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Post by yougotastewgoinbaby on Mar 24, 2018 16:47:29 GMT
There once was this homo named Rob Who wanted to slobber my knob So I kicked his fairy ass Then banged some hot, dumb lass And on my knob she did slob OH! ...and to think that I briefly hesitated to post my previous post lest I lower the tone of this thread! You just can’t appreciate a great artist
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Post by The Herald Erjen on Mar 24, 2018 22:02:54 GMT
Fleet isn't even good enough to take a walk where Robert Frost took a dump. Did you read the Frost poem I posted on page one? It's a favorite of mine. Despite the superficial simplicity there's a lot going on thematically and technically. With the former, Frost was fascinated but horrified by Darwinism, and he's basically trying to imagine how that mix of horror and beauty, life and death, could exist by design. Technically, I love how he uses "white" as a motif before closing with that "darkness to appall" line, as appall literally means "to make white." That kind of attention to detail is the mark of a great poet. No, sorry, I didn't, but I'll go back and read it now. I had never heard about his feelings toward Darwinism before. Thanks.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 25, 2018 1:39:34 GMT
This sounds nothing like Robert Frost. Frost perfected the art of writing in demotic verse without all of the archaic syntactic inversions for the sake of rhyme that were prevalent in the 19th and 18th century. To compare: You say "syntactic inversion" like it's a bad thing. What is your reason for that? It's not an innately bad thing, but it's rather archaic and should be used judiciously. Most art-forms have devices/techniques that are popular in an era and through overuse become a dated affect that most future generations avoid. Syntactic inversions are a prime example of that in poetry. Milton, in particular, was a major popularizer of inverted syntax. He was trying to find a blank verse equivalent of the elevated style of Virgil (who was also syntactically complex), even though blank verse had, historically, been more used as a middle ground between everyday speech and poetry. So Milton contorted English syntax as much as he could to achieve that effect. The 18th century mostly followed his lead, and in particular syntactic inversions were abused in order to make end-rhymes work, so it became a sign of laziness. The 19th century, romanticism especially, was a major catalyst for returning poetry back to common language (and common subjects), and it's largely been the norm since then, with Frost being a major proponent of demotic verse (rather than demotic free verse, which came to dominate in the 20th century). All that said, well-timed inversions can make lines more memorable, and help provide a sense that something's a bit off or unusual. Frost himself provided one example: Wallace Stevens provided another famous example from the 20th century: Neither of these were lazily done for the sake of rhyme or meter, though; they were done to add a sense of oddness/strangeness. In the Frost piece, it enhances the mystery of what the "something" is that doesn't love a wall. In the Stevens piece, it adds to the notion that the jar is out of place in the landscape that surrounds it. A more extreme example would be from Alexander Pope: Here, Pope is describing both anarchy and the shambles of an old empire, so the disordered syntax fits what he's describing. So, yes, inversions can be used purposefully and effectively, but too many bad poets use them lazily. In film the equivalent might be the zoom-in to a close-up.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 25, 2018 1:40:41 GMT
Did you read the Frost poem I posted on page one? It's a favorite of mine. Despite the superficial simplicity there's a lot going on thematically and technically. With the former, Frost was fascinated but horrified by Darwinism, and he's basically trying to imagine how that mix of horror and beauty, life and death, could exist by design. Technically, I love how he uses "white" as a motif before closing with that "darkness to appall" line, as appall literally means "to make white." That kind of attention to detail is the mark of a great poet. No, sorry, I didn't, but I'll go back and read it now. I had never heard about his feelings toward Darwinism before. Thanks. I don't know if he ever expressed them explicitly, but they serve as a theme to much of his poetry, nowhere more obvious than in Design.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 25, 2018 1:46:43 GMT
"The writing of "trite" would be to help them write something that that someone thought was worth reading by, eg, avoiding such triteness in the future. " I am not talking about rejection I am talking about demeaning someone by calling their work trite or other terms like that. Yes ... that ! ^^^^^ Lugh she never explained why something was red penciled .. just did it and moved on to the next assignment ! so what was the real purpose ? <-- rhetorical question. The spelling/ grammar police are going to be after me too and it's too early to deal with it I don't think it's demeaning to someone to call their work trite. It's not a complement, but it's not really demeaning either. Rhetorical or not, the purpose would be to try to help them avoid such triteness, which I do agree would've been better accomplished by offering examples. "suppressing her students creativity" snowflake nonsense. If a person is truly creative (ie, not just doing it for assignments) then no negative criticism will stop them. WAS NOT POETRY WAS A SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT WORK WAS BY YOUNG TEENS - FRESHMAN IN HIGH SCHOOL -THE A+ GROUP OF KIDS - PRETTY WELL READ WAS GRADED BY A DISGRUNTLED BITCH OF A TEACHER WHO ENJOYED PUTTING YOUNG PEOPLE DOWN SHE WAS NOT A GOOD TEACHER in my subjective opinion SHE CERTAINLY STIFLED ENTHUSIASM FOR WRITING ~ FORTUNATELY THE NEXT YEARS TEACHER WAS A GEM HIDDEN AMONG THE PILE OF ROCKS EMPLOYED BY THAT SCHOOL.
