Before You're Sixty-Four.

[Geoffrey]

lizzytysh wrote:
>At times, I probably could say, yes, Andrew's is 'better' than Leonard's... I would choose one poem and align it with another... but I would be looking for one of Leonard's that I thought to be somehow 'lesser' and one of Andrew's that I thought to be somehow 'morer'


OK, thank you for tolerating me. You do not need to answer, and I will not be offended should you choose to refrain. It's just that an inability to compare things, or make personal decisions, could be a way (perhaps subconsciously) of avoiding responsibility - and this would dilute the value of an opinion. For a person who says every poem is good is equally as unhelpful as a person who says that every poem is bad - the only difference being that the former is more palatable to the poet's hungry ego. Is it possible for you to explain what, in your opinion, would make you recognise one poem as being 'lesser' or 'morer' than another? Because if I understand you correctly, you are saying that you feel unqualified to judge poetry for its literary value, and that Andrew's poems are (to you) therefore no better than those written by 'mat james', 'Adam ben Meyer', John K.', etc. Is this right?

[lizzytysh]

Hi Geoffrey ~

I'll do my best to answer you on your legitimate questions. I knew when I wrote it that you would zero in on that portion that you've quoted, but I let it stand, anyway.

I don't expect the writer of a poem to look to me for inklings of their literary merit, so the value quotient of their poetry isn't ~ or oughtn't be, anyway ~ what they would look to me for at all. I don't pretend or portend otherwise. My emotional responses are what they are... I'm not looking for, much less seeking, credibility as a critic of poetry. I hear and see people speak of forms of poetry... quatrains and such... and iambic pentameters or whatever those things are ... I wouldn't know one if it bit me and, again, I'm the last to pretend otherwise... I know that poems [other than free verse... and I don't know what rules may or may not apply there, if any... other than, "C'mon man, it's gotta end, eventually, y'know " ... ] so, if a person's going to look for literary merit in my responses, they've simply gotta look elsewhere. I've been emotionally touched and moved by the chords struck inside me by Andrew's poems, and Mat's, Adam's, and John K's, as well, each for various reasons. Their literary merit doesn't matter to me... what happens inside me does.

There is something in the condensed matter... like one of those heavy metals are in nature... and the absolute purposeful nature of every word in every poem, and absolute distinctiveness, individuality, and memorability of each poem, that I've observed here across time, that 'speaks' to me as serious poetry and that causes me to feel that Andrew would be at home in the company of those 'merciless' poets of yore... where that format/context is already agreed upon and understood. It seems to me that Mat, Adam, and John would be superb students in a class given by any of those men and would bring much pleasure to their teacher, and pleasure that the teacher could quantify!! It feels to me like Andrew has committed a greater share of his life to his goal of serious poetry, though I could be wrong. That is NOT to say that the others aren't serious in their writing, but that Andrew has a larger picture in his goal of writing... and he's very actively [or inactively, as writer's block situations come and go] pursuing it.

For ME to COMPARE, I need a knowledge base, plain and simple. If you were selected to be a judge for an equestrian meet, they would not be interested in which horse or rider makes your heart soar [or sore] as they virtually fly by. [I know I was deeply moved by the plight of Barbaro.] They're looking for quantifiable matters on a score card... in the end, there's always going to be an UNquantifiable matter, as well... but, by golly, there better be a score card that makes some kind of sense to the pros or you're outta there! For me, I wouldn't put myself in there, to begin with! I read, I sense, I feel, and I appreciate ~ or not!

I can appreciate that you want my opinions to have merit or value... and that they not be diluted... but, Geoffrey, I'm not even at the Poetry 101 level... I'm in the Poetry 000 level, hoping to heck I can pick up something along the way. I know what strikes me as crisp, concise, and meaningful... but I couldn't begin to tell you why... I think I'm getting a grip on what is internal rhyme... not able to do it, but at least sometimes recognize it. End rhyme is always pretty obvious... but there are so many variables of which I know NOOOOTHIIINNNG, that you need to look elsewhere for value in a literary opinion... mine are strictly personal. I've considered taking an entry-level course in poetry... and the more you ask, the more it seems I oughta .

This is also why I love being an Observer in the BoM threads .

If you choose to 'devalue' [not in a hurt feeling sense, but legitimately] my opinions in the literary sense, my feelings won't be hurt, and the fall is short... they're already barely scraping the ground . If you choose to say to others, who know what this realm is all about, "Don't bother asking Lizzy, cuz she doesn't know what she's talking about, poor dear... ," that's fine too, and I'll know, "Ahhh... he finally got the point!" If you choose to 'value' my opinions on something someone's written and why/how they touched me, here I sit, reading and ready to share what they are... and try to, as I'm able.

