Thursday, September 16, 2004
Up the Poetry Pole
1. Bukowski. Genius or journalist?
2. Billy Collins or Phil Collins?
3. There's too much poetry in the world. Yes or no? Discuss.
4. Haiku or sonnet?
5. Can poetry be sexy?
6. Is the comma important?
7. And your favourite poem is?
8. Haven't you got anything better to do?
With thanks to The Garden of Earthly Delights. I look forward to your answers, comments and hopefully discussions.
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23 comments:
1. Who he?
2. Billy Collins everytime and then Bootsy.
3. never enough of the good stuff thats for sure.
4 A haiku I can make
But a sonnet I cannot
Get the words to bake
5. Probabaly ,though I can't think of any offhand
6. No not, really?
7. Dont really have one. As Hazel says It would be like trying to choose the favourite of your children. Easy if you only have one ofcourse.
8. Not really. Sad isn't it!
1.is that a Cohen Brothers movie?"
2.Andrew Collins, Great book called
"Where did it all Go Right?
Not sure about the other Collins choices.
3.yes, by some poets, but luckily it is hidden away in books.
4.Neither.
5.No, but some poets are.
6,No,,,,,only if you want to breath(e).I Can't spell
7.The Little Dogs Day by Rupert Brooks.."all in the town where still asleep,when the sun came up with a shout and a leap...
8.YES I BLOOMIN Have, but I am easily distracted. Thank you!
SOORY spelling .. Rupert Brooke
My appoloogies..he was a sexy poet....
1. All I know about Bukowski is from that Modest Mouse song...
2.Billy Collins
3.there's too much bad poetry in the world
4.sonnet
5.oooh yes poetry can be verrry sexy
6.yes, the comma is important
7. don't have one yet
8.i do have better things to do ...procrastinating...
thanks for visiting my blog "desiderata..." hope you stop by again. http://desideratum1.blogspot.com
Michael and Haze! I'll have to send you some Bukowski and some Billy Collins for Christmas. You'll like the latter. Interesting to see what you make of the former.
Hi, Umaga. Will certainly call again. Any examples of a sexy poem?
1. I am tending towards genius, but you've got me thinking. Will get back to you on this one.
2. Billy Billy!!
3. Poems are like people. If you find your kind, there can never be too much. If Wordsworth ever sat at my table, I would excuse myself politely and snigger at him in the ladies room. Same goes for "if thou must love me, let it be for naught..."
4. Haiku haiku!!
5. I don't see why not. If they can't, I'm sure they at least try. I've written a few that have slipped into a negligee and batted their eyelashes, but I don't think they succeeded in becoming sex symbols. Oh well.
6. They may or may not be. Butthat'sthecasewithspacestoo.
7. Tough one. But at this moment I'd say Summer With Monika by Roger McGough.
8. Better? No. But financially viable and hence important and moderately boring? Yes.
O.K.I did some homework and found a little about Bukowski and Billy at Dogpile. Lots of Bukowskithere to upload ona crackly disc sounding like jack karouac. I enjoyed the tail of the mouse with the matches on the Billy search. he has this at www.poetrycenter.org
reminds me of the lakewobegone chap. that soft new england type voice. the audience found it very funny, but it made me smile.
Bukowski, I think, is not for the faint of heart. He and his work were crude,rough...yet his observations very telling. An example, from "cut while shaving":
It's never quite right, he said, the way the people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
it's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite,
it's hardly right at all,
he said.
don't I know it? I
answered.
..................................
Now didn't that brighten yer day?!
Hey, thanks for all the great comments. I'm enjoying reading them. Watch this space for my own thoughts on the subject.
Michael, good to see you doing a bit of homework on this one.
Andi, how can you be such a fan of TS Eliot and not appreciate the comma?
Jaded - thanks for the Byron.
Boomsa - you might think differently meeting Wordsworth the Man. How about meeting Bukowski?
Syl - I think Bukowski was not a very nice person - to put it mildly. He did write wonderful poetry though.
Hi Roger,
I've put some sexy poems on my blog.
Umaga
Hay Hoe there Rodger, old bean... Had to sign up for one of these bloody blogger thingy'z in order to post this reply, now I done fergit'z wot I wuz gonna say...
Oh yeah! "Hay Hoe."
Hey Hoe, where you going wiv that hoe inyour hand?
I think i owe you some mail Ed? Nice to see you blogging if only I understood!
Hi, Ed
Long time no see. Or hear.
How the hoe are you?
Bukowski’s a real poet. Not a genius tho’
Music or poetry? Music.
(But not Phil Collins.)
You can’t have too much poetry.
There’s a lot of stuff out there though that isn’t poetry.
That’s the thing, isn’t it? Can you have degrees of poetry – from very good to very bad?
Can you have bad poetry? At what point does poetry cease to be poetry and become verse, or doggerel, or worse?
Haiku or sonnet? No preference.
Sexy poetry? Well, yes. But most poetry isn’t sexy. Not for me.
The comma is very important. The spaces between words can be as important as the words themselves. Likewise the comma. I’m a big fan of e.e.cummings. Master of punctuation.
My favourite contemporary poem is probably Roger McGough’s, The Way Things Are.
Yes, I should be sleeping. It’s late.
e.e.cummings may have been the master of punctuation but his use of the big "E" was very limited wasnt it?
Not for him the boring use of capital letters for proper names and to start sentences. For him capital letters were for special occasions. They were like the front parlour of his poetry house that he would invite friends to visit on Sundays. Or, as he would have it, sundays.
I must be a heavy breather...need periods...know how to write correctly but it often
doesn't suit me.
Bukowski was also a great appreciator of music, especially classical like Beethoven, Bach, Mozart. Who would a thunk it of him.
Good question Roger...when does poetry become prose...a thin line indeed in
today's verse.
Does no one like Robert Frost's work? Occurs to me how few modern women poets are well known?
Wow! You've broken the 21 comment barrier! Congratulations!
Thank you, Michael.
Syl, have you come across Carol Ann Duffy? Probably the UK's best female poet and highly recommended.
For lighter, but still very good poetry, I'd recommend Wendy Cope.
Don't know if they're well known in the States...
Wendy Cope is a lovely person too that weve had the pleasure to meet a couple of times. She came to one of our private views once when we lived in London. John Hegley was there too. Gosh, veritable pride of poets! A gaggle of poets? What is the plural I wonder?
I think it's called a "pudding".
A pudding of poets. Yep, like that.
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