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[Draignean]

Dammit, Durin, I really like you.


Hi, OP!  I'm a poetry translator.

Here's the deal.  When analyzing poems, we found out that more and less rhyme could associate different lines more and less; similar with line lengths.  So, like if two lines end with rose (verb) and rose (noun), they're extremely strongly associated.  Next rose/arose or rose/roses, then rose/nose, then rise/rice, and so on and so forth.  To remove the highly clockwork, mechanical press of counting syllables, poets like Ginsberg started measuring line lengths in breaths, the so called "breath meter."

And so on, and so forth.

It doesn't help, either, that the standards of "rhyming poetry" were imported from French, so that it is in fact very difficult to write metrical and rhyming poems in English, when the poetic form more native to English, alliterative verse, has all but died--and the influx of French words and their end-of-word stress, rather than first-syllable stress, has made Germanic poetry itself more and more difficult to work with.  English is, indeed, something like 85% French.

So, we're trying to create something new that works better for us.

But if it runs on breath meter, it should be able to spoken without sounding like my mouth is a guillotine at a french revolution. The problem I have with these is that there simply seems to be no way to make them sound good, no way to make them feel. It sounds like I'm speaking a foreign language out of a poorly constructed phrasebook; using all the wrong tones and pausing in all the wrong places so I can desperately hunt for the pronunciation of my next line.

I've read some of the korean poetry that's been translated, I actually have the one with "a poor reflection of a bird" saved because I found it so beautiful.

Spoiler: The following is a bit of disgusted E-mail banter about the poetry (click to show/hide)

His response
Poetry today feels
like entries
in a basket case’s
private therapy journal
with the prose sentences
arbitrarily chopped up
into lines of poetry
as the poets gush over
each other’s Emperor’s clothes

As if someone decided
that the worst of Emily Dickinson
would become the pattern
for all future American poetry,
focused inexorably inward
without meter or rhyme or craft
ow my balls

My Reply
These words of yours
make me laugh
make me weep

I cannot say
how the truth can burn
without fire, without sun
the burn makes me laugh
as bitterness consumes

You tell the truth,
the best is lost,
buried under fetid mountains
of the rest
All the beauty is lost in time
like viagra
in a porno

EDIT:

Most of the poets from any given era are mediocre, but when looking at the poetry from the past we have the luxury of forgetting the also-rans and concentrating on those whose reputations have stood the test of time. It shouldn't be surprising then, that when studying contemporary poetry that a lot of it doesn't stand up to comparison - it because most of it doesn't.

I'm not very impressed by the poems excerpted here either, with the possible exception of the Creeley one. They're technically competent, but seem adolescent and lacking the authority and power that a really great poem has - they certainly don't have a "frank vitality and spiritual resonance" to my mind.

You've mentioned awkward references to sex, and I think this sort of thing is one of the problems with the literary establishment - or in fact, it's a consequence of having a literary establishment in the first place. Literature has been captured by academe, or at least academics have convinced almost everyone that academic literature is the only "serious" literature (to the exclusion of things like poetry with strong metrical or rhyme schemes, "genre fiction" [a term I find particularly tellling, as if "literary fiction" isn't a genre!] etc), and so the "serious" poetry of today tends reflect that, these kind of disconnected, ivory-tower, over-thought perspectives. It's particularly noticable when they write about sex, because it's such a primal, visceral activity.

What book are these examples taken from, do you have a link? Are you only studying contemporary American poetry? (Seems a bit of a narrow focus, but then I've found the American literary tradition can be weirdly self-reflexive, cf "The Great American Novel", " the ongoing struggle to create a literature unique and peculiarly American" etc. It's not an ongoing struggle! There are plenty of great American novels! American literature has plenty to be proud of, why are you so insecure?) Not a field I'm very familiar with (though it depends to an extent on what is defined as "contemporary"), I like a lot of Mary Oliver's poems but she's possibly too popular to have much creedence with your teachers.

The book is titled Contemporary American Poetry. Seventy poets, of which I only recognized Ginsberg. (And, sadly, I may not have even recognized him did I not listen to They Might Be Giants.)

EDIT 2: That's not actually true. I looked through it again and found Woolf and Plath. Who aren't exactly poets that I enjoy reading anyway.

[penguinofhonor]

   Despite the protests of engineering advisor, my chemistry professor and summer employer, and pretty much everyone else I know from the ENGR college, I enrolled in creative writing class this semester. Taking a look at our books (not to mention how hard the teacher is stressing 'literary fiction') is starting to give me reason to believe they might be right. I'd hoped to gain knowledge of writing beyond self-taught tricks, but... well.

Also, this worries me. Your advisors should be encouraging you to branch out and get experiences you're not used to. This poetry course is probably a little too artsy for you, and a good advisor would have seen your interest and pointed you towards something a little less obnoxious.

What you probably should have enrolled in is a short story class. Short stories today are still completely recognizable as such, and the artsiest format they get (called a "collage story" by a professor I had, they seem to be getting kind of popular) is still mostly a story that has the scenes out of chronological order.

