Do you think that poetry deserves a wider readership?
Yeah, there are too many people like I used to be who think 95% of it is pure pretension and self-aggrandizement. I was out of HS before I started to really SEE the wealth of enjoyment and edification available there, and began to appreciate the beauty of the SOUND as well as the SENSE of verse. People who've never made the effort are depriving themselves of a great deal, but I also tend to feel you can't really "teach" art appreciation. Different people like different things, and I think poetry is ruined for many students by teachers who supply what THEY enjoy and/or respect however inaccessible it may be to a juvenile mind. People, IMHO, need to find their own way with poetry, but if your sixth grade English teacher ruins it for you that's a lot less likely to happen.
So, yes, it does deserve a much wider readership, though I understand why that's lacking.
Do bookstores with no designated poetry section but entire shelves full of Ayn Rand and Bibles make you angry?
Heh, what do you think? I've never been in a bookstore without a poetry section though (I lived a lot of years in a college town though).
If you had a beautiful little bookstore and could stock it with whatever you wanted, wouldn't you have a section devoted to poetry?
Of course.
Why is poetry important?
Many reasons, but I think the biggest is that it's far better suited to conveying things like strong passion, pure beauty and encapsulating the tableau (haiku, anyone...?) Not that prose CAN'T do those things, of course, but it feels a lot more cerebral, at least to me. I've been moved by prose, but I'm more often moved by poetry. Obviously both formats can serve both purposes, but prose usualy strikes me as more analytical and less stirring. It's not a neat divide, anyway; blank verse, free verse and the appreciation all prose authors need for the sound of language, the beauty of words chosen well for both meaning and aesthetics, make pigeonholing everything as poetry OR prose impossible. As it should be.
What are your favorite poems?
Perhaps it's trite, but I think I still like Sonnet 18 best. Same theme I once borrowed for someone else: Real love is better than fantasy. Donnes Holy Sonnet 14 is good, too (I like Donne a lot). I read Intimations of Immortality senior year of HS and quite enjoyed it as well. That's just off the top of my head; obviously, per my response to Larry above, The Divine Comedy is a favorite, too. A good example of what I meant before, in fact; I got nothing out of the Inferno when we read it for a college English class, but reading the whole thing on my own, at my own pace, literally changed my life.
Who are your favorite poets?
Donne, Shakespeare, Marlowe (a man who's probably been plagiarized more than any author in history). I'm not really fond of many poets beyond the Romantic period, because that's when it seems they start to get REALLY full of themselves. That said, Cummings and Frost are nice, too, though much of the appeal of Frost is that he doesn't try too hard, he just writes.
How did you discover them?
Ironically, mostly through good English teachers.
Why should I read them? I am compiling a christmas list, and need to know.
Well, obviously Donne and Christmas go together like two peas in a pod; he was a Doctor of Divinity, after all. Though his most heavily Christian work is more suited to Easter, but then, Easter is a bigger deal in my mind than Christmas. After that, Marlowes notorious debauchery and impiety (for which he was once tried) might be a nice antidote for you. However, my poetry appreciation began recently enough that I can't really give you any obscure hidden nuggets of authorship; virtually anyone I name you'll have heard of and probably already read, at least in part.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Poetry:
08/11/2010 02:07:39 AM
- 1329 Views
Re: Poetry:
08/11/2010 04:13:38 AM
- 858 Views
This is why people dislike you.
09/11/2010 07:03:17 PM
- 877 Views
Umm...I care?
09/11/2010 08:42:55 PM
- 856 Views
Because you should care about being intelligent, rather than appearing to be intelligent.
09/11/2010 10:32:04 PM
- 887 Views
Again, why would I care?
09/11/2010 10:38:21 PM
- 908 Views
No one can make you care about being decent, or intelligent, or a viable member of the community.
09/11/2010 10:41:34 PM
- 813 Views
I think it's rather pointless, to be honest.
09/11/2010 10:54:17 PM
- 846 Views
Then why are you even here?
09/11/2010 10:59:49 PM
- 790 Views
I don't know. I thought I'd see how long I could string you along.
