Comments on: Question: What is good Poetry Anyway? http://midwestpoet.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/question-what-is-good-poetry-anyway/ Lest They be Angels in Disguise Fri, 16 May 2008 20:17:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU By: ybonesy http://midwestpoet.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/question-what-is-good-poetry-anyway/#comment-813 ybonesy Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:55:28 +0000 http://midwestpoet.wordpress.com/?p=162#comment-813 The poems that resonate with me are grounded in nature. I think of Mary Oliver, and I think of how much her writing is alive and present to the physical world. It's not a connection to nature in terms of the content; i.e., not solely writing about nature. Rather, it's being awake to the world and transmitting that awakeness to the rest of us. The poems that resonate with me are grounded in nature. I think of Mary Oliver, and I think of how much her writing is alive and present to the physical world. It’s not a connection to nature in terms of the content; i.e., not solely writing about nature. Rather, it’s being awake to the world and transmitting that awakeness to the rest of us.

]]> By: Vincent http://midwestpoet.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/question-what-is-good-poetry-anyway/#comment-763 Vincent Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:00:10 +0000 http://midwestpoet.wordpress.com/?p=162#comment-763 I can't be bothered with most verse, online or anywhere else. It will be easiest to say what the faults are which put me off. - strings of words which ought to be set out less pretentiously as prose to see if they stand up in that format - thoughts expressed in abstract language instead of imagery - imagery which has no resonance because it is merely a description of something experienced, for example something beautiful to the writer, without translating the experience into words of equal impact - clever stuff patently done for effect without the impact of real experience - lacking appropriate rhythm or musicality - slack self-indulgent stuff which doesn't take great pains to reach the reader directly - private images and vocabulary which leaves the reader in a fog of incomprehension - inconsequential stuff which completely fails to reflect the primal pathos of life---that there is beauty and then we die; or that there is much more to life than meets the eye; or some other equally weighty undercurrent Another way to put the above would be this. If a person doesn't feel at grave risk of failure in the project of writing a poem, doesn't feel the pain of a hundred flaws to be avoided, then I don't see how that poem can succeed. But then, I only wrote one poem in my life that I thought worthy of the name, and I am not sure about that, now. I can’t be bothered with most verse, online or anywhere else. It will be easiest to say what the faults are which put me off.

- strings of words which ought to be set out less pretentiously as prose to see if they stand up in that format
- thoughts expressed in abstract language instead of imagery
- imagery which has no resonance because it is merely a description of something experienced, for example something beautiful to the writer, without translating the experience into words of equal impact
- clever stuff patently done for effect without the impact of real experience
- lacking appropriate rhythm or musicality
- slack self-indulgent stuff which doesn’t take great pains to reach the reader directly
- private images and vocabulary which leaves the reader in a fog of incomprehension
- inconsequential stuff which completely fails to reflect the primal pathos of life—that there is beauty and then we die; or that there is much more to life than meets the eye; or some other equally weighty undercurrent

Another way to put the above would be this. If a person doesn’t feel at grave risk of failure in the project of writing a poem, doesn’t feel the pain of a hundred flaws to be avoided, then I don’t see how that poem can succeed.

But then, I only wrote one poem in my life that I thought worthy of the name, and I am not sure about that, now.

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