leonardcohenforum.com

Hi Michael ~

I'm not talking about flowers and chocolate; but about formaldehyde and dissection.

I'm not talking about symphonies, where all the critics attend and as expected post their reviews; but about informal gatherings where people share their songs and pass the guitar, absent the experts's critiques after each hand-off... and, of course, ignore some, implicitly sending the message that theirs was simply not worth their time. With a separate section, the contributor's intent and the brightness of the lights would be in sync. Surgery and pass the scalpel, please.

To try to embarrass or shame someone for their sensitivity, regarding something heartfelt written and shared, is what I find embarrassing.


~ Lizzy

lizzytysh wrote:Hi Michael ~

I'm not talking about flowers and chocolate; but about formaldehyde and dissection.

I'm not talking about symphonies, where all the critics attend and as expected post their reviews; but about informal gatherings where people share their songs and pass the guitar, absent the experts's critiques after each hand-off... and, of course, ignore some, implicitly sending the message that theirs was simply not worth their time. With a separate section, the contributor's intent and the brightness of the lights would be in sync. Surgery and pass the scalpel, please.

To try to embarrass or shame someone for their sensitivity, regarding something heartfelt written and shared, is what I find embarrassing.


~ Lizzy

I love the idea of the informal gatherings as you describe. When we have poetry gatherings at the Events no-one would stop to criticise. They are not workshops. We do not yet have the separate sections that you suggest.

I don't think William need be ashamed of his sensitivity. However, we will have to disagree about what was embarrassing, his post or mine. We arrive at this Forum as consenting adults and his reaction to Greg was the most extreme example I have seen here of a child throwing a tantrum.

The misapprehension running here is that just because William’s words can be truly heartfelt and important to him, they are not immune from use by others. If William was a friend or acquaintance who told us this story then it would be completely inappropriate to respond in Greg's style. But, he submitted a poem and should either be grown-up enough to accept another's reaction, whether favourable or not, or he should add a warning "this writer is super-sensitive, please send only flowers or chocolates".

. . . or he should add a warning "this writer is super-sensitive, please send only flowers or chocolates".

This is the attempted shaming I'm talking about, Michael.

There's one already awaiting your arrival in the next operating room, however. Everyone's scrubbed and donned in their antiseptic whites.


~ Lizzy

lizzytysh wrote:

. . . or he should add a warning "this writer is super-sensitive, please send only flowers or chocolates".

This is the attempted shaming I'm talking about, Michael.

There's one already awaiting your arrival in the next operating room, however. Everyone's scrubbed and donned in their antiseptic whites.


~ Lizzy

it all depends whether the writer has an interest in improving or only wants compliments. my line you quote is pretty standard on poetry forums where writers whinge if they don't like the crits. they receive. it should be seen not as shaming but a reality check (based on one critic's opinion). as Manna pointed out about Mark recently, he only responds to favourable comments and ignores the criticial.

if you want to see a mature interaction then look at Seawall's poem For LZ- The First Time and the crit. I posted and the response. Textbook, the forum at its best.

I'll look at that when I can, Michael. Meanwhile, you're wanted in Paris... unfettered and alive... by agreement.

Doesn't everyone who plays music wish to improve? Does that mean they dare not play anything publicly, lest it turn into a music class? When you come upon street musicians, do you begin critiqueing their performance... or enjoy as you can and move on?

Don't most parents want to be the best parents they can be? If someone observes an interaction between you and your child or listens to you describe one, do you want to hear all the alternative ways they feel you should have done something... even though they may, ultimately, be better?

It just seems to me that there are some situations where dissection and reconstruction aren't always the most appropriate action to take... even though it's reasonable to presume that people want to improve their writing. It seems presumptuous to presume that everyone wants all of that to come from you [the generalized, not particularized, "you"]. If they ask, ask the Paris one did, fine... it has automatically been moved into a different zone.

Our perspectives on this aren't likely to come together, though they may merge in places.