Geeeezzz... am I going to get any work-work done... we'll see. I know it's my choice to answer or not... next question ? I know you're a tough taskmaster when it comes to nail'em-down questions .


Still Respectfully ,
Lizzy

[Geoffrey]

lizzytysh asked:
>next question?

I don't think any more are necessary. Your reply was so convincing and modest that I feel my original query of whether it is possible for one to give an abundance of praise without one's credibility simultaneously being questioned has been sufficiently answered. You are, as I always suspected, genuine. It's just that psychologists tell us that a person who says what one hopes they will say may suffer either from a fear of hurting someone or a fear of being rude - and that this fear is often interpreted as politeness. But short of giving you the full MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) I have concluded that a diagnosis of SHP (Shining Happy Person) is most likely the correct evaluation.

[lizzytysh]

Thank you for your kind words, Geoffrey.

Thanks, too, for the reprieve on the MMPI for me, at least for today. Those bloody things take so long, and I really do hope to get some work-work done, and have so little time... and your foregoing [better yet, feeling one's not needed] a follow-up question helps tremendously in that, as well .

SHP sounds great to me [see... now wasn't that internal rhyme ?]... of course, the way you see, feel, and experience the world doesn't always make it through translation when other factors are afoot... and the lightness can become darkness, without one's own knowledge or consent. Permissions aren't always asked. It just happens. No happy-every-day-sunshine-person here... life can have its way with you from time to time, and even though that doesn't change who you are, it can sure look otherwise. I've experienced this close-up and personal... and I know it to be true. No great revelation there, but it's good to have an understanding of it. You're right on how I experience the world from inside me... arriving in perhaps a state of ignorance or naivete, yet eyes wide open in optimism, looking for what's good. Thank you for your informal assessment.

Just for the record, I LOVE Mat ~ he seems to me to have osmosed the qualities of opals, his exposure to them for so long bringing the inevitable... perhaps, his being is more open to that level of absorption; in his writing he manifests the glowing, vibrant, shimmering colours of the gemstone in his thoughts and perspectives. Very pleasingly multi-coloured and gentle. When one considers crystal and gemstone therapies, this makes perfect sense to me. Amidst all that there's a strong link to the mystical. His words and expression carry me away, to wonderful places.

I love the intensity and raw expressiveness of Adam and his ability to express what's deep inside him... to just take hold of all his anger, pain, frustration, idealism, and commitment to his belief that this can and will be a better world, if we but begin to make it so, one person at a time. He speaks to his past and all its gnarls and you feel you know this young man by the time he's finished. I admire and care about him... and I applaud his refusal to walk anything other than his own beat to his own drummer... even though I want him to gentle his down a bit, to listen and be open to my drum with Leonard and others I admire .

I love John K.'s commitment to home values and his children... love of family, as well as nostalgia for the past and serious concern for the future, and how these are ongoing themes in the things he writes. You can see so clearly that he is a good man with what we would know to be solid values. I've also met him in person and like him that way, as well. His contributions here seem to generally be in the format of a song, his composing them to be sung, accompanied by guitar.

Thank you for your tolerance of me, as well, Geoffrey. I appreciate it.


Respectfully,
and regards,
Lizzy

[Andrew McGeever]

I've read the correspondence between Lizzy and Geoffrey.
I think it's time to end this thread:
opportunities lost to address the text,
and that is all it was; the words
assembled, shaped to make
a poem to kick an audience
and the writer too.

I must do this more often.

Andrew.

[Geoffrey]

Andrew McGeever wrote:
>I've read the correspondence between Lizzy and Geoffrey. I think it's time to end this thread:

I, being one of the aforementioned, will show my respect for this request(?) and make this my final message to your thread - unless somebody encourages an extension.

>opportunities lost to address the text, and that is all it was;

Well, perhaps you can take solace in the fact that opportunities were not wholly lost - as the text of your poem was addressed and examined in detail earlier on, making it one of the most discussed poems here for a long time. Lizzy and I (the instigator) took the liberty of moving focus slightly away from your poem; to discuss the peripheral matter of the value of praise. Admittedly, this was more of a semi-humorous general exchange of opinions, and not directed specifically towards your verse - and for that I apologise. However, it was text, and that is all it was.

>the words assembled, shaped to make a poem to kick an audience and the writer too. I must do this more often.