And there are a lot of quality short stories getting made, even under traditional prose standards. I feel like they'd be a lot more enjoyable than poems.

[GlyphGryph]

Haha, yeah, art having "rules" is what really stagnates things. There are no rules in art, only guidelines.

A good artist follows the "rules"; a great artist knows when and how to ignore them.

Rules make art fun. Restrictions make art possible. An artist can create their own rules, but they must then follow them - A master knows when to traverse the rules, when to ignore them and oppose them, but a master does so knowingly, not accidentally. And a master knows when rules, structure, will strengthen their work instead of weakening it, and applies them. And where restrictions will most push him to create something of value.

Basically, rules are about shaping expectations - if you don't have rules, it's hard to communicate effectively. Take humour - most humour works by breaking the rules, by defying expectations and moving in a surprising direction, but good jokes require those rules to be funny, and it must break them in specific ways. The best comedians will actually ADD rules as part of the buildup to their jokes, because by shaping the interaction, they can create the ideal situation to transgress them.

So too in the arts, poetry included. The goal is to shape the mind of the reader, to lead them to certain thoughts in certain manners, to guide their gaze and govern the cadence with which they approach your work.

What I'm saying, in short:
Double dactyls are basically the best poetry and hella fun to write. Write/Read some double dactyls.

[Graknorke]

Being good at art only requires being good at bullshitting.
Pull up some hidden meaning that sounds sort of poignant out of midair and everybody loves it.

[lue]

The poems were terrible, in terms of rhythm. Whenever I read a poem I instinctively try to read it in some sort of rhythm. Those excerpts had a bad habit of destroying whatever pattern they started with, making it too awkward to read.

It doesn't help, either, that the standards of "rhyming poetry" were imported from French, so that it is in fact very difficult to write metrical and rhyming poems in English, when the poetic form more native to English, alliterative verse, has all but died--and the influx of French words and their end-of-word stress, rather than first-syllable stress, has made Germanic poetry itself more and more difficult to work with.  English is, indeed, something like 85% French.

That's interesting. Now you made me want learn Ænglisc again . And potentially try my hand at some more English-native poetry forms.

[Doomblade187]

Being good at art only requires being good at bullshitting.
Pull up some hidden meaning that sounds sort of poignant out of midair and everybody loves it.

Well, I do believe that the OP is looking for some poems that are actually enjoyable to read/have a full meaning.

Not that I completely disagree with that statement, of course.

[Vector]

Being good at art only requires being good at bullshitting.
Pull up some hidden meaning that sounds sort of poignant out of midair and everybody loves it.

Well, I do believe that the OP is looking for some poems that are actually enjoyable to read/have a full meaning.

Not that I completely disagree with that statement, of course.

Wow, that's very ...

Look, I'm kind of pissed off.  Your statement is false.

[Graknorke]

Being good at art only requires being good at bullshitting.
Pull up some hidden meaning that sounds sort of poignant out of midair and everybody loves it.

Well, I do believe that the OP is looking for some poems that are actually enjoyable to read/have a full meaning.

Not that I completely disagree with that statement, of course.

Wow, that's very ...

Look, I'm kind of pissed off.  Your statement is false.

Are you going to tell me why I'm wrong?

[Doomblade187]

Being good at art only requires being good at bullshitting.
Pull up some hidden meaning that sounds sort of poignant out of midair and everybody loves it.

Well, I do believe that the OP is looking for some poems that are actually enjoyable to read/have a full meaning.

Not that I completely disagree with that statement, of course.

Wow, that's very ...

Look, I'm kind of pissed off.  Your statement is false.

Well, I don't completely disagree with that statement for the reason that I often have a hard time interpreting modern art. I realize that most artists have a meaning for their works- I enjoy a lot of modern art. It's just that sometimes the meaning seems REALLY obscure to me.

[Vector]

Because there is plenty of art that is not your jab, and you can certainly find value in anything and everything created--there's nothing wrong with that, is there?  A nonexclusionary art--but some work, when analyzed, keeps speaking.  You speak to it, it speaks back, and you keep on doing this--for hundreds of years, it never stops yielding.

You're complaining that people find meaning in things that you find meaningless, and that this means that the creator was merely bullshitting.  No.  False.

It's true that being good at art usually isn't so much a process you can write down into steps and that everyone could follow, as that it's a subtle, wordless dialogue with the universe in your own particular inner language.  First there is practice, and then--inspiration, which cannot be controlled, which is unscientific to say the least.  But the fact that the way to art is opaque, and that it is not objective, does not make it bad or bullshitted.

And no, I don't really like modern painting either, but on the other hand I am not so into pointillism or a billion other things.  There ain't nothing wrong with Andy Warhol, it's just that his era needs to make way for something else and we're stuck in a perspective of oscillation between irony and sincerity, grunge and classical aesthetic, which in its dependence on hierarchy carves its own grave.

We're ready for a new movement, is what I'm saying, because the old isn't saying much on its own anymore.  And, soon enough, we'll get one.

