>poem is free verse >random unrhythmic bullshit with no

I wish formalists would either leave or kill themselves.

>>8893262
>reading poetry

>>8893268
Yeah bro slam poetry is the superior form of art
Fuck Drumpf And Fuck White People

>>8893276
The fuck is a 'superior form of art'?

>>8893268
I'm not a "formalist", I just think that poets should actually write poems and not prose with line-breaks. This free verse meme is getting out of hand. You need to know the rules to be able to effectively break them.

>>8893282
Oh it's you again. Yes you're a formalist.

>>8893287
I'm not advocating formalism or slavish adherence to rules, I'm advocating non-shit poetry. I love lots of free verse poets, but when done right no verse is ever "free". It needs some poetic grounding. These new poets can barely write, it's bullshit.

>>8893287
>no rhyme or meter
>"n-no guys its not prose its poetry just look at those juicy line breaks"

Get fucked.

>>8893262

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

>>8893298
You're comparing the 'greats' to random contemporaries. It's false equivalence.

No it doesn't need 'poetic grounding', quite obviously. Whether you think it's shit or not is irrelevant to the actual merits of the work; it seems to me you're just not trained to appreciate certain forms or poetry. Contemporary art isn't for everyone, it's true, but I can't think of any non-pseud opinion as to why certain forms are superior to others.

Western art went through a period of 'deskilling' over the course of the 20th century, as in everything extraneous to the mechanisms of art that otherwise formed a barrier of entry to each medium eventually fell out of favour. And just as well, since there are so many highly literate and educated people now it's better (as in it makes more historical sense) that more people participate.

>>8893300
What? It engages with the history of poetry, not prose.

>Everything must be definite and separate!

Touch of the 'tism?

>>8893314
What's your point? Are you saying I don't get it? Look, the free-verse trend, and it is a trend because none of these poets dinstingush themselves artistically, is just garbage by people with absolutely no artistic skill. Of course nobody reads poetry anymore, new poetry is steaming shit. And don't even try to compare these black lesbian hack "poets" to Rimbaud or Eliot.

>>8893276
what does drumpf and white people have to do with literally anything. Are you psychotic?

>>8893333
Liberalism and pomo faggotry go hand in hand

>>8893326
What do you think I meant by 'deskilling'? Since you think having no 'skill' is something bad then it's clear you don't get it or even how art works.

Artistry isn't decided by craft. The mechanisms of art and artistic experience aren't dependent on craft. There's literally nothing that says it is.

>And don't even try to compare these black lesbian hack "poets" to Rimbaud or Eliot.

I'm not, you are, in your OP.

Maybe you should not hold your opinion in such high regard and maybe read a few more books before posting multiple threads about how you think contemporary poetry is shit.

>>8893282
>>8893314

i really appreciate both of these views and i think strong arguments can be made for both.

even though im sympathetic to the view that newer perspectives are and have been historically disenfranchised with mainstream art, i think there needs to be some semblance and recognition of the tradition from which someone is departing from. this comes up in overt and explicit denunciations of "white patriarchy", but more work could be appreciated by those on both sides if there was an obvious instance of knowledgable departure in form.

>>8893340
Contemporary isn't pomo. Pomo is a 20th century movement.

And no liberalism and pomo don't have a lot in common.

>>8893350
There probably already are works that bridge this gap. There's no reason to believe there aren't.

>>8893348
Ever heard the one about being so open-minded that your brain falls out? That's postmodernism.

>Artistry isn't decided by craft. The mechanisms of art and artistic experience aren't dependent on craft. There's literally nothing that says it is.
It really is. To be a great poet, an original poet, you need to read and learn from other poets, you need to be able to write, period. This "deskilling" is misleading, the modernist poetry required a huge amount of intelligence and skill. The form should reflect the poem, but most poets now don't know the first thing about form, I bet most of them would struggle to write a sonnet.

>>8893353
They actually have very similar attitudes.