~ Lizzy

What Greg says in his definition of a sonnet is all true. I have seen non-rhyming things people called sonnets, but the iambic pentameter seems a pretty hard rule to break well and still have a sonnet. Mickey's review of the LZ poem was given pretty humanely, which goes a long way in the workshop setting to help the author take it seriously. When I hear people say that there's no rule that harshly critical reviews need to be balanced with niceness, I know I have found a person who doesn't know much about being human and about accepting help. What's the difference between mercy and charity? When someone starts talking to you like you're in his or her high school class, it gets pretty easy to say, "Well f--- you too," even if the advise is good and well-informed. I'm talking from my own epereince here, since my posting of "scales" was my own little version of a temper tantrum.

It's not easy to know what to do with a poem that is posted here. I don't think most of the people who post here (save one or two, maybe) are serious poets. I am not a serious poet - the moment a poem becomes work for me, I lose interest in it. I also don't think most of the people who review here (save one or two, maybe) are serious literary critics.

As for re-writing someone else's poem, it does exactly what William says it does. The "reviewer" assumes ownership. I didn't think Greg intended to write a parody, but I haven't read what he wrote very seriously, and now William's original is lost for comparison. Oh, but it's darn fun to assume ownership of another person's poem and rewrite it isn't it? Whether as a parody or as a "just a suggestion, it's your poem."

Troubles and triumphs.

Dear Mickey,
Thank you for your post. I had nort expected my piece to geberate this debate and I regret it

I must admit I was quite taken aback by someone rewriting something I had written.

I cannot understand that you would perceive sensitivity about one's work as a cause for sadness.
My piece of writing is precious to me, can you underatand that?
I find it odd that you should tell me what I should and shouldn't feel about my own work

You take me to task for my "self-regard." As you don't know me, let me assure you that I am not a bearer of self-regard but I do have regard for people's work.

I don't know how Leonard Cohen would react to a parody of his work. Nor do I believe Greg was parodying my piece, rather I felt he was rewriting it. I disagree that he is free to do that.

William

William wrote:Dear Mickey,
Thank you for your post. I had nort expected my piece to geberate this debate and I regret it

I must admit I was quite taken aback by someone rewriting something I had written.

I cannot understand that you would perceive sensitivity about one's work as a cause for sadness.
My piece of writing is precious to me, can you underatand that?
I find it odd that you should tell me what I should and shouldn't feel about my own work

You take me to task for my "self-regard." As you don't know me, let me assure you that I am not a bearer of self-regard but I do have regard for people's work.

I don't know how Leonard Cohen would react to a parody of his work. Nor do I believe Greg was parodying my piece, rather I felt he was rewriting it. I disagree that he is free to do that.

William

Hi William, thanks for your response. I was only sad about you being, as I perceived it, so sensitive. Of course you care about your own work.

I do know very well how Leonard regards parody of his own work, not just from his reaction at the Green Note yesterday but his previous responses to ones I have written. I think he has much to teach us all about grace and self-confidence as well.

I hear you clearly that you feel Greg does not have the freedom to re-write another's work. I don't think over the years I have ever truly considered that proposition. Leaving aside the work of professionals, passing-off and other legal aspects, I am afraid I continue to think that your view is far too precious.

I may be in the minority position on this issue and thanks for sharing your stance in such a straight way

mickey_one

Having read the original posting of Sonnet, I've just caught up with the ensuing debate.

On Greg's rewrite, I have to say that I agree with those who suggest that commenting on a piece and making suggestions is one thing, assuming the responsibility to rewrite someone else's work is another entirely and demands either total ability or sheer bloody brass neck. I read Greg's redraft (if that's the correct term) and it really made no sense in a number of places, as the author of the original poem has pointed out. So what was the purpose in rewriting it? The version Greg produced wasn't "better" because (a) it wasn't making sense in places and (b) it wasn't Greg's to rewrite in the first place.
To point out the faults in a poem and and then to rewrite it as something less successful, devoid of sense or feeling is pointless in the extreme.

Mickey-one claims that Greg "is free to comment on and change your work as he pleases. Was it copyrighted? Are we allowed to play with even copyrighted work?"
This is an ongoing assumption, that everyone's posts are all here to be "played with." Not everyone posts material here for the purpose of its being played with and nothing give mickey or any other poster the right to assume that one person's effort at a poem is readily available as another person's plaything.