and yes, I know I was shouting ... <shrug> pomposity has that effect on me. Dude, Lugh and I have been talking generally ever since, not just about your specific example, so it doesn't matter whether it was poetry or any other literary form, whether it was a school assignment, whether it was by young teens, etc., the points are universal. Now, if she was a disgruntled bitch who was doing it just to get her jollies, that WOULD make her a bad teacher; but chances are she was right anyway. Nearly all teens are bad writers, and this includes those that grow up to be great writers. As for "stifling enthusiasm," I stand by my comment that if something being called "trite" "stifles enthusiasm" then one must be a pretty vulnerable snowflake without much creative enthusiasm anyway.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 25, 2018 1:47:11 GMT
The writing of "trite" would be to help them write something that that someone thought was worth reading by, eg, avoiding such triteness in the future. I'm not saying people can't care about both, but anyone who writes for themselves isn't going to stop just because others don't like it, and if they care enough about what others like then they'll either have to change what they write or find someone who does. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Pretty much every creative writing textbook emphasizes that rejection is an inevitable part of it. I think what you say about wanting to be liked/social groups is the same thing I'm saying about poetry. People are free to share their poetry with as many people/groups as they like until they find one that likes it. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of both print an online journals that accept poetry submissions, and even plenty of online forums like this where you can submit and have others comment. They all have different standards for what they consider "worth reading." "The writing of "trite" would be to help them write something that that someone thought was worth reading by, eg, avoiding such triteness in the future. " Yes, but there's a way to do it. If a family member of mine is very overweight I dont approach them and say "Listen you fat fuck, you're a disgusting pig that needs to lay off all those big macs". "Pretty much every creative writing textbook emphasizes that rejection is an inevitable part of it." I am not talking about rejection I am talking about someone calling someone's work trite or using some other term like that. I agreed earlier that a better teacher would've, eg, offered examples of how it was trite by exposing the students to that same thought/idea expressed by other poets. Someone calling someone's work trite would fall under the general category of rejection.
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Post by BATouttaheck on Mar 25, 2018 1:52:32 GMT
Eva Yojimbo EDIT I see our "notes" have crossed in the mail so to speak and we are at cross purposes here. so
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 25, 2018 2:16:58 GMT
Eva Yojimbo EDIT I see our "notes" have crossed in the mail so to speak and we are at cross purposes here. so No problems.
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Post by Arlon10 on Mar 25, 2018 10:19:35 GMT
You say "syntactic inversion" like it's a bad thing. What is your reason for that? It's not an innately bad thing, but it's rather archaic and should be used judiciously. Most art-forms have devices/techniques that are popular in an era and through overuse become a dated affect that most future generations avoid. Syntactic inversions are a prime example of that in poetry. Milton, in particular, was a major popularizer of inverted syntax. He was trying to find a blank verse equivalent of the elevated style of Virgil (who was also syntactically complex), even though blank verse had, historically, been more used as a middle ground between everyday speech and poetry. So Milton contorted English syntax as much as he could to achieve that effect. The 18th century mostly followed his lead, and in particular syntactic inversions were abused in order to make end-rhymes work, so it became a sign of laziness. The 19th century, romanticism especially, was a major catalyst for returning poetry back to common language (and common subjects), and it's largely been the norm since then, with Frost being a major proponent of demotic verse (rather than demotic free verse, which came to dominate in the 20th century). All that said, well-timed inversions can make lines more memorable, and help provide a sense that something's a bit off or unusual. Frost himself provided one example: Wallace Stevens provided another famous example from the 20th century: Neither of these were lazily done for the sake of rhyme or meter, though; they were done to add a sense of oddness/strangeness. In the Frost piece, it enhances the mystery of what the "something" is that doesn't love a wall. In the Stevens piece, it adds to the notion that the jar is out of place in the landscape that surrounds it. A more extreme example would be from Alexander Pope: Here, Pope is describing both anarchy and the shambles of an old empire, so the disordered syntax fits what he's describing. So, yes, inversions can be used purposefully and effectively, but too many bad poets use them lazily. In film the equivalent might be the zoom-in to a close-up. I wouldn't say "archaic" and I wouldn't say "oddness/strangeness." I wouldn't say "archaic" because languages had case endings or other indications of case on words that made word order irrelevant. I wouldn't say "oddness/strangeness" because there's more to it than that. It demands more attention from the reader or audience, but that is not necessarily strange. Notice how unconscious of case English speakers have become. Difficulty with the predicate nominative has eliminated it almost entirely. Most people today are incapable of it and use the objective case instead.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 26, 2018 1:31:13 GMT