Here's an example of a contemporary poem:


i’d rather have
an agogô for a heart
a djembe for a heart
gramophone for a heart
bison bone for a heart
dandelion spore for a heart
sweet cream butter for a heart
i’d rather have a
mason jar for a heart
an ashtray for a heart
a plate of liver for a heart
lawnmower for a heart
jezebel for a heart

instead of this flesh & blood which mars my sheets
instead of this archive that clogs my toilet
instead of this flea-bitten attic full of raccoons
instead of this envelope that arrives already open
instead of this light bulb that rattles on the inside
instead of this tv box that draws attention on trash day
instead of this wart that only responds to rain
instead of this colander that never catches the grit

i’d rather have
a heart born of the lust
between a sonnet & a blues song
a coleridge-wild weed hoochie coochie heart
a we real cool heart aboard the impossible spawn of slave ships
an undying, maroon eternally brown in the black hills heart
i’d rather
have a heart that beats
that beats
that beats
that beats
that beats


There are entire anthologies full of this type of shit. Does anyone here unironically think this is a good poem?

>>8893364
I think the problem is you haven't read enough poetry from the mid-late-20th century to see the development of poetry from your early modernists to now. Postmodernism isn't really something that is relevant to this discussion. Maybe if you read postmodern poetry you would know this but instead you're making an argument based on your own ignorance. You don't see it therefor it doesn't exist kind of thing.

>It really is.

Still, no.

>To be a great poet, an original poet, you need to read and learn from other poets

Says who?

> I bet most of them would struggle to write a sonnet.

I bet even the most accomplished poets of the past would struggle to write a sonnet. In any case, to think that creative writing students aren't exposed to different forms of poetry in class is a lie.

>>8893371
Only to you and others who don't know what they're talking about. The problem with liberalism is its inherent white supremacy and adherence to neo-liberal capitalism as the answer; it wants to make markets out of disenfranchised minorities. You won't find any advocacy like this in postmodern writers.

>>8893382
No I don't think it's good, but there was also a lot of bullshit that adhered strictly to blank verse couplets as well. For example, the shit I wrote in 5th grade for english class

>>8893382
Why is it bad? Do you not have the imaginary capacity to consider the difference between the objects listed?

>>8893421
>Says who?
Says every poet worth reading.
>I bet even the most accomplished poets of the past would struggle to write a sonnet. In any case, to think that creative writing students aren't exposed to different forms of poetry in class is a lie.
Nope.

You can't just hand wave everything by saying that its all, like, subjective, man. Just because it's art doesn't mean it's not complete garbage. Yes, you do need to understand the technical aspects I'd poetry to be able to write good poetry. You can't just write random bullshit with line breaks and expect people to take you seriously.
>>8893431
K
>>8893439
The problem is, there's a glut of this type of shit poetry and retards who think that this type of "free-verse" is a good idea.
>>8893442
Read it out loud. Does that sound like a good poem to you? It doesn't even express anything, it's just a bunch of cliches and ugly phrases. Nothing about it is beautiful.

>>8893464
>Says every poet worth reading.

Empty nonsense. Do you actually have an opinion or are you just associating with 'poets of worth' because you want to appear sophisticated?

>Nope.

They are exposed to different forms though.

>You can't just hand wave everything by saying that its all, like, subjective, man.

No one is doing that except you.

>Yes, you do need to understand the technical aspects I'd poetry to be able to write good poetry. You can't just write random bullshit with line breaks and expect people to take you seriously.

Subjective opinions.

>Does that sound like a good poem to you?

Yes. Its mechanics don't lie in meter or music but the effect of comparing two distinct realities; a technique common in early surrealism but still found in metaphors in pre-modern poetry. It's not hard to imagine how this is a poem and not prose with line-breaks. Like I said, you haven't been trained to appreciate it. It doesn't seem distinct to you but to people with experience in reading poetry it does.

> It doesn't even express anything, it's just a bunch of cliches and ugly phrases.

It clearly does express something, not that expression is the purpose of art. None of the lines are cliche. Ugliness is subjective.

Poetry doesn't have to be beautiful, not that one can't find beauty in anything if presented in a particular context. Conflation of beauty and art just tells me you don't have a good grasp on art history.

>>8893499
>Empty nonsense. Do you actually have an opinion or are you just associating with 'poets of worth' because you want to appear sophisticated?
How is that empty? You just want to throw away history and ignore every poet before you?
>They are exposed to different forms though.
Not well enough. Education in 2016 is a meme.
>No one is doing that except you.
Yeah, I haven't yet settled for aesthetic nihilism.
>Subjective opinions.
Do you have an argument or not?
>Yes. Its mechanics don't lie in meter or music but the effect of comparing two distinct realities; a technique common in early surrealism but still found in metaphors in pre-modern poetry. It's not hard to imagine how this is a poem and not prose with line-breaks. Like I said, you haven't been trained to appreciate it. It doesn't seem distinct to you but to people with experience in reading poetry it does.
Explain exactly what you like about that poem. Because it looks to me like bullshit.