Nor, William, is he correct in stating that someone can "change your work as he pleases."
And, if the poem has been published elsewhere, it is copyrighted. Certainly, the moral copyright belongs to William and to suggest, even flippantly, that things are otherwise is, at the very least, unhelpful.

When mickey writes: "that freedom extends way beyond that ego," the assumption is that Greg's rewrite is "freedom" and William's reaction is "ego." A strange assumption.

The old chestnut: "this writer is super-sensitive, please send only flowers or chocolates" is a hoary catch-all. As far as I undersatand, William didn't have a problem with suggestions but rather with the hijacking of his work.

Again, the claim that mickey makes that "it all depends whether the writer has an interest in improving or only wants compliments" presupposes the acceptance that comments from Greg and himself necessarily guarantee improvement. On the evidence, here that's a very dubious assumption.

When mickey writes: "However, we will have to disagree about what was embarrassing, his post or mine. We arrive at this Forum as consenting adults and his reaction to Greg was the most extreme example I have seen here of a child throwing a tantrum," he is, again, dismissing the anger of someone who disagrees with him as a tantrum.

I think Manna has put her finger on what, in my reading of the posts, really irked William, when she writes:"The "reviewer" assumes ownership."

William I liked your Sonnet. I thought it was a moving piece.
Please re-post it.
The only "re-write" I would have done is my old chestnut... punctuation, grammar and spelling.
I agree with Yeats... Poets Learn Your Trade.
When I do a "re-write" on this forum I usually only change structure and grammar etc.... And do so only in order to be able to read the original more clearly... at least that's my intention... and in doing it I don't think I change anything of the original inspiration...

I don't like reviews on this post/forum that become personal and end up as macho rows between alpha males.
That's not criticsim... that's just posings on postings!!!

I take my poetry seriously.
I want criticism.
I don't want it to be personal, but I do want my poems to read well and make sense. To me poems read well when they are well written... back to Yeats....
I hope I am not being seen as presumptious in what I call superficial re-writes. The deeper stuff is purely up to the poet/writer...

So, come on lads and lassies... be critical but don't be personal...
Come on ye potes... the reader may have important things to communicate to you.
Listen to the criticisms not as criticisms, but opportunites to hear how your pome is doing the business of communicating...
If it's not communicating, then it's not doing the bizness...

That quote from WB Yeats is taken from Under Ben Bulben

V
Irish poets, learn your trade,
Sing whatever is well made,
Scorn the sort now growing up
All out of shape from toe to top,
Their unremebering hearts and heads
Base-born products of base beds.
Sing the peasantry, and then
Hard-riding country gentlemen,
The holiness of monks, and after
Porter-drinkers' randy laughter;
Sing the lords and ladies gay
That were beaten into the clay
Through seven heroic centuries;
Cast your mind on other days
That we in coming days may be
Still the indomitable Irishry.

"I don't like reviews on this post/forum that become personal and end up as macho rows between alpha males.
That's not criticsim... that's just posings on postings!!!"

Jimmy, assuming I'm incuded in your "alpha males" comment, I'd like to defend what I've written above - but also I suggest you note the presence of a few alpha females in the discusson!

I too take my writing seriously and to see people's opinions described as "ego" and to accuse someone of being like "a child throwing a tantrum" simply because that person has the gall to defend their own work is unfair, dismissive and hugely arrogant.

Likewise, the notion that someone can blandly (and I use that word advisedly)take some one else's work, make nonsense of it in the rewriting, as a supposed lesson in how things should be done, is an affront to any writer.

I'm intrigued by your comment, Jimmy:
"Listen to the criticisms not as criticisms, but opportunites to hear how your pome is doing the business of communicating..."

If someone actually takes YOUR poem (not their poem) and makes it their own without a by your leave then they don't qualify as a critic. So where does the business of communicating come into the equation?

I take your comments as being in the spirit of pouring oil on troubled water but, in this case, I believe William is being done a disservice.

mickey_one wrote: I do know very well how Leonard regards parody of his own work, not just from his reaction at the Green Note yesterday but his previous responses to ones I have written. mickey_one

mickey_one this thing is so cool that Leonard talk to you in the Green Note Cafe about your parody of his work and that he have wrote you before this time about your other making of his parody. This must make you feel most happely proud.

