| Grex > Enigma > #182: This is not a poem |
| This is not a poem | 
May 2 19:58 UTC 1994 |
Writing
By orinoco
-----------------
It's harder than it seems.
You can't write down
Just anything
And call it a poem.
Just anything
This
Is not
A poem.
| response 1 of 22: |
May 2 21:07 UTC 1994 |
aha!
by
b.d. place
---- ------
i think that's
true, but most people haven
't caught on yet. perhaps
this is
why
e.e.
cummings
was
so
pop
u
lar
.
| response 2 of 22: |
May 2 22:00 UTC 1994 |
Whee!
| response 3 of 22: |
May 2 22:20 UTC 1994 |
Poetry is in the eye of the beholder.
| response 4 of 22: |
May 2 22:45 UTC 1994 |
Poetry is in the eye of my mother.
| response 5 of 22: |
May 2 23:40 UTC 1994 |
Your mother is a beholder?
| response 6 of 22: |
May 2 23:49 UTC 1994 |
Your mother is a poet?
| response 7 of 22: |
May 3 01:07 UTC 1994 |
No. My mother is a Beholder-kin! /
| response 8 of 22: |
May 4 23:54 UTC 1994 |
Meanwhile,
Ken Miltokowski
Is minimalist.
He says
Less than just anything
And calls it a poem
Such
Is life
Says me.
| response 9 of 22: |
May 5 03:04 UTC 1994 |
i have known people
to take common prose
and arrange it in lines
of roughly equal meter
and put it all
in lower case only
and call it poetry.
indeed,
i have done this
myself.
| response 10 of 22: |
May 5 05:07 UTC 1994 |
poetry is whatever you say poetry is
| response 11 of 22: |
May 5 17:02 UTC 1994 |
Wrongo. Poetry must either be epic poetry, narrative poetry, dramatic
poetry, descriptive poetry, didactic poetry, lyric poetry, satirical
verse, occasional verse, light and humorous verse, or a translation of
poetry from another language that fits into one of the previous
categories. If it's not one of those things, it's not poetry.
Furthermore, it must be of iambic meter, trochaic meter, anapestic
meter, dactylic meter, spondaic meter, amphibrachic meter, or
paeonic meter{. If it's not in one of those meters, it's not
poetry.
A poem must use one or more{of the poetic devices of caesura (feminine,
lyric, epic, or masculine), the end-stopped line, enjambment. It should
have stanzaic structure of the couplet, the distich, the terget, the
quatrain, the cinquain, the sextain, the septet, the octave, the nine-
line stanza, or the ten-line stanza.
If rhyme is used, it must be of a pattern such as aa,bb... or aaa,bbb...
or abab, perhaps with the addition of random or internal rhyme.
Form must be terza rima, ballad, rubai, sapphic, venus and adonis,
rhyme royal, ottava rima, sicelian, spenserian, petrarchan sonnet,
miltonic sonnet, shakesperean sonnet, triolet, rondel, rondelet,
rondeau, roundel, kyrielle, lai, villanelle, pantoum, sestina, ode,
haiku, tanka, naga-uta, englyn, limerick, clerihew, or little willie.
T'ain{_'t poetry if it's not one of those.
So you can't just splatter down anything on the page and call it
"poetry".
| response 12 of 22: |
May 5 19:26 UTC 1994 |
perhaps not just anything. but have you ever seen a sunset? if that's not poetry to you, i guess we must come to the conclusion that we have different definitions of poetry. i will admit that all the above would probably result in something you could call a poem, but I'm not so sure about poetry.
| response 13 of 22: |
May 5 22:06 UTC 1994 |
canteloupes can geedily
erase the steady surface of your skin
and this most speedily
replace the need for chewing aspirin.
Although this writing complies with some of the criteria listed
above in 11, is it poetry? Same with muzak--is it music? Hellmark
Pulitzer in 1887 is quoted as saying "It's not how stupid you are,
it's what you do with your brains that counts."
Glad I could help.
| response 14 of 22: |
May 6 02:47 UTC 1994 |
The first four lines of #13 are the most sublime poetry I've seen in the English language.
| response 15 of 22: |
May 6 03:04 UTC 1994 |
I liked that geedily bit myself.
| response 16 of 22: |
May 6 04:43 UTC 1994 |
picky, picky.
| response 17 of 22: |
May 6 05:02 UTC 1994 |
hehehe
| response 18 of 22: |
May 7 23:52 UTC 1994 |
Why this constant quibbling
Over what is
Or is not a poem.
Watch a sunset,
Or smell the air
Directly after it rains.
Then you can know.
| response 19 of 22: |
May 9 00:23 UTC 1994 |
Duh, wuz dat haiku?
| response 20 of 22: |
May 12 00:01 UTC 1994 |
no
| response 21 of 22: |
May 16 12:52 UTC 1994 |
This is not haiku even though it has the same pattern as they do BECAUSE THERE'S A FOURTH LINE!
| response 22 of 22: |
May 28 07:43 UTC 2002 |
har har. *smash*