>It clearly does express something, not that expression is the purpose of art. None of the lines are cliche. Ugliness is subjective.
>Poetry doesn't have to be beautiful, not that one can't find beauty in anything if presented in a particular context. Conflation of beauty and art just tells me you don't have a good grasp on art history.
Here it is. This is like something out of a dystopian novel. What in the actual fuck? People like you, who think that everything is subjectiveamd nothing matters and everything is good, are fuckinf ruining art. You can only spout these reductive meme-phrases in lieu of actually engaging with the art. I know, you're gonna lecture me on art history and subjectivity, yadda yadda, I've heard it all before. Is there any bad art by your view? You think everything is equal? Why should I accept ugliness and ignorance in poetry?

>>8893538
>You just want to throw away history and ignore every poet before you?

Your vague references to past poets make your argument less and less convincing every time it happens. Muh history, yes I get it.

>Not well enough.

What are you talking about? They're just not relevant forms now and not inherently superior. People still learn about them though.

>Yeah, I haven't yet settled for aesthetic nihilism.

You have, that is exactly what formalism is. The only meaning in the medium is its form.

>Do you have an argument or not?

I've already stated it but you just went back to talking about 'no you NEED to do this and this' without explaining why.

>Explain exactly what you like about that poem.

Interesting imagery generated through contrasts.

> People like you, who think that everything is subjectiveamd nothing matters and everything is good

I've never stated anything like this. There is good and bad art. Just the reasoning behind why you think some things are bad are misguided. It's not a lack of standards just a different set of standards.

>reductive meme-phrases in lieu of actually engaging with the art.

This is what you're doing to contemporary poetry. Quite literally. You don't have an argument or a reason why you believe certain things.

>Is there any bad art by your view? You think everything is equal? Why should I accept ugliness and ignorance in poetry?

Yes. Strange and meaningless question. Already explained.

How old are you?

>>8893262
>Why is this shit allowed?
Largely because the Symbolists, Modernists, and Beats paved the way.

Many of the poets that eschewed the use of certain poetic devices (e.g. rhyme) often raised up other ones to provide structure to their poetry (e.g. Whitman makes a lot of use of repetition and clever meter).

Because we see them as "moving beyond" or "intentionally breaking with" the traditional, we tend to respect what they did moreso than what happens in slam poetry. Free verse can come across as totally clueless and ignorant of any literary devices or literary past, which may be fine (or not) - probably depending on whether you agree with the politics that comes out of the spoken word stories/confessions/grievances.

But the trouble is that we can view free verse as a kind of liberation from *all* constraints. And thus, if anything is a poem... why should we bother to read poems, or learn anything about poems, before writing any? Why should we bother to practice poetic techniques and understand them until we know them so well that we are no longer subservient to them?

If there are no constraints on what a poem is, whatever words we write down can count as poetry. And that may be true, but maybe it also misses something crucial. Maybe we should also consider whether or not it is the mark of a lazy and untalented artist to "grow" what art is by creating something banal and calling it art - as compared with someone who wrestles with constraints and creates something inside the pressure cooker.

>>8893268
>>8893287
Not sure I understand why there is some faggot on /lit/ lately using formalist as a pejorative. Formalist approaches can expand the available tools/analyses/features/abstractions for other types of readings, and are about due to do so again using digital and computational methods.

If anything, in the long run a new formalist moment driven by the Digital Humanities may not even challenge the status quo... it could just as easily strengthen the appalling dominance of Theory in English Departments.

>>8893382
I hate this contemporary meme of listing great big sequences of objects that are picked up and then discarded every line

The language poets were a mistake

>>8893262
>Why is this shit allowed?
Jews.

>>8893314
>there are so many highly literate
Knowing how to read != Literacy
>educated people
lol, higher education is a meme and has been so for a long time.
>it's better that more people participate
No. Talent is rare and obscuring it in a literal sea of shit helps no one.