Nobody should have gotten their knickers up in a Klein bottle
over what I did.

I clearly labeled what I did as "my exercise:...."

I did not label it "my arrogant re-writing of William's poem....".
I did not label it "my better poem than William's...".
I did not even label it "my poem....".

Because what I did wasn't a poem.
It was 14 lines of 10 syllables each.
Period.

Song writers do it all the time.
For example

Well, the comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus.
The poor little chauffeur, though, she was back in bed
On the very next day, with a nose full of pus.
Yea! heavy and a bottle of bread
Yea! heavy and a bottle of bread
Yea! heavy and a bottle of bread

These are place-holder fill-ins lines,
temporarily occupying the place where real lyrics
will have to be put when the music is finished.

And they are usually nonsense. Or even scat.
And they don't usually make it to the 1st draft.

Their virtue, -their only virtue,
-is if they have the right number of syllables.

And that's what I did. And that's all I did.
And if you squint real hard at what I did,
- provided the light is sufficiently dim,
- then you can get from it an approximate idea
of what William's poem would look like
(~strictly in terms of meter) -if William (-not me!)
worked on it just a little bit more, and made it
into a real sonnet.

And "I still believe, in spite of everything,
that people are truly good at heart." (-Anne Frank)

And I still believe, in spite of everything,
that it would be worth William's while
to just put down his hands, and let down his hair,
and pull up his pants, and get it on, and down to it,
and make it into a real sonnet.

I believe this, first of, all because I love to alliterate.
And because no other form comes close to the sonnet
in terms of power and dignity. And because,
I believe, William's poem is worth it.

~~

I am glad for the discussion this stirred. .

And I have more to say.

This time, however, I am not going to try say it all all in one post.
Or Michael would object.

(And, I'm sure,
"the whole tangle of matter and ghost, darling of angels,
demons and saints,- the whole broken-hearted host"
would sustain.)

Sonnet
Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:56 pm
by William

William wrote:Sonnet - for John

If, as they say, the world was different then,
what is it now but different yet again?
So much of the past is held inside your heart,
showing itself in the ways you make an art
of everything. Your hedges neatly laid,
crops all tended, logs stacked with care, drills well made.
And from your deft hands the animals run loose
finding shape and contour in the woods you use.
In lilac, birch, chestnut, oak. Alive, complete,
each creature recovering its true heartbeat.

Treasuring the warmth we feel in being your friends,
we are drawn magnetic to you. In the end,
the knowledge gathered in all these years of living
returns in your generosity and giving.

I'm intrigued by your comment, Jimmy:
"Listen to the criticisms not as criticisms, but opportunites to hear how your pome is doing the business of communicating..."

If someone actually takes YOUR poem (not their poem) and makes it their own without a by your leave then they don't qualify as a critic. So where does the business of communicating come into the equation?

Yes, RP, I agree. The problem with some of the criticism, as I see it, is that the alpha male and females, as you say, don't add to the criticism of the poem, but take the poem and rewrite it as they, the a-critics, want the poem to be writtien. This is bludgeoning the poem into something it was never meant to be.
I have been on the end of that process!! But how I read and respond to the criticism is important, too, and I, as receiver of the criticism, have to tread lightly.
I think what I am trying to counter here, in the forum, is the tendency in us all to take it all so personally. Understandable... but this in a forum where there is some anonymity can be difficult to negotiate.

If we should have rules governing the criticism of posted poems, they should take into account that:
a) we don't personally know one another... this can be a safety valve... but it should warn each of us that if we take things personally we can miss the point of what is being said. Some of us poets get much too touchy, be times...
b) what each of us (poet and critic) is trying to do is communicate something that is personal, and therefore we should tread lightly on each others' dreams (Yeats again, I think!!!)....

We, both critic and poet, are in the bizness of communication. Communication should be clear... unpersonal, as opposed to impersonal, and respectful of the Muse, whose radiant faithfulness and frustrating inconstancy we struggle to bed in the darkness of the Dark Nights of the Soul!!!!

Jimmy