Most poetry is garbage. Utter garbage. People who have nothing interesting to say become poets. In fact, so much poetry is garbage that some highly intelligent people assume a priori that (1) all poetry is garbage until demonstrated otherwise and (2) trying to find decent poetry would result in too much wasted time and energy. [In the interest of full disclosure, the “some highly intelligent people” is a reference to me.] Therefore, I will not read poetry unless I recognize it as being from a reputable source [Whitman, S-Peare, Lovelace, Kipling, a few others].
Pretty bold statement from one as ignorant as I. Ha!! I have proof. First, compare a few lines from Lovelace, written when he was in prison:
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
Now, compare that to a modern, highly acclaimed poet, who is apparently so talented, that this poet was chosen to compose a work for President Clintoon’s inauguration in 1993. I have a small sample of this work below, and I repeat, this was read at the inauguration of the President of the United States [warning, not for the weak of heart]:
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
[STOP! I can't stand it any more. poem continues…read on your own.]
Q.E.D.
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4 comments:
As referenced by our conversation yesterday, I highly disagree with the statement "if it's poetry, it's best to assume it's garbage." Now, I agree that this "modern poet" wrote a whole lot of crap in the second poem mentioned, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any good modern poets out there.
And, if I may quote from Cars, "Respect the classics, man!" Poe, Dickinson, Longfellow, Stevenson, Sandburg, Frost, Scott.
Whitman may be considered classic, but I must respectfully disagree because of the nature of 'Leaves of Grass,' which was actually written at Thoreau's Walden Pond as an attempt to "commune with nature."
Now, if I may, I'd like to quote Robert Frost:
"Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
so dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."
This poem may look stupid and weird in your eyes at first, but once you think about it, it's talking about how the world is pretty much falling apart. The force of entropy is wearing the universe down, but more than just physically. The Constitution is ignored, Ronald Reagan only had two terms, and now we have Obama. Nothing gold can stay.
Quoth Lady Brainsample, nevermore.
PS What does QED stand for? I've always wondered that...
Whitman wrote LOG over decades, and the collection of poems grew from 12 to 400. Whitman initially wrote LOG as a response to Emerson’s call for a great American poet; that’s about the only connection to Emerson.
Q.E.D. stands for “quod erat demonstrandum,” literal meaning “that which was to be demonstrated.” In mathematics, it is used to indicate that the proof is complete.
How about another of my favorite poems, Ozymandias:
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I LOVE Ozymandius. We read that in literature last year. But that was written by Percy Bysshe Shelly, wasn't it?
The following should support your title statement:
The wretched features of ennuyees, the white features of corpses, the livid faces of drunkards, the sick-gray faces of onanists,
The gashed bodies on battlefields, the insane in their strong-doored rooms, the sacred idiots,
The newborn emerging from gates and the dying emerging from gates,
The night pervades them and enfolds them.
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