I never really got poetry either. It seems to be written in some kind of code, and even when it's unraveled for me, I never really got the point. Like why would I want to read a love poem that's primarily a comment on other love poems? It all seems rather self-referential to me. I don't really mean that as criticism. My mind apparently just doesn't work that way.

Edit: I generally enjoy the poems Garrison Keillor puts on The Writer's Almanac in the morning, but I imagine these are not sophisticated enough to be cool.

[sighyoung]

With a few exceptions, I never really got poetry either. It seems to be written in some kind of code, and even when it's unraveled for me, I never really got the point. Like why would I want to read a love poem that's primarily a comment on other love poems? It all seems rather self-referential to me. I don't really mean that as criticism. My mind apparently just doesn't work that way.

Not taken as criticism. Many novels allude to other novels, of course. With poetry, it's not necessarily a closed-off club, but it does help to know the frame of reference, oftentimes.

Also, I wonder whether ghostrunner is also talking about figures of speech, such as metaphor and simile. These also have their uses. Even rhyme can be useful, both for writers (it expands or contracts the range of word choice) and readers (highlighting key ideas, and contrasting them between lines).

Edit: I generally enjoy the poems Garrison Keillor puts on The Writer's Almanac in the morning, but I imagine these are not sophisticated enough to be cool.

Never worry about what some call sophisticated. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

[ghostrunner]

With a few exceptions, I never really got poetry either. It seems to be written in some kind of code, and even when it's unraveled for me, I never really got the point. Like why would I want to read a love poem that's primarily a comment on other love poems? It all seems rather self-referential to me. I don't really mean that as criticism. My mind apparently just doesn't work that way.

Not taken as criticism. Many novels allude to other novels, of course. With poetry, it's not necessarily a closed-off club, but it does help to know the frame of reference, oftentimes.

Also, I wonder whether ghostrunner is also talking about figures of speech, such as metaphor and simile. These also have their uses. Even rhyme can be useful, both for writers (it expands or contracts the range of word choice) and readers (highlighting key ideas, and contrasting them between lines).

Edit: I generally enjoy the poems Garrison Keillor puts on The Writer's Almanac in the morning, but I imagine these are not sophisticated enough to be cool.

Never worry about what some call sophisticated. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

Ugh, Garrison Keillor reading poetry. No offense, but that's is like the perfect storm of annoyance for me. I've listened to his show for several minutes at a time, just thinking there must be something I'm missing. I never find it. I love the Simpsons episode where he's on PBS speaking to a laughing audience and Homer pounds the TV to try and make it funnier. I suppose I shouldn't be too proud of that though, considering.

I don't have a problem with metaphors or similes. Those are used in prose all the time. Rhythm and rhyme are what I find most bothersome. So perhaps my mentioning of musicals is apt. Why break in the middle of a story with a song? Makes no sense to me. Similarly, why force an idea into a rhyming scheme? If you're going to do that, you may as well write music. That's my thought process anyway.