Seashell

[Alan Alda]

There is the Bellybutton-Gazing school of poetry that Mat belongs to and there is the kind of poetry school that others enjoy reading that Manna belongs to.
Take your pick.
Laurie

[madflowers]

Poetry has little to do with trying to be "clever".
Poetry is a response to life
an emanation from within,
distilled.


MatJ

Nice one Mat -great discription of poetry.
The poem at the start here 'Seashell 'has some of this in it I feel.
Maybe in the critic's eyes it has too many words or too little words which the writer may or may not decide to rewrite .
The putting the emotion down on paper is the first important step -in my view.
I keep coming back to a few lines by the great Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh on how he views the role of the poet
"What happens in the small towns-
Hate,love ,envy -is not
The concern of the gods. The poet poor
Or pushed around ,or to be hanged ,retains
His full reality:and his authority
Is bogus if the sonorus beat is broken .

[Manna]

Thanks, Laurie.

[Virginia]

Thank you one and all.
Somethings I agree with/ some I disagree with but I feel happy that the subject has been engaged with and that means a lot.
Thank you

[mat james]

There is the Bellybutton-Gazing school of poetry that Mat belongs to

Very true Laurie!
Maybe our mentor (Leonard)on this forum does a little of that "Bellybutton-Gazing" too.

[Alan Alda]

No Mat, he is a 'trained' poet, he studied it in school and knows the difference between what is a diary entry and subject matter that is crafted into a poem (real poem), even if it is self-centered.
It's insulting to believe otherwise.
IMHO

[Virginia]

Alan, can belief ever be insulting?

[Alan Alda]

Good catch. After I hit post, I realized I shoulda said:
propose
but I was too lazy...it's exhausting to type this........bye.

[Violet]

... okay, somehow I wrote two posts instead of one... see below... v.

[Violet]

Seashell

It keeps whispering,
even when I'm not listening,
whispering something
to someone else,
telling sad secrets,
here on the shore between life and eternity.

And some of its stories
are lies and some are the honest truth
and some I'm not even sure
I really heard.
But it never stops its whispering,
here on the shore between eternity and life.

Virginia,

As I agree with what I remember of Michael's crit, I thought I'd go over that with you, among other things as well... As per Lord M's comments, some specificity here would be needed to take your poem further along... what lies? what truths are being imparted? Without that, something here is truly lacking... I also feel there is no hope for the “from here to eternity line,” cliché wise, but there may be some manner of timelessness, at least in terms of mood, inherent in your poem to begin with, so relative to this line in particular, maybe best to just… snip snip… (Actually, this timelessness idea has nothing to do with Lord M's take, just to be clear here.) Lastly, some tightening is in order. As far as adjectives go, ask yourself if they add something that wouldn’t already be inferred. The "honest truth" is an excellent device to use if your objective is to kill off Lord Michael possibly for good, if that's what you were trying to do with it. Other than that, its "wrongness" is almost incalculable... Actually, I take that back. I just saw it as having that country music cliche quality which, if deliberate, can work... perhaps... maybe... Moving on, there's also the rhythm and structure to consider here too, so all of these aspects work hand in hand.

To me it’s a combination of what Laurie and Mat are suggesting... namely, that you have the discipline of writing grounding your inspiration, or self-centered inspiration, as the case may be -- of course, I'd like to see an example of "non self-centered" anything when it comes to writing poetry, but that's another issue I think. It's like learning the piano. Once you’ve got the writing basics, the chords, the scales, etc., as it were, then you can let loose, but there’s always the discipline backing you up as well as making demands of you. The writer, in this sense, needs to be her own tough task master. There's just no getting around that. And the meaner and tougher that task master is, the better a writer you are going to be. Too bad if you thought it was all just fluffy and sandy and beachy -- it can be that way in part, but only if you've mastered the darn hard rocky business of writing. And how do you do that? You write and refine write and refine write and refine write and refine... I think you get the picture.

As to Laurie’s comment about Leonard Cohen and his educational background, he of course has that backing him, and I don’t know his poetry well enough to speak to that part of his artistic output, but I’d venture the man would be a poet of some kind even if he came of age swabbing the deck somewhere… say from here to eternity? (‘cause I like to have my clichés and eat them too!)

yours in the trade,

Violet


much much later edit, or comment, actually (as I continue my trip down memory thread-dom today): this Virginia person (as I explain below) had been giving me an enormous amount of "lip" on threads prior, well on one thread in particular.. none of it having to do with real critique, either..

last edit: I've decided to go with the smaller font for this post, which is what I've become accustomed to doing, especially with lengthier posts..

[Virginia]

"Too bad if you thought it was all just fluffy and sandy and beachy -- it can be that way in part, but only if you've mastered the darn hard rocky business of writing. And how do you do that? You write and refine write and refine write and refine write and refine... I think you get the picture."

Veronica, I'm interested in what you say above, particularly the piece I've quoted.
Is this from experience?
You've obviously attended writing classes/seminars.

[Violet]

No, Virgil, I've actually just been swabbing the deck, as they say... you know where (but let's not get hung up on eternity)...

Look, Virginia, I am not trying to pick a fight with you here. You don't have to agree with my opinions, but I'm not mud slinging. If this was a serious Forum, there would be this kind of discussion and it wouldn't have to wind up with goofy insults -- well, there's always room for goofiness, I imagine, but you know what I mean. Now, I think you'd have to agree that you've given me enough "lip" to afford me a few serious words of crit now and then where your writing is concerned. FYI, I am a published writer, and why I spend any time here at all is a matter I prefer to keep between me and my analyst. Believe me, it's better that way.

without malice,

Violet

[edit: I took out two of these [ ! ] that were really really annoying me... v.]

[mickey_one]

it's good to remember that a poet may be salvageable even if a particular poem of hers is not.

[Virginia]

mickey-1 - was that a swing at Vio or Vir or both of us

[mickey_one]

mickey-1 - was that a swing at Vio or Vir or both of us

it was a random swing of the penisdulum directed vaguely but rhythmically at the one whose name begins with V