It's not an innately bad thing, but it's rather archaic and should be used judiciously. Most art-forms have devices/techniques that are popular in an era and through overuse become a dated affect that most future generations avoid. Syntactic inversions are a prime example of that in poetry. Milton, in particular, was a major popularizer of inverted syntax. He was trying to find a blank verse equivalent of the elevated style of Virgil (who was also syntactically complex), even though blank verse had, historically, been more used as a middle ground between everyday speech and poetry. So Milton contorted English syntax as much as he could to achieve that effect. The 18th century mostly followed his lead, and in particular syntactic inversions were abused in order to make end-rhymes work, so it became a sign of laziness. The 19th century, romanticism especially, was a major catalyst for returning poetry back to common language (and common subjects), and it's largely been the norm since then, with Frost being a major proponent of demotic verse (rather than demotic free verse, which came to dominate in the 20th century). All that said, well-timed inversions can make lines more memorable, and help provide a sense that something's a bit off or unusual. Frost himself provided one example: Wallace Stevens provided another famous example from the 20th century: Neither of these were lazily done for the sake of rhyme or meter, though; they were done to add a sense of oddness/strangeness. In the Frost piece, it enhances the mystery of what the "something" is that doesn't love a wall. In the Stevens piece, it adds to the notion that the jar is out of place in the landscape that surrounds it. A more extreme example would be from Alexander Pope: Here, Pope is describing both anarchy and the shambles of an old empire, so the disordered syntax fits what he's describing. So, yes, inversions can be used purposefully and effectively, but too many bad poets use them lazily. In film the equivalent might be the zoom-in to a close-up. I wouldn't say "archaic" and I wouldn't say "oddness/strangeness." I wouldn't say "archaic" because languages had case endings or other indications of case on words that made word order irrelevant. I wouldn't say "oddness/strangeness" because there's more to it than that. It demands more attention from the reader or audience, but that is not necessarily strange. Notice how unconscious of case English speakers have become. Difficulty with the predicate nominative has eliminated it almost entirely. Most people today are incapable of it and use the objective case instead. Archaic isn't about what grammar allows, archaic is about common usage (both demotically and poetically speaking). Syntactic order became pretty fixed some time around Early Modern English and outside of poetic license wasn't used in everyday speech. It also became archaic in poetry for the reasons I outlined above. Every generation of art has their list of devices/techniques that they consider "archaic" in their attempt to progress/break away from the past. Syntactic inversions went out with the Classical period... or at the very least Romanticism. Likewise, such inversions are odd/strange precisely because they're out of the ordinary of everyday speech. What you say about it "demanding more attention" is precisely because the mind is so used to the subject/verb/object word order, and upsetting that order requires a double-take to catch the meaning, unless one becomes accustomed to it; but it will never sound as ordinary as non-inversed syntax.
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Post by Arlon10 on Mar 29, 2018 9:41:12 GMT
I wouldn't say "archaic" and I wouldn't say "oddness/strangeness." I wouldn't say "archaic" because languages had case endings or other indications of case on words that made word order irrelevant. I wouldn't say "oddness/strangeness" because there's more to it than that. It demands more attention from the reader or audience, but that is not necessarily strange. Notice how unconscious of case English speakers have become. Difficulty with the predicate nominative has eliminated it almost entirely. Most people today are incapable of it and use the objective case instead. Archaic isn't about what grammar allows, archaic is about common usage (both demotically and poetically speaking). Syntactic order became pretty fixed some time around Early Modern English and outside of poetic license wasn't used in everyday speech. It also became archaic in poetry for the reasons I outlined above. Every generation of art has their list of devices/techniques that they consider "archaic" in their attempt to progress/break away from the past. Syntactic inversions went out with the Classical period... or at the very least Romanticism. Likewise, such inversions are odd/strange precisely because they're out of the ordinary of everyday speech. What you say about it "demanding more attention" is precisely because the mind is so used to the subject/verb/object word order, and upsetting that order requires a double-take to catch the meaning, unless one becomes accustomed to it; but it will never sound as ordinary as non-inversed syntax. I'm not seeing any sharp disagreement here. I would just add that "plainspoken" can be a very useful and righteous style although the term is often used disparagingly.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 30, 2018 1:55:41 GMT
