[HN Gopher] Death to the death of poetry (2001)
___________________________________________________________________
Death to the death of poetry (2001)
Author : barry-cotter
Score : 18 points
Date : 2022-12-24 13:06 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (poets.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (poets.org)
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| _Notes Nearing Ninety: Learning to Write Less_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17752980 - Aug 2018 (41
| comments)
|
| _Double Solitude_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12737702 - Oct 2016 (42
| comments)
| bashmelek wrote:
| Perhaps the author is right that the media and public perception
| exaggerate the status of poetry as dead. I can't say much about
| contemporary poetry, but, from the old books I read, I can't help
| but feel something isn't there today that used to be. Maybe older
| works have a bias for poetry because of education or some other
| factor, but it felt more ingrained, globally, more a part of who
| we are as humans.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I think it is two parts alternative entertainment, one part
| childhood education.
|
| When you have digital video, easy access to long distance
| travel, broadcast television and radio music, video games and
| such, the emotional impact of a clever turn of phrase is
| utterly lost. Families don't sit around and listen to someone
| sing or tell stories, we're all of entertaining ourselves in
| our own ways, letting the rest of the world be creative for us.
|
| As for the education bit, kids learn the thinnest veneer of
| what poetry is- slap some rhymes together for homework and move
| on. I recall seeing a young poet at the white house a few years
| back that everyone was falling over themselves to praise,
| and... I didn't get it, at all. It was nothing more than a
| political screed masquerading as rhyming prose. Even the rhymes
| felt either forced or at the least uninspired.
|
| On the other hand, there is this: Edit: this is the link I was
| originally meaning to share, but I'll leave the second after.
| This first one is more academic, the second a simple review of
| the song 's structure https://youtu.be/ooOL4T-BAg0
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmhtgpVJc4
| PLenz wrote:
| Poetey is bigger then ever. We just call it pop music. Certain
| types of poetry are much less popular but that's because they
| don't have product-market fit.
| mjburgess wrote:
| https://genius.com/Eminem-stan-lyrics
|
| https://genius.com/Lcd-soundsystem-losing-my-edge-lyrics
|
| etc.
| eternityforest wrote:
| I write poetry because it's an extremely accessible form of art.
| It doesn't depend on muscle memory and the words in your head are
| exactly the same as the words you write.
|
| Someone without the dedication to spend 3 years practicing can
| write something others want to read, and it can even be performed
| out loud.
| Rimintil wrote:
| I write poetry to express feelings.
|
| I may share <5% of it to an individual. I never share any one
| poem with more than one individual.
|
| How many poets simply don't share at all for personal reasons?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Anyone remember poetry slams?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zatHOwWBPEI
|
| Personal story: my childhood best friend's sister married the guy
| in Chicago who was credited with starting those, locally at
| least. He was known as Slam Pappy, but now I can't find him
| because the name is too similar to other Pappy's.
|
| Supposedly fame ruined him, and now they're divorced. So you
| _can_ get rich & famous in poetry; you just have to play your
| cards right.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I remembered his name:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Smith_%28poet%29
|
| I think I actually met him, before he was famous.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _The poetry reading helps--but as a substitute for reviewing it
| is inefficient._
|
| Anyone have any contemporary poetry recommendations?
|
| > _...fewer people attend poetry readings in the United States
| than in Russia._
|
| This is probably still true. I was surprised to discover that at
| music concerts (not pop, but the organisational jubilee variety)
| there are poetry readings in between the musical numbers.
|
| A soviet classroom activity (which may or may not still be used
| in the RF) was to issue famous lines from classic poems to the
| class -- and each student had to incorporate that line into a
| composition of their own.
|
| Then again, russian peasants also had their answer to United
| States street vernacular tradition in the chastushka:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBpY8w6X_JI
|
| here, MC Gram spitting mad flow:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeuEFZHKYzM
|
| (YT offered me "Chastushki for kids", so this genre even sometime
| comes in a SFW version!)
| bonecrusher2102 wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of contemporary poetry. I can give a few
| recommendations, but of course you'll have your own tastes, so
| I'll try to annotate :)
|
| "Here, Bullet" by Brian Turner. Poetry of the Iraq war.
|
| "In the Surgical Theatre" by Dana Levin. Medical, experimental.
|
| "Black Aperture" by Matt Rasmussen. About his brother's
| suicide.
|
| "Homie" by Danez Smith. Hard to pin down but amazing book.
| Stream of consciousness, experimental, explores queerness and
| blackness.
|
| "The Tradition" by Jericho Brown. Phenomenal. Explores being
| black in America, more historicism than Danez's collection.
|
| "Frank" by Dianne Seuss. Powerful and beautiful. Modern lyrics.
| All sonnets. Will change the way you think about what poetry
| is. Stunning collection.
|
| "Post colonial Love Poem" by Natalie Diaz. What it sounds like
| :) really cool book
|
| "When I Grow Up I Want to be a List of Further Possibilities"
| by Chen Chen. A little bit more fun.
|
| All of these, of you're not familiar with contemporary verse,
| will challenge your notions of "what poetry is."
|
| Here's my advice: just read it and experience it. It's supposed
| to be fun! None of these works are puzzles to be solved, or
| have hidden secret meanings. They are all works of art, and all
| experiences of them are valid. Enjoy!
| teg4n_ wrote:
| i really like the podcast "Poetry Unbound". I never really
| learned how to read poetry so the guided tour an individual
| poems is quite lovely.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > More than a thousand poetry books appear in this country each
| year. More people write poetry in this country--publish it, hear
| it, and presumably read it--than ever before.
|
| He goes on to quote some numbers that make it seem like poetry
| books are secretly huge sellers, but implies there is a sort of
| conspiracy keeping us from acknowledging it. I don't find that
| likely.
|
| Bookstores are extremely profit motivated, and not averse to
| changing their priorities to sell what people want to buy.
| Science fiction, fantasy, and other genres used to be ghettoized
| in the back of the store: now they are well-stocked and
| prominent, because they sell comparatively well. Look at the
| proportion of shelf space given to poetry books, and where they
| are located in the foot traffic patterns of bookstores, and I'd
| suggest that's a good index to its real sales volume, new and
| used copies included.
|
| There are unusual situations where poetry books sell well: I
| remember when the singer Jewel published one. That moved some
| copies. But that's not typical of the performance of the rest of
| the thousand or so volumes published every year, nor of the
| health of the medium as a whole in terms of economics or impact
| on culture.
|
| I appreciate that the author is making a spirited defense of
| something he loves, but I think it's incorrect, and it seems
| insular and out of touch. It seems to be denying reality. The
| idea that poetry is actually doing great implies that it doesn't
| need to change in order to be relevant to its audience, that the
| only thing missing is that we need to wake up and realize
| everything is totally fine.
| tzs wrote:
| No mention of the biggest issue facing poetry in the US:
| outsourcing [1].
|
| [1] http://www.watleyreview.com/2003/111103-2.html
| hprotagonist wrote:
| i think the big issue is simply that the english speaking
| world, on the whole, prefers its truth tellers, prophets, and
| poets to be safely long dead, sainted, and rendered harmless
| thereby.
| slater- wrote:
| yes.
|
| also every single us city has a street called "martin luther
| king jr blvd"
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-12-24 23:01 UTC)