Does having the poets and readers in these poetry discussion comment on your poetry get you to write more poetry? get you to reaffirm your poetic outlook...add to your own ability to read poetry by other people? How does this process work for you?

Peter

This forum is a fascinating study in human nature

That reafirms my poetic outlook more than anything, including the comments.

Peter, these are some intriguing questions:

get you to write more poetry?
No

get you to reaffirm your poetic outlook?
Certainly, I think everything I read and comprehend helps that outlook grow.


add to your own ability to read poetry by other people?
I think the youngsters here help me see where poetry is going. To me that's relevant because I think the nature of poetry changes somewhat over time. By reading new works I get a glimpse of where the state of poetry is.

How does this process work for you?
I read, I understand, I digest. I form new works based on new knowledge.


Les



Post Edited (09-06-04 11:42)

I enjoy the General Discussion and Lost Poetry Quotations forums. They're for me. But User Submitted Poetry forum is like Homework Assistance forum for me. Mostly, a chore: something I do willingly, but not for me.

Occasionally, a poet will post something which rattles my cage and I'll watch out. Best example of that, the work of jay/jaymo.

I actually don't like posting my own stuff. Mostly, I do so to amuse my friends here.

Stephen

Interesting thread. My experience is a bit different. This is a place where I am read and read others. Only few people I personally know do read my work; nevertheless, I write. I think this is more like an open door ,or window sometimes, to breathe fresh air. I agree with Les on most of what he said except the first and last points. On the first, yes it does make me want to write more as it is inspiring and gets you triggered/pregnant with new ideas and/or old ones. On the last, it is more a process that follows no logical sequence and flows with a life of its own. I am pathetically passionate about the USP. It is kind of like my voice's home and family!!
Unlike you, Stephen, I rarely visit here!!

I enjoy this General Discussion Forum the most. There have been many lively, interesting, and informative topics that have motivated me to try my hand at different forms and styles of poetry...double dactyls and haiku come to mind. I've also learned quite a bit about meter here thanks to Hugh, Chesil, and a host of others.

I try to read most postings in the USP and comment where I think it will be helpful; however, there have been so many postings lately that it's difficult to keep pace.

As far as a "poetic outlook," I'm not sure that I have one. For me, it has always been the words that make a poem beautiful, moving, and inspirational. The form is not so important to me.

joet

Peter,

Other than the occasional haiku or (bad) limerick, I don't write poetry. This forum is my primary hangout. I help out when I can on Homework Assistance and Lost Quotations. I scan the USP for either 1) poets whose work I know I'll enjoy, or 2) catchy titles that draw me in. I don't attempt to read most of them.

The GD and HA boards help me the most, as I get to see how other people see poems. An added bonus is the introduction to poets that I might not otherwise hear of.

pam

Because I visit this forum, I try to write poems much more often than I would otherwise. I try to read the poems by other people posted each day. I don't have any particular favorites, because I have read at least one poem by almost every poet posting in the forum that I either liked or learned from. I try to be more innovative in my own poems as well, trying new forms and topics all the time. I have liked it most when readers have tried to interpret my poems to me, but I have not been turned off by others asking me to interpreta a line or section of my poems. I have tried to comment on as many poems each day as I could. sometimes a poem was so bad in my judgment that I felt I might just discourage that poet if a I said anything , or anything that was not constructive. Most of the time the poems I have read have contained or been poetic, thoughtful or insightful in ways that I could say, "I would be proud to have written that poem." I like the asides and banter ok, but what I am writing to the forum for is to get interpretations and commentary that will help me personally write better poems. Sometimes the tangents and side conversations have worked against that goal. I have learned to understand that that looseness is both a natural aspect of the forum or that it is essential to the free flow of creativity and imagination in the forum -- anything attempt to eliminate the playfulness would lead to an uptight atmosphere. I this the occasional cat fight here is unavoidable, but I also find conspiratorial talk or seeming malice between writer a substantial negative force in the learning process when it's appeared. Only when I notice that someone seems to deliberately turn from talking about poetry or their aunt Sadie's bake off to focus on hurting someone's feeling do I stop reading an author all together. I read poems by everyone, including those few poets who write poetry I can't stand or don't understand at all. These are all factors in whether I turn to the forum for inspiration or turn away feeling I should just write my own poetry without any feedback, as I am used to doing. I love getting feedback for all the best and worst reasons. I think it gets me to write more poems.