[Durin Stronginthearm]

Dammit, Durin, I really like you.

Backatcha, Vector

The problem I have with these is that there simply seems to be no way to make them sound good, no way to make them feel. It sounds like I'm speaking a foreign language out of a poorly constructed phrasebook; using all the wrong tones and pausing in all the wrong places so I can desperately hunt for the pronunciation of my next line.

I was gonna ask what is was specifically you don't like about the poems - for me, at least for most of the examples you've posted, it's that I find them self-conscious, persnickety, too much head and not enough crotch (even when they're about sex). It's not a problem (probably the wrong word, it's really more to do with my personal preferences) that's confined to modern poetry, and there's a lot of modern poetry that does possess "frank vitality and spiritual resonance", but it does seem susceptible to being somewhat etiolated. I don't know why, really, I imagine Whitman is a god to a lot of contemporary (and especially American) poets, but there's nothing feeble about him!

I can appreciate where you're coming from, as well - I think though that this is really just different times having different aesthetics. In some periods the best poetry was supposed to be flowing and elegant, whereas a nowadays a more conversational style is favoured. It's possibly also because poetry is a much more niche interest nowadays, and niche interest fields everywhere have a tendency to concentrate on technicalities, sometimes at the expense of communication.

I don't know if you've read much modern poetry before - if it's fairly new to you it's worth perservering. I used to completely fail to see the point of it until one day it just sort of clicked into place. It's not everyone's thing though, which is fine - it's not a competition.

The book is titled Contemporary American Poetry. Seventy poets, of which I only recognized Ginsberg. (And, sadly, I may not have even recognized him did I not listen to They Might Be Giants.)

EDIT 2: That's not actually true. I looked through it again and found Woolf and Plath. Who aren't exactly poets that I enjoy reading anyway.

Looks quite interesting, will have to see if I can get it at the library or a cheap second hand copy.

[Durin Stronginthearm]

Being good at art only requires being good at bullshitting.
Pull up some hidden meaning that sounds sort of poignant out of midair and everybody loves it.

I could say something similar about trolling.

[Graknorke]

-snip-

You appear to be reading

Being good at art only requires being good at bullshitting.

as

Being good at art is only ever being good at bullshitting.

I never said that people don't feel legitimate emotional and thematic attachments to art that they create, but it's not necessary. All that is necessary is saying that there is one. If it sounds at all plausible then people will take that as the quality of the piece, rather than the workmanship or creativity of the piece itself.

Anyone who disagrees with me is trolling.

Good to know.

[Doomblade187]

Because there is plenty of art that is not your jab, and you can certainly find value in anything and everything created--there's nothing wrong with that, is there?  A nonexclusionary art--but some work, when analyzed, keeps speaking.  You speak to it, it speaks back, and you keep on doing this--for hundreds of years, it never stops yielding.

You're complaining that people find meaning in things that you find meaningless, and that this means that the creator was merely bullshitting.  No.  False.

It's true that being good at art usually isn't so much a process you can write down into steps and that everyone could follow, as that it's a subtle, wordless dialogue with the universe in your own particular inner language.  First there is practice, and then--inspiration, which cannot be controlled, which is unscientific to say the least.  But the fact that the way to art is opaque, and that it is not objective, does not make it bad or bullshitted.

And no, I don't really like modern painting either, but on the other hand I am not so into pointillism or a billion other things.  There ain't nothing wrong with Andy Warhol, it's just that his era needs to make way for something else and we're stuck in a perspective of oscillation between irony and sincerity, grunge and classical aesthetic, which in its dependence on hierarchy carves its own grave.

We're ready for a new movement, is what I'm saying, because the old isn't saying much on its own anymore.  And, soon enough, we'll get one.

Well, I would like to clarify. It may have sounded like I was defending the statement, when instead I was trying to state how I felt about modern art- namely, I like some, and I have mediocre interest towards some. And while some may not be my cup of tea, and I like many other forms of art better in general, I'm in no way putting down the form of modern art- it's perfectly valid as art.

And yes, I realize that art doesn't always have to have a message.

[lue]

-snip-

You appear to be reading

Being good at art only requires being good at bullshitting.

as

Being good at art is only ever being good at bullshitting.

I never said that people don't feel legitimate emotional and thematic attachments to art that they create, but it's not necessary. All that is necessary is saying that there is one. If it sounds at all plausible then people will take that as the quality of the piece, rather than the workmanship or creativity of the piece itself.

OK. However what you wrote there in the real inner quote still suggests even genuine intentions require bullshitting (due to a lack of some conditional, e.g. "when you've got nothing better"), which can cause quite a bit of animosity, especially considering the statement as written is false when people have those legitimate attachments.

Anyone who disagrees with me is trolling.

Good to know.

Blatantly misquoting a post does nothing to help your instance of (what seems to be) a genuine misunderstanding.

Finally, though art doesn't need a message attached, I can't help but feel it's only improved with one (even if the message is "I want to parody this art form").