This has a cryptic and poetic air about it, as if burgled from 'Energy of Slaves':

>the words assembled,
>shaped to make a poem
>to kick an audience
>and the writer too
>i must do this more often

Thank you. I keep you to your word and sincerely hope you 'do this more often'. Not being an academic I know so little about poetry and can only discuss its literary value on a very limited scale. This is why I concentrate mostly upon what a person is saying, as opposed to the way it is being said. The proverbial 'I don't know art but I know what I like' is highly true in my case.

Well, as these are probably my last words in this thread allow me to depart by saying that I am sure it can take courage to be 'a player' and present serious work here for open critical review. The fact that you are willing to do this is appreciated.

Farewell, Geoffrey.

[Andrew McGeever]

Andrew McGeever wrote:
>I've read the correspondence between Lizzy and Geoffrey. I think it's time to end this thread:

I, being one of the aforementioned, will show my respect for this request(?) and make this my final message to your thread - unless somebody encourages an extension.

>opportunities lost to address the text, and that is all it was;

Well, perhaps you can take solace in the fact that opportunities were not wholly lost - as the text of your poem was addressed and examined in detail earlier on, making it one of the most discussed poems here for a long time. Lizzy and I (the instigator) took the liberty of moving focus slightly away from your poem; to discuss the peripheral matter of the value of praise. Admittedly, this was more of a semi-humorous general exchange of opinions, and not directed specifically towards your verse - and for that I apologise. However, it was text, and that is all it was.

>the words assembled, shaped to make a poem to kick an audience and the writer too. I must do this more often.

This has a cryptic and poetic air about it, as if burgled from 'Energy of Slaves':

>the words assembled,
>shaped to make a poem
>to kick an audience
>and the writer too
>i must do this more often

Thank you. I keep you to your word and sincerely hope you 'do this more often'. Not being an academic I know so little about poetry and can only discuss its literary value on a very limited scale. This is why I concentrate mostly upon what a person is saying, as opposed to the way it is being said. The proverbial 'I don't know art but I know what I like' is highly true in my case.

Well, as these are probably my last words in this thread allow me to depart by saying that I am sure it can take courage to be 'a player' and present serious work here for open critical review. The fact that you are willing to do this is appreciated.

Farewell, Geoffrey.

Dear Geoffrey,
I'd like to respond to some points:
1.The correspondence between you and Lizzy introduced matters which, in my view, were "ultra vires".
2. A poem stands on its own: to compare ANYTHING I have written to that of Leonard Cohen, is, to be honest, out of order. I did not instigate that exchange with Lizzy.
3. The "Poetry" section on the L.C. Files has produced thousands of posts, and some fine poetry too: long may it continue. In the nature of cyberspace poetry, there is an inordrinate heap of rubbish too: it comes with the chosen territory.
4. I am NOT an academic: I teach Mathematics in a High School
5. I burgled nothing from "The Energy of Slaves"....yet your arrangement of the lines has given me a wee idea
6. Geoffrey, yes, " I will do this again", and make a better poem, if I can.
7. "The literary value of poetry". This is the stuff of another thread, or, better still, a reply from a poet.
8. "I don't know art but I know what I like". I agree.

Andrew.

[Geoffrey]

Dear Andrew -
You are a school-teacher who has sexual fantasies involving couples meeting behind their partners' backs at a bed and breakfast place. The imagined details are subsequently written down, as was the case with the work that initiated this thread; a squalid incident concerning two people indulging in a filthy night of carnality under assumed names. I had reservations against your story, not because of the double life you lead (on one hand doing a responsible job working with children, while on the other delving into a make-believe world of gratification of the flesh) - but because of how deception is portrayed as having only a positive side. Unless a person does not know the difference between right and wrong, or is completely void of conscience - this is misleading. Also, and here I am not talking specifically about your '64' poem: can a man write about immorality and dedicate it to a lady of virtue? Maybe you can, I don't know - but the association would have to be mostly negative.

[John K.]

post deleted

[lizzytysh]

I think it's the topic . No offense to the poem...


~ Lizzy

[John K.]

post deleted

[lizzytysh]

Hi John ~

That's a nice apology. The nature of your postings as a whole, though, provides a greater context, so as to make it an unnecessary one. As a member of the Forum, my own acceptance, of course. When you think of it, it is rather remarkable.

Did my own comment push you over the edge with circumspection?


~ Lizzy

[John K.]

post deleted

[Diane]

I just noticed how this one thread has more page views than the entire "News" section of the Forum.

How do you know that, John? Did you go down the list with a calculator? Blimey.

Geoffrey, please would you be so kind as to pm me the contact details of the membership secretary of your fan club. Thank you much.

Diane

[John K.]

post deleted