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Post by Salzmark on Feb 22, 2020 20:55:13 GMT -6
Only indirectly connected to this thread, but I recently read Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot, which uses this great Wallace Stevens poem as a recurring epigraph:
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Feb 24, 2020 21:02:40 GMT -6
The Third Door: Repeating The Ending Salzmark Okay, this one is actually a bit different. Its apparently just the Inuit form of poetry translated into English. The ending of your first becomes the opener for your second line, and the ending of the second becomes the opener for the third, and so on and so forth. This is a short example given in the text: (you can change up how the words a bit from line-to-line, but the purpose of this sample, she kept it simple) She's still having us use lines from preexisting works as part of the exercises. I'm going to use the first part of H.P. Lovecraft's opening line from "Call of Cthulhu". "We live on a placid island of ignorance..." Okay, so here goes: We live on a placid island of ignorance, Ignorant of so much and dependent on so few, The few who would peel back the veil, That veil which blinds us to truths, The truths of our existence in this sea of stars.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Mar 7, 2020 22:59:32 GMT -6
So, Salzmark, I come belatedly to the Fourth Door, and its... normal poetry. Or as the book calls it, "End Rhyme", or AA rhyming. "I was a poet, and didn't even know it." Okay, then, I guess I'm just writing using something preexisting as the opening line. So no good reason, I'll use the opening line of Mary Shelley "Frankenstein". *sees length* Okay, I will use PART of the opening line. Meanwhile, the college poetry professor Salz had is probably lying the floor, frothing at the mouth at the sight of attempted verse and rhyme.
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Post by Salzmark on Mar 11, 2020 15:06:01 GMT -6
So, Salzmark , I come belatedly to the Fourth Door, and its... normal poetry. Or as the book calls it, "End Rhyme", or AA rhyming. "I was a poet, and didn't even know it." Okay, then, I guess I'm just writing using something preexisting as the opening line. So no good reason, I'll use the opening line of Mary Shelley "Frankenstein". *sees length* Okay, I will use PART of the opening line. Meanwhile, the college poetry professor Salz had is probably lying the floor, frothing at the mouth at the sight of attempted verse and rhyme. A college poetry professor? LIBEL AND SLANDER I SAY, SIR! You’ll be seeing me—and my lawyers—in court! Seriously, though, I’m not really a rhyme-fundamentalist. I like Emily Dickinson (if like is the right word; as Camille Paglia has it, Dickinson is frightening), who had that weird use of consonance serving as rhyme (“heel”/“pearl” | “know”/“withdrew” | “down”/“again”), I like blank verse, and I have nothing especially against free verse. I just think rhyme is a tool in the poet’s arsenal, and it shouldn’t be thrown out simply because it’s old-fashioned. (Where I am more of a rhyme-fundamentalist is with song lyrics; that’s because songs are meant to be sung, not read, so immediate clarity is vital.) Your rhymes, however, are nearly all perfect ones, other than “disaster”/“venture.” I might change that because it’s your first two lines, and either a perfect rhyme or an eye-rhyme would be a good entry-point. I like “the things of night,” though perhaps we have too many uses of the word night (“the things of night,” “go out in the night,” “roam the night”). For the most part, the poem’s written in end-stopped couplets, so I’m not sure about “I study the things of the night as they / gather around the village by way / of the shadows beneath the trees.” Some of the meter can be reworked. For example: “You WILL reJOICE to HEAR that NO disASter / Has HENCEforth COME to ME in MY long VENture.” Or perhaps, if you want to keep an old-fashioned feel, something like fall’n instead of come? Usually I’d say to avoid poetic-esque contractions like that (e.g., e’en, o’er), but it might work well for this one. It has an appropriately Frankenstein-y feel; it’s the sort of thing Victor would write while wondering and worrying what his creation was doing. I liked it; it’s also the sort of poem Lovecraft would have written!
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Mar 11, 2020 15:12:31 GMT -6
So, Salzmark , I come belatedly to the Fourth Door, and its... normal poetry. Or as the book calls it, "End Rhyme", or AA rhyming. "I was a poet, and didn't even know it." Okay, then, I guess I'm just writing using something preexisting as the opening line. So no good reason, I'll use the opening line of Mary Shelley "Frankenstein". *sees length* Okay, I will use PART of the opening line. Meanwhile, the college poetry professor Salz had is probably lying the floor, frothing at the mouth at the sight of attempted verse and rhyme. A college poetry professor? LIBEL AND SLANDER I SAY, SIR! You’ll be seeing me—and my lawyers—in court! Seriously, though, I’m not really a rhyme-fundamentalist. I like Emily Dickinson (if like is the right word; as Camille Paglia has it, Dickinson is genuinely frightening), who had that weird use of consonance serving as rhyme (“heel”/“pearl” | “know”/“withdrew” | “down”/“again”), I like blank verse, and I have nothing especially against free verse. I just think rhyme is a tool in the poet’s arsenal, and it shouldn’t be thrown out simply because it’s old-fashioned. (Where I am more of a rhyme-fundamentalist is with song lyrics; that’s because songs are meant to be sung, not read, so immediate clarity is vital.) Your rhymes, however, are nearly all perfect ones, other than “disaster”/“venture.” I might change that because it’s your first two lines, and either a perfect rhyme or an eye-rhyme would be a good entry-point. I like “the things of night,” though perhaps we have too many uses of the word night (“the things of night,” “go out in the night,” “roam the night”). For the most part, the poem’s written in end-stopped couplets, so I’m not sure about “I study the things of the night as they / gather around the village by way / of the shadows beneath the trees.” Some of the meter can be reworked. For example: “You WILL reJOICE to HEAR that NO disASter / Has HENCEforth COME to ME in MY long VENture.” Or perhaps, if you want to keep an old-fashioned feel, something like fall’n instead of come? Usually I’d say to avoid poetic-esque contractions like that (e.g., e’en, o’er), but it might work well for this one. It has an appropriately Frankenstein-y feel; it’s the sort of thing Victor would write while wondering and worrying what his creation was doing. I liked it; it’s also the sort of poem Lovecraft would have written! I was actually referring to your old poetry professor from that class you dropped. I'm still an amateur when it comes to meter. The rhyming and getting it roll off the tongue well is something I think I've fairly well worked out. And thank you.