>>8893570
>Largely because the Symbolists, Modernists, and Beats paved the way.
All of them were extremely knowledgeable and educated in poetry, which is why they could experiment so effectively. Have you read Allen Ginsberg's lectures? The man was well-read and has a very deep understanding of poetry and poetics. The issue is people who take their examples and run with it without being inspired or intelligent enough to write good work. It doesn't help that higher education is shit easy and doesn't teach anyone anything.

>>8893442

1) It's shallow

2) It's ugly

3) It doesn't really say anything

4) It doesn't express anything legitimate

>unironically believing in the post Marcel Duchamp definition of art

Your definition and your idea of art is rooted in ideology.

Contemporary art likes to think itself as a very clever thing, but it's only a simulacrum. The jargon that surrounds contemporary art is generated by insecurity. Insecurity towards the natural sciences and their depth and rigor, insecurity towards technology which can replicate (but not create) any of our best achievments. So how do you save face? By creating genres and movements and styles that are so completely devoid of meaning and so incomprehensible to the non-experts, which is pretty much everyone, that they become entirely void of worth.

If you need to type out a 20+ pages essay to justify why your free verse poetry that follows no rules and that is essentially a bunch of random comparisons has value, or that it's art, that poem has no business existing in the first place.

Theory and words are cheap. When people like you do shit like that, you are using language as a rhetorical weapon to further hide from everything that goes against ''The Theory''.

A poem like that one isn't concerned with whether it's good or not, or if it has value or not, but only if it's interesting or not.

Well, as it turns out, postmodernism is no longer interesting, and it's on its deathbed.

>>8893680
Meme post.

Sometimes I forget that you faggots have no respect for Charles Bukowski

>>8893262
>Every other contemporary poet is some hack nigger or woman writing random bullshit with no regard for artistry.

There is, for me, at least one moment in my life where I have tasted / realized that the way a sequence of words has affected my train of thought has been invigorating

That was the moment where I transferred from a person who would like to be seen as the kind of person who digs poetry into the kind of guy who genuinely enjoys the way certain sentences tickle my brain. It was some line from Walden, actually, I forget which. It really felt like it was spiraling upwards towards some unreachable fact.

Form is inconsequential when it comes to something being good as it relates to the art of playing with words
There is nothing wrong with free verse. Don't even call it poetry, it seems you're caught up on labeling. Words strung together by an artistic person that either give you a feeling of beauty or don't. The way people the appreciation of poetry is nauseating and probably one of the prime reasons that it is basically a non-existent artform as far as the public is concerned

>>8893723
The point of contemporary poetry is that it is accessible not incomprehensible. There's no need to write 20+ pages to justify why something is 'interesting or not'. Your entire post contradicts itself. You are not a thinker.

>it's on its deathbed.

Postmodernism already passed. It's a 20th-century movement.

>>8893738
>accessible
Who cares? Its still shit.

>>8893723
>Your definition and your idea of art is rooted in ideology.

This is just plain wrong. I am interested in art of all styles, movements, periods. I'm not the one discriminating against a type I don't like because its values are different to my own and yet I am the one whose idea of art is rooted in ideology?

>>8893743
How is it shit when you were trying to prove it is shit by saying it's inaccessible? It's not, thus it can't be shit by the same metric.

Write your own formalist bullshit if you want to read good contemporary poetry.

>>8893731
why would we? why would anyone?

Free verse poetry is for talentless hacks who are so terrible they can't even rhyme.
>>8893732
>The way people the appreciation of poetry is nauseating and probably one of the prime reasons that it is basically a non-existent artform as far as the public is concerned
It's funny how poetry wasn't seen as the exclusive domain of homosexuals and poseurs until recently... it's almost as if the "plebs" like rhymes and appreciate the lyricism of metrically rigorous poetry.

>>8893752
Are you retarded? Are you just going to keep repeating that everything is subjective? Why are you using formalism as a boogeyman?

>>8893757
Just like plebs enjoy classical music and art, or it's at least useful in selling things to plebs who want to feel like they are a sophisticated consumer.

>>8893756
One of the few actually recognizable names in USA poetry.

>>8893738

>Postmodernism passed
>When the dominant and only viable theory in academia is deconstructionism or marxism
>kek

No, you don't understand, and what you say is false. There is nothing less accessible than contemporary poetry.

