leonardcohenforum.com

As the Trolls have been so useless recently, and failed in their duty to entertain me, they have been PLONKED.

For the rest of you, here are some good guidelines for good poetry, posted originally by Dennis Hammes and Peter Ross.



Rules of Poetry
(as posted to the rec.arts.poems newsgroup)
1. Make certain your readers understand that, with five billion people on the planet, your feeling is perfectly unique. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.
2. Make certain your readers understand that, while the species has been making arts for 27,000 years (that we know of), your feeling has never before been experienced. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.
3. Make certain your readers understand that your feeling is both too unique and too novel to be couched in the standard language of any country or people. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.
4. Make certain your readers understand that, while you may condescend to use their pathetic attempt at a language, you must alter its spelling and punctuation according to the dictates of your most-novel and -unique feeling. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.
5. Make certain your readers understand that their pathetic rules concerning sound and form, and their effect on rhetorical period, have nothing to do with the expression of your feeling, since your feeling is so unique and novel as to be utterly unaffected by the manner of delivery. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.
6. Make certain your readers understand that any who do not understand the finer points of your feeling, including especially that it [is] unique and novel, is a troll. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.
7. Make certain your readers understand that your feeling is so pure that any rules of language or techniques of poetry would only sully it. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.
8. Make certain your readers understand that you, yourself, are so unique and novel, but especially so pure, as to have no need of any technique discovered by lesser masters. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.
9. Make certain your readers understand that nobody can read your poem, or understand your unique and novel feeling, nor especially its purity, without your personal intervention and help given in several sessions to their pathetic inabilities to read their own language. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.
10. Make certain your readers understand that your pure spirit will be available eternally to help those pathetic trolls understand your unique and novel feeling, and personally chastise those who just don't get it. If your poem does not say this, you have endless space on [the internet] to explain this at length, especially if your poem can't.





rulez 4 aspiring ~poets~
(by Peter J Ross, as posted to the rec.arts.poems newsgroup)
• 1. Begin every line with a ~tilde~. Otherwise your post might not be identifiable as ~poetry~.
• 2. Use..... lots.... of.....ellipses, use commas only to separate complete sentences.
• 3. Use "2" for "to", "8" for "ate" etc. Otherwise your poem will be 2EZ2 read. Also use emoticons after words like "happy" , "sad" etc, to avoid possible misunderstanding.
• 4. Use "z" for final "s"; failing that, insert rogue apostrophe'z.
• 5. Mis-spell as many werdz as posibble, speshly if the results commycall. Who carez abt that stuff 2day?
• 6. Avoid upper-case "I" at all costs, lest it look as if u give a shit about educatted readrz.... who r all neerly dead anyway & prolly pediatrics too.
• 7. Use ampersands whenever possible. If "and" does not appear in your poem, add it & wherever it's & least appropriate.
• 8. Make your signature look like the last line of the poem. That's like wayyyy clever!!!!
• 9. If you haven't got a web-tv account, get one now. Make sure your name is mis-spelled in your email address.
• 10. *Important* Make excuses for your poem in the first line of your post. Otherwise people may not like it as much as they ought.
• 12. Be unable to count past ten.

Critic2

you made me laugh with this.

This was the funniest reference to "Trolls" you ever posted (though maybe I missed a very early one). - At least you take the credit for bringing it here.

Cheers Mr. Trollhunter

Tom

I have written a poem about trolls
This is the best one you will have read.


A troll is a very
funny beast
here to enrage us all
at least
like a Crown Jester
at a feast
his jokes soemtimes hit
and sometimes meast!

Tom, I excuse you from your apparent breach of Peter's Rule 6 as you are a member here in good standing and a fine antidote to the Baby Trolls!

i'm so sorry, C2, and ashamed

Usually my poems are all lowercase (with a few exceptions, notably very old ones) - so I don't tend to break rule #6.

However, in this thread I'm expressing my feelings "both too unique and too novel" in plain prose. Therefore I feel that uppercase I is the far superior spelling



exacerbettering Ezra Pound I meditate:

when i carefully consider the curious habits of trolls
i am compelled to conclude that man is the superior animal.
when i consider the habits of men
i confess my friend i'm puzzled

(plz. note the LOWERCASE I)

Cheers
Tom

Hi Harry -

what about singing along?

Would you like to swing on a star?
Carry moonbeams home in a jar?
And be better off than you are -
Or would you rather be a troll?

A troll is a being with a stumpy nose
He kicks up everywhere he goes
His back is brawny - and his brain is weak
He's just plain stupid with a - stubborn streak

And by the way, if you hate to rock'n'roll
You may grow up to be a troll!

I see Harry Harpin has emerged from hibernation. Really, C2, you are getting so predictable.


YdF

Critic2, head master of the "Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't" school of poetic advice, is avoiding his assignments.

Really, this constant repeating of trolls, baby trolls, etc. has grown old. I was under the impression that you were the master of wit and all things clever. Can repeating the same thing ad nauseam be any less clever? True, there was that master stroke with John McEnroe and "Siruis", but that was a long long time ago.

Back to your assignment now. You've had your boring repitition for the day.

tom.d.stiller wrote: However, in this thread I'm expressing my feelings "both too unique and too novel" in plain prose. Therefore I feel that uppercase I is the far superior spelling
Cheers
Tom

neat joinder of both rules 6's. not for i to excuse you as these are not my rules, but me will put a good word in for you!

whoever conjured up "rules" for poetry is obviously one who is dictating that THEIR poetry is the only way to write it, and that if others don't, it sucks.

...you ever read john ashbury?

well, I can see you really read the post with care and took in the humour.

Teratogen politely enquired if I had ever read John Ashbury. No, I haven't .

But I did read this Oscar Wilde quote on the excellent egoless poetry site "all bad poetry springs from genuine feeling".

yes yes yes, i have read that quote before. haha it's funny. but you should read john ashbury and then mail him and call him a troll.

John Ashbury, (whoever he is, not had time to check him on the Net), will have to take his place at about no.70 of books I have bought over the last few years but not yet read.

deleted.