Poetry Discussions(#1: Message versus Form) - Page 3 - Writers Forum

Ilasir Maroa · 10-20-2007, 04:31 PM

Oooh, lots of responses... and one from Lin! I'm honored, lol.

lin · 10-20-2007, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Then what's the point to writing poetry, unless it's deliberately written as a bunch of fancy-sounding words without any purpose behind them?

You are SO misunderstanding me, there. Poetry isn't LESS than meaning...it's MORE. Does a jazz solo mean something or have a message?

Poetry is METAPHOR. Try finding out what all that word means and how it applies...it's worth knowing if you even think about poetry.

It is isn't ABOUT shit you read in the papers or whatever. It creates a reality that is experienced. It does that through the sound, cadence, meaning and nuance of words.

Best put by Archibald MacLeish in "Ars Poetica" -- widely quoted, but seldom understood or considered -- "A poem should not mean, but be."

Think about that some...it could open some doors.

Mermaid on the breakwater · 10-20-2007, 05:48 PM

I entirely agree with what you just said, Lin, but it isn't consistent with what you were saying earlier lol, you crafty git.

I know what you're saying now and I agree that poetry is worth more than a message but it's the message/meaning, whatever you want to call it, that holds the whole artiface up. Without that core, it just becomes a flimsy piece of "pretty poetry" without the power.

Baron · 10-20-2007, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

You are SO misunderstanding me, there. Poetry isn't LESS than meaning...it's MORE. Does a jazz solo mean something or have a message?

Poetry is METAPHOR. Try finding out what all that word means and how it applies...it's worth knowing if you even think about poetry.

It is isn't ABOUT shit you read in the papers or whatever. It creates a reality that is experienced. It does that through the sound, cadence, meaning and nuance of words.

Best put by Archibald MacLeish in "Ars Poetica" -- widely quoted, but seldom understood or considered -- "A poem should not mean, but be."

Think about that some...it could open some doors.

I appreciate what you're saying here but there has to be balance. I know of two poets who can achieve amazing things when it comes to phonics but thier work is often inaccessable and impossible to understand without expanation. There has to be something revealed that gives a clue at meaning to the reader.

lin · 10-21-2007, 01:29 AM

Well, what he's saying about not meaning but being most refers to referent, I would say.
The poem isn't a symbol for anything and isn't trying to convey anything other than itself.

A line I use a lot to try to illustrate the difference between prose and poetry is this one:

Somewhere the sea is turning its dark pages.

Another, better known and shopworn, but still as strong is:

She walks in beauty like the night.

The second could be seen as more of a "message" than the first...but "she's beautiful" isn't exactly hot off the presses.

The first one is pretty completely ineffable. But it works really well. It speaks to something at a different level from verbal significance.

Baron · 10-21-2007, 01:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

Well, what he's saying about not meaning but being most refers to referent, I would say.
The poem isn't a symbol for anything and isn't trying to convey anything other than itself.

A line I use a lot to try to illustrate the difference between prose and poetry is this one:

Somewhere the sea is turning its dark pages.

Another, better known and shopworn, but still as strong is:

She walks in beauty like the night.

The second could be seen as more of a "message" than the first...but "she's beautiful" isn't exactly hot off the presses.

The first one is pretty completely ineffable. But it works really well. It speaks to something at a different level from verbal significance.

Both of the lines that you've quoted create an image and get a message across that needs no explanation and I think that this kind of confirms my point.

lin · 10-21-2007, 10:54 PM

What's the message?
That's my point.

vangoghsear · 10-22-2007, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

What's the message?
That's my point.

The poet meant something by the phrase, we may not get that exactly, but we can interpret the phrase to mean something to us. The wonderful thing about parables, similes, metaphors is that they are a way of saying a phrase in an original manner that requires the reader to make the connection. Not only that, but the meaning often will additionally carry a mood that the original phrase would not, so there is even more meaning.

What is the meaning of

Quote:

Somewhere the sea is turning its dark pages.

This phrase creates the mood of depth (dark), of motion (turning), of breadth (somewhere) of constancy (by not putting a limit or stopping point on itself). The phrase conjures secrets, burials at sea (turning a page), of stories of hardships (turning its dark pages), and so on. Which meaning would you like?

vangoghsear · 10-22-2007, 08:45 AM

Maybe it is a question of semantics. The difference between 'message' and 'meaning.' The above phrase has plenty of meanings, but I can't say that there is a message per se.

lin · 10-22-2007, 01:57 PM

You're catching on. A mood is not a message. Nor a meaning.

And when you start talking about sea burials (which had nothing to do with the poem, by the way) you are pinning it down and missing the major point.

It's kind of the the old Zen forture cookie: once you name something, it is no longer that thing.

Pale Gallery · 10-22-2007, 02:38 PM

Form is porn.

*Thread closed*

Eiji Tunsinagi · 10-22-2007, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

You're catching on. A mood is not a message. Nor a meaning.

And when you start talking about sea burials (which had nothing to do with the poem, by the way) you are pinning it down and missing the major point.

It's kind of the the old Zen forture cookie: once you name something, it is no longer that thing.

So are you saying that a poem must have a message or meaning? Because that would imply that haiku, senryu, etc are generally not poems - because usually they are written simply for mood or aesthetics.

If I'm understanding you right?

Ilasir Maroa · 10-22-2007, 05:59 PM

I don't think you are Eiji. I think he's saying a poem can have a subject, but not a meaning. It can talk about something, create an image, but shouldn't say: "this is right" or "this is wrong" or "this is good". it should merely present the subject and leave the decisions up to the reader.

Of course, I could be wrong, or we could both be wrong, lol.

I've heard of something like the proverb(?) Lin mentioned, albiet in another vehicle. Past a certain point, defining something is counterproductive. At that special point, your definition starts to change the truth of what you are defining. Or some crap like that. Philosophy annoys me, even if I don't necessarily disagree with it.

lin · 10-22-2007, 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin
If you are writing poems with "messages" STOP. RIGHT NOW. That's not what poems are for and every cockamamie nitwit on the block is out there writing non-poetic doggrel because they think they have a message.

I don't know what femalewriter was referring to, but I would imagine that it's much easier to help people with broke format or grammar than to try to critique their poetics (which doesn't win your friends, believe you me)

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

In case that wasn't clear:

There is no room for "messages" in poetry.

Telegrams and AOL messenger and text messenger and messenger pigeons are for that purpose.

Essays are for that purpose. If you have a message, write an essay. That's what 90 percent of contemporary "poems" are anyway...essays whose lines don't reach the end of the page

Just write a rant and have done with it.

.

Quote:

So are you saying that a poem must have a message or meaning?

I don't know. You try to make things clear and it's just like pissing into the wind.

I don't really see much point in saying anything else here.

dannyboy · 10-22-2007, 10:30 PM

if I call it an apple its still a fucking apple.