Take your average pleb. He reads some contemporary poetry, think it's cool, whatever. You show him poetry from the great masters of yore, he's impressed, and wonders why this kind of poetry is no longer being made. You now have to justify to the untrained why this kind of poetry is popular, or how it has worth. That is where the justification comes in. That is where the essay comes in. This applies to every contemporary art form btw.

>>8893745

''Artistry isn't decided by craft. The mechanisms of art and artistic experience aren't dependent on craft.''

How is this not ideology?

>>8893752

That's a different guy, you fucking retard.

>>8893760
I've said more than once that I don't think everything is subjective. There are objective qualities to contemporary art and you don't understand them.

You can respond to the point I made in that post if you want to. Is it inaccessible thus shit, or is it accessible thus shit?

>>8893382
How incredibly ugly. What happened to narrative? What happened to rhetoric? Fuck Pound for inventing the creed of poetry as a jumble of banal images.

>>8893771
It's not inacessible, it's just shit.

Iambic pentameter is hard, it's inacessible. But Shakespeare is still far more enjoyable to read than any of the modern trash eaters.

>>8893766
As an art movement postmodernism has passed. We're not talking about academia. Also Marx isn't postmodern.

>There is nothing less accessible than contemporary poetry.

It's too difficult for people to imagine their heart being certain, explicitly stated things?

>He reads some contemporary poetry, think it's cool, whatever.

Well that's the end of that then. It's accessible.

>How is this not ideology?

It's anti-ideology. As soon as you say 'art has to be a certain way' you are speaking ideologically. When you say it doesn't you are speaking against ideology.

>That's a different guy, you fucking retard.

I bet you felt really good after typing that.

>>8893775
So someone is telling me contemporary poetry is inaccessible thus shit, and someone else is telling me it's accessible thus shit.

I wish critics these days would read and engage with criticism of the past instead of some talentless hacks just typing shit they feel without any knowledge of the form.

>>8893775
>not realizing that during his time Shakespeare was a modern trash eater
you played yourself.

>>8893703
Completely agree. I have not read Ginsberg's lectures (have read other writings of his) but am not surprised. Those poets were generally reacting to something that they understood very well.

Their imitators can mostly only see the (romanticised) reaction toward old rules and traditions. Because of the cultural and economic imperatives of Progress, identifying and understanding those old rules and traditions is not seen as important. What is important is the capacity for production that they free up. And so the bar is lowered...

>>8893778
>As soon as you say 'art has to be a certain way' you are speaking ideologically. When you say it doesn't you are speaking against ideology.
I understand your predicament, you think it's a question of freedom. It's not, it's a question of nomenclature. You're perfectly at liberty to write in free verse. I am equally free to inform you that your work is trash in my eyes, to point out that mostly everyone agrees with me, and that poetry throughout the almost entirety of its existence has been the way I define it, contrary to your liking.

>>8893757
Yeah, it gets out of hand.

How am I supposed to enjoy something that looks like the scrawling of an 8-year old?

>>8893762
I thought sophistication was something that belonged to the patrician.

>>8893781
I'm not the other guy, but I can understand him. Let me make this clear to you.

1. Contemporary poetry is technically very easy. It requires no skill.
2. In this sense, it's acessible.
3. Contemporary poetry is ugly, aesthetic garbage.
4. In this sense, it's "inacessible", in the sense that no one wants to read it.

Did I make that explanation acessible enough for you?

>>8893793
>how am I supposed to enjoy abstract expressionism?

>>8893792
>mostly everyone agrees with me,
>believing this

>>8893771

There are different kinds of inaccessibilities.

Classical music is hard of access because it's difficult. Think of trying to get to the top of a mountain.

Contemporary poetry is hard of access because it's trash, so to justify its worth compared to superior forms of poetry you have to hide behind theory and obscurantist jargon. Think someone asking you to climb a set of stairs that receives new steps everytime you put your foot forward.

>>8893778

>implying marx isn't one of the most cited author in 100% of postmodernist texts
>implying I said marxism was postmodern

It's accessible only as long as it exists within an hierarchy where it's relegated at the bottom of the totem pole of forms of poetry by everyone that has a brain.

Saying art can be anything is also a form of ideology, you idiot. You can't escape ideology.