Archaic isn't about what grammar allows, archaic is about common usage (both demotically and poetically speaking). Syntactic order became pretty fixed some time around Early Modern English and outside of poetic license wasn't used in everyday speech. It also became archaic in poetry for the reasons I outlined above. Every generation of art has their list of devices/techniques that they consider "archaic" in their attempt to progress/break away from the past. Syntactic inversions went out with the Classical period... or at the very least Romanticism. Likewise, such inversions are odd/strange precisely because they're out of the ordinary of everyday speech. What you say about it "demanding more attention" is precisely because the mind is so used to the subject/verb/object word order, and upsetting that order requires a double-take to catch the meaning, unless one becomes accustomed to it; but it will never sound as ordinary as non-inversed syntax. I'm not seeing any sharp disagreement here. I would just add that "plainspoken" can be a very useful and righteous style although the term is often used disparagingly. I agree, though I'm pretty much of the mind that any style can be useful and potent in the right hands. I think one problem with poetry today is that too many poets are too rigid in their conceptions of what kind of style they think is acceptable, or too concerned about finding "A" voice instead of experimenting with different voices and styles. One rather meta-poem I like on this tendency is from AE Stallings who pointed out how if contemporary poets were really that obsessed with language-as-it-was-spoken, that the word "like" would litter their poems:
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Post by goz on Mar 30, 2018 21:41:43 GMT
I dn;t pretend to understand it, butt it seems to be the modern day equivalent of the good olf faithfulf I'm not seeing any sharp disagreement here. I would just add that "plainspoken" can be a very useful and righteous style although the term is often used disparagingly. I agree, though I'm pretty much of the mind that any style can be useful and potent in the right hands. I think one problem with poetry today is that too many poets are too rigid in their conceptions of what kind of style they think is acceptable, or too concerned about finding "A" voice instead of experimenting with different voices and styles. One rather meta-poem I like on this tendency is from AE Stallings who pointed out how if contemporary poets were really that obsessed with language-as-it-was-spoken, that the word "like" would litter their poems: The addition of 'like' to the end of every sentence, thought or even phrase, like, is one of my pet hates, yet I am fascinated by its evolution or rather progressive inclusion into mainstream ( and particularly youthful ) speech patterns. I don't pretend to understand it butt it seems to be the modern day replacement of the good old fashioned 'umm'. There also seems to be ( as this poet points out ) to have a connection with social media, though this is not a simple conclusion or explanation. The Facebook thing is obvious yet the Twitter thing of encapsulating thought into small grabs seems another part and it may even, under these circumstances replicate and replace the old fashioned walkie talkie or early radio talk of 'Over'. In effect it is a type of verbal comma or semi colon. It also has an air of insecurity, where the speaker hesitates to see how what they just said went down with the audience, a kind of pause for effect and/or perhaps I had better shut up now, and at least I didn't leave them hanging.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Mar 31, 2018 1:57:03 GMT
I dn;t pretend to understand it, butt it seems to be the modern day equivalent of the good olf faithfulf I agree, though I'm pretty much of the mind that any style can be useful and potent in the right hands. I think one problem with poetry today is that too many poets are too rigid in their conceptions of what kind of style they think is acceptable, or too concerned about finding "A" voice instead of experimenting with different voices and styles. One rather meta-poem I like on this tendency is from AE Stallings who pointed out how if contemporary poets were really that obsessed with language-as-it-was-spoken, that the word "like" would litter their poems: The addition of 'like' to the end of every sentence, thought or even phrase, like, is one of my pet hates, yet I am fascinated by its evolution or rather progressive inclusion into mainstream ( and particularly youthful ) speech patterns. I don't pretend to understand it butt it seems to be the modern day replacement of the good old fashioned 'umm'. There also seems to be ( as this poet points out ) to have a connection with social media, though this is not a simple conclusion or explanation. The Facebook thing is obvious yet the Twitter thing of encapsulating thought into small grabs seems another part and it may even, under these circumstances replicate and replace the old fashioned walkie talkie or early radio talk of 'Over'. In effect it is a type of verbal comma or semi colon. It also has an air of insecurity, where the speaker hesitates to see how what they just said went down with the audience, a kind of pause for effect and/or perhaps I had better shut up now, and at least I didn't leave them hanging. I agree. I think for poets it's particularly annoying because in poetry "like" is a particularly powerful word because it's the foundation of similes, and similes/metaphors are one of the backbones of great poetry. It's the word that allows for the imagination to transfigure the world we experience, to see similarities between things on levels beyond just the superficial. So using "like" as a filler word is annoying to those who appreciate what a proper "like" is for. The social media connection is, as Stallings suggests, using "like" like currency. You want to get liked as much as possible so you say agreeable things so people will like you and click "like" so you can count your "likes" and wallow in them like Scrooge McDuck.
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