Thanks,

Peter

I haven't submitted many poems to the USP because I find good criticism lacking. It's flattering when someone likes what I've written, but I know most of the poems I've submitted could benefit through closer scrutiny and comment from the better critics here.

water is not all that flows in the river

I agree Johnny, in how I understood what you said.

Joseph, you say:"because I find good criticism lacking" you do not post on the USP. I wonder how much of that you've tried to contribute. I try . We don't learn unless we do. In fact, learning to become critical makes a better poet and better poetry. I am not criticising but just pointing out that effort and practice make our performance better. As you need it so do others. Anyway, I hope you have found a place where good criticism is available. I also hope you haven't stopped writing because of that!!

KQ, it goes back to my original comment on this thread, as well as a reaction to peter's comment...specifically what he finds to be valuable.

Of course, he does not have to agree with me nor does he have to find inspiration or motivation in the banter and the asides and the seemingly flippant comments that I often make, but I DO gain interesting perspective from ALL of those activities, and yes, the infighting too....sometimes ESPECIALLY from the fascinating rudeness and how those with what might be called a "poetic soul" are so easily ensnared into base behavior

I'm glad that Johnnie also finds inspiration in his joyous and sometimes criticalbanter; I certainly do. I have forund very good critical thatough in such diverse writer sas Marian-NYC, Gwydion, K.Q. and JohnnieSansCulo, among other. When joseph r. torelli, vic jeffries or Hugh Clary have made critical remarks, I have found those comments useful. I do like to hear from anyone who posts to my poems and I read the other thread often as much for the commentary some times as for the poems themselves. And yet, I don't see why anyone should post if they don't feel like it. Anyway, keep striring the sand; you might finad a delidious clam. I know who I didn't mention, and they know how I feel about them, but I don't want to go on forever making lists of who does what in their poems, comments, and interpretations.

To all,

amo,

Peter

I checked the Oxford Book of Short Poems out of the library last week, continuing to muse, that is. To me, short poem is redundant, but let that go. I was hoping to find a plethora of pithy statements to warm the coming winter months ahead. Sadly, I only came up with two that I really liked, or had not read previously.

Written on a Window - Aaron Hill (1685-1750)

Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
'T is the same with common natures:
Use 'em kindly, they rebel;
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.


I wonder if nettles really do respond that way. Somehow, I doubt it, but good similes are where you find them. Aaron Hill I had not read before, except for the teenage heart throb in the Luann DeGroot comic strip.


Miniature, by Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960)

The grey beards wag, the bald heads nod
And gather thick as bees,
To talk electrons, gases, God,
Old nebulae, new fleas.
Each specialist, each dry-as-dust
And professorial oaf,
Holds up his little crumb of crust
and cries, 'Behold, the loaf!'


Har!

Peternsz wrote: "Because I visit this forum, I try to write poems much more often than I would otherwise."

That is (for me) the happiest of all the comments made above. It means that we help run a "vicious circle" of creativity and criticism.

I have a behavior in my base-ment that keeps on snaring at me. I'm afraind of it, but I sanre back at it. I overheard one of the our snares talking the other night saying I have a poet in my base-ment that keeps on snaring at me. I'm afraind of it, but I stare back at it. I overheard one of the our snares talking the other night saying I have a behaviorism in my base-meant that keeps on snaring me. I'm afraind of typles, but I snark back at it. I overheard one of our hares talking the other night saying I have a base poet I meant to keep snorkling at me. I'm afraid of it, but I sneer back at it. I overheard one of the other snarks talking the other night saying my behafior is down right unpoetic when I snigger. My light is going out, so snuggle up to your base snorkling poet for the night, and don't satare at the snarling batch of snares trying to get out of your poet.

Peter

Hugh,

the short poems I like most are the epic of gilgamesh, The Odyssey, the Commedia, The Cantos, The Maximus Poems, and Paterson.

Peter


P.s. I'd like them longer

Hugh - thanks for posting those two poems - they are both brilliant! As to nettles - people who pick them to cook, do so without gloves and aren't stung because they hold them firmly. The stinging cells are on very fine brittle hairs which break sharply if you brush against them but crush harmlessly if tackled 'head on'. Hence the saying 'grasp the nettle' - it means you won't be hurt if you tackle something head on rather than in passing.

marian2

I am in wonder at the stores on information people like you bring to this forum.

Thanks,

Peter

My English teacher told me I was a mine of useless information. I've spent the 35 years since then finding uses for it!

Nice to know- I always thought 'grasp the nettle' meant 'get the pain over with quickly.' Kind of like removing a bandage- quick hurts less in the end than slow.

pam

The convergence of poetry and botany: AND YOU WERE THERE!