>>8893800
>scrawling of an 8-year-old

>>8893799
Yeah, it tells me that contemporary poetry sucks ass.

>>8893792
I don't disagree that it has been the way you define it, it's just not that way now and it doesn't need to be. Like I said, I'm not saying 'everything is subjective' or that 'contemporary poetry is better than poetry of the past'. I've never come close to even implying such a view, and I think maybe it's your inability to read and accurately process information that is a sort of barrier to your enjoyment of contemporary poetry.

>>8893798
Yes, but the feeling of being sophisticated (rather than actually being sophisticated) is what attracts plebs to older forms of art.

>>8893799
>>8893803
>inaccessible because it's trash

I am afraid you two geniuses of our generation do not fully understand something as simple as the difference between accessible and enjoyable.

>>8893804
or worse
maybe lyrical abstraction

>>8893810
I appreciate your semantics, but I find it hard to appreciate countering a straw man with another ad hominid.

>>8893799
People do want to read it though.

>>8893812
So I suppose to be a patrician is to wright what plebs enjoy, considering their outward attraction to sophistication.

>>8893803
Not all classical music is difficult.

> hide behind theory and obscurantist jargon.

Not at all. It's rather straight-forward.

>>implying I said marxism was postmodern
You said postmodernism hasn't passed because Marx is still cited. But honestly you've said so much other ahistorical and baseless shit I don't have trouble believing you would think Marx is postmodern.

>Saying art can be anything

Never said anything of the sort.

I see you can only comprehend of an opposing point-of-view through your ideological lens. Pay attention to what I'm saying, not what you think I am saying. Attack the argument, not the man.

>>8893818
You may leave the thread.

>>8893830
Well plebs also like pleb shit. When plebs write they're don't become patrician.

>>8893813

In order to appreciate something, and especially something like a form of poetry, you need a certain training. This is obvious. However...

Show anyone one of Rafael's painting. They think it's beautiful, but only because it looks beautiful. Explain to them the depth of the techniques he uses, his mastery of x and y, the meaning of the painting and so on, they will think it's even more beautiful.

Now take your average postmodernist painting. Almost anyone that takes a look at it will think it's trash, or at least inferior to the other painting, and they will understand everything about the painting itself immediately (it's a square, or random splashes of colors, or something of that nature). Now, in order to make them appreciate it, you have to shower them in theory and jargon which they will not understand, and which doesn't actually make sense.

What makes contemporary art inaccessible is the underlying necessary theorizing to justify its existence in the face of the past masterpieces.

>>8893743
>>8893816

If it's reads like shit, looks like shit, and sounds like shit, it's still shit.

If it's put into a category where everything is shit, and it appears to be shit, it's still shit.

Likewise, it it's shit, but is categorized as something other, it's still shit.

Thus,
>scrawling of an 8-year-old

Yours,
-Still shit

>>8893838
I suppose, then, it would be equally valid to say the patricians also enjoy classical music and art, given that the sophisticated are likewise attracted to sophistication.

>>8893833

''Not all classical music is difficult''

You're being disingenuous.

''Not at all. It's rather straight-forward''

Surely you jest? Or have you not been paying attention?

''You said postmodernism hasn't passed because Marx is still cited. But honestly you've said so much other ahistorical and baseless shit I don't have trouble believing you would think Marx is postmodern.''

If you think postmodernism didn't come about thanks to the work of Marx and Freud, who were heavily quoted/cited by people like Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard, you're just plain wrong. Postmodernism is an heavily left-leaning thing, and Marx is one of the favorites of its thinkers.

''Saying art can be anything''

You are implying it. How about you define art?

>>8893842
Here he goes again, misapplying the term 'postmodern'. Squares (Malevich?) and random splashes of colours (Pollock?) are distinctly modern. Find me any piece of information that states otherwise. I will find you thousands that support my view.

And if you think people can't (or don't) appreciate the composition of a Pollock, for example, you are very much mistaken.

> necessary theorizing to justify its existence

Untrue. Contemporary poetry is immediate. It doesn't need an explanation as to why it's different to modernist poetry or Romantic poetry.

Do you want to know why people don't write in the old styles these days? They're kitsch.

>>8893854
Just because art can be anything doesn't give it free reign.
Art can still be shit.
And shit art is bad.

"Art is heavily subjective, there is no way to