09/11/2010 11:00:37 PM
- 722 Views
You're the one who doesn't care.
09/11/2010 11:02:11 PM
- 763 Views
I care only as much as I care. What others think is irrelevant to that.
09/11/2010 11:04:15 PM
- 780 Views
But you're still responding to me.
09/11/2010 11:05:37 PM
- 809 Views
Because I'm stringing you out until you quit.
09/11/2010 11:10:18 PM
- 894 Views
I'm not going to. I find this entertaining.
09/11/2010 11:12:27 PM
- 807 Views
I do as well. It's fun pretending to be an asshole, I'll admit.
09/11/2010 11:17:34 PM
- 791 Views
Come now, who's pretending?
09/11/2010 11:22:18 PM
- 813 Views
That is officially the last one before I start editing and making them NM. *NM*
09/11/2010 11:24:12 PM
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Me, most of the time
09/11/2010 11:40:26 PM
- 813 Views
Keep telling yourself that. *NM*
09/11/2010 11:46:34 PM
- 686 Views
Why would I? It's not something I think much about these days. Again, what others think is trivial. *NM*
10/11/2010 12:01:03 AM
- 421 Views
Are you 5?
09/11/2010 11:14:26 PM
- 678 Views
Nah
09/11/2010 11:15:48 PM
- 936 Views
But you were asked about it originally. That was my point.
09/11/2010 11:23:25 PM
- 726 Views
And I was evasive about it at the time. When pressed, I answered more fully.
09/11/2010 11:48:27 PM
- 828 Views
Why be evasive?
10/11/2010 12:16:19 AM
- 923 Views
Because I didn't want to spend an hour pulling out a few dozen books.
10/11/2010 12:19:55 AM
- 918 Views
Ye gods. Could you people at the very, very least make your messages NM?
09/11/2010 11:17:25 PM
- 793 Views
I must say, I'm glad you all decided to play up when I was having an evening off. *NM*
10/11/2010 12:08:59 PM
- 386 Views
I disagree with your claim that there can be no value in translations.
09/11/2010 08:51:20 PM
- 794 Views
Not "no value", but "different value" is what I would argue
09/11/2010 09:55:54 PM
- 865 Views
I don't disagree, but you can't possibly learn all languages, yet you can read translations of all.
09/11/2010 10:56:58 PM
- 891 Views
My choice, hands down, is to ignore the poetry in languages I don't read.
10/11/2010 01:44:32 AM
- 812 Views
An English translation of The Divine Comedy was pivotal to my conversion to Christianity.
10/11/2010 11:04:57 AM
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Ooh, good survey. I've been thinking for a while we needed more poetry discussion.
08/11/2010 10:58:24 AM
- 955 Views
I think you underestimate the number of translations of the Bible.
09/11/2010 01:20:30 AM
- 944 Views
Did they just translate logos as... life-light?
09/11/2010 07:14:28 PM
- 818 Views
Yes. Yes, they did. *NM*
09/11/2010 09:56:09 PM
- 311 Views
I think poetry is largely overrated.
08/11/2010 06:12:59 PM
- 930 Views
the problem is most good poets are dead and dead people tend to fail at marketing
08/11/2010 06:44:18 PM
- 869 Views
I like some poetry, but by no means all.
09/11/2010 12:28:41 AM
- 940 Views
Now that you mention it, The Imperfect Enjoyment might rank among my favourite poems. *NM*
09/11/2010 12:46:56 AM
- 336 Views
It is excellent
09/11/2010 08:16:01 PM
- 974 Views
Read: Poetry:
10/11/2010 12:08:42 PM
- 866 Views
Re: Poetry:
10/11/2010 04:57:31 PM
- 770 Views
Re: Nice
11/11/2010 01:39:48 AM
- 924 Views
Man. . . That voice? Yeah. He should be reading me stories every night.
11/11/2010 11:57:02 AM
- 1000 Views
Re: Man. . . That voice? Yeah. He should be reading me stories every night.
12/11/2010 04:36:22 AM
- 1747 Views