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Post by Salzmark on Mar 11, 2020 15:14:26 GMT -6
I was actually referring to your old poetry professor from that class you dropped. I'm still an amateur when it comes to meter. The rhyming and getting it roll off the tongue well is something I think I've fairly well worked out. And thank you. Gah, I’d read that as “college poetry professor Salz.” OK, guess you won’t be seeing me in court—this time! Meter’s hard—but it can be satisfying.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Mar 11, 2020 15:15:50 GMT -6
I was actually referring to your old poetry professor from that class you dropped. I'm still an amateur when it comes to meter. The rhyming and getting it roll off the tongue well is something I think I've fairly well worked out. And thank you. Gah, I’d read that as “college poetry professor Salz.” OK, guess you won’t be seeing me in court—this time! Meter’s hard—but it can be satisfying. I can imagine the blank stares I'd be getting in that class right now. It is, and it is.
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Post by Salzmark on Mar 11, 2020 15:15:58 GMT -6
Again, no “doors,” but here’s an old, short, verbless poem I wrote:
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Post by Salzmark on Mar 11, 2020 15:17:46 GMT -6
Gah, I’d read that as “college poetry professor Salz.” OK, guess you won’t be seeing me in court—this time! Meter’s hard—but it can be satisfying. I can imagine the blank stares I'd be getting in that class right now. It is, and it is. Everything had to be so damn deep. I remember a classmate read something like this: Godalmighty.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Mar 11, 2020 15:20:42 GMT -6
I can imagine the blank stares I'd be getting in that class right now. It is, and it is. Everything had to be so damn deep. I remember hearing a classmate read like this: Godalmighty. Like... Dude! That goes, man.
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Post by Salzmark on Mar 11, 2020 15:27:18 GMT -6
Everything had to be so damn deep. I remember hearing a classmate read like this: Godalmighty. Like... Dude! That goes, man.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Mar 11, 2020 15:30:28 GMT -6
Like... Dude! That goes, man. That poem about the apple is exactly like some of the poems I've seen in that free poetry workshop I've been attending. And any number of them have been incomprehensible in meaning, leaving me to guess what the heck they're about.
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Post by Salzmark on Mar 11, 2020 15:36:47 GMT -6
That poem about the apple is exactly like some of the poems I've seen in that free poetry workshop I've been attending. And any number of them have been incomprehensible in meaning, leaving me to guess what the heck they're about. Worse, I feel that’s what many people feel that poetry is—so it’s not surprising they don’t think they like it. I grew up thinking that all poetry was serious, pretentious, boring stuff (not realizing that, say, Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein counted as poetry too), for example, so I didn’t like it until middle school, when my teacher introduced us to “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” Now here was a fun and funny poem taught in school, and 12-year-old Salzmank Salzmark thus began rethinking his assumptions. Totally incomprehensible poetry usually means that the poet has nothing to say and a lot of words in which to say it.
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Post by WeirdRaptor on Mar 11, 2020 15:49:05 GMT -6
That poem about the apple is exactly like some of the poems I've seen in that free poetry workshop I've been attending. And any number of them have been incomprehensible in meaning, leaving me to guess what the heck they're about. Worse, I feel that’s what many people feel that poetry is—so it’s not surprising they don’t think they like it. I grew up thinking that all poetry was serious, pretentious, boring stuff (not realizing that, say, Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein counted as poetry too), for example, so I didn’t like it until middle school, when my teacher introduced us to “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” Now here was a fun and funny poem taught in school, and 12-year-old Salzmank Salzmark thus began rethinking his assumptions. Totally incomprehensible poetry usually means that the poet has nothing to say and a lot of words in which to say it. Same here. One of my brothers, and then I, worked in a coffee shop after school, so I got to see some of the hipster poetry nights. Yes, there were berets and fedoras. And OOOOOOOOOOH boy was the poetry pretentious, confusing, and ultimately about nothing, just like you said.
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Post by Salzmark on May 25, 2020 21:30:04 GMT -6
I await the Scribe's works! It sounds like it was a weird class. My old poetry teacher also showed us "free verse" poems and encouraged us not to just do the classic form of poetry, but he never docked you points if you always went with the old chestnut-styles unless the whole point of the current exercise was to emulate the style of a modern poet. I have no problem with free verse, but it’s not the be all and end all, and I like form, rhyme, alliteration, etc. It gives a poet a clearer structure on which to hang his ideas, for one thing. Here, by the way, is an example of a poem I wrote that a different poetry prof hated (I wasn’t in her class for poetry, but she was a published free verse poet and encouraged us to try our hands). It’s not anything great, but I think the summery mood’s decent. I reworked this poem and ended up changing a few things… @equality72521, at Sakaar, dislikes it, to say the least—but I’m proud of it, even though I know it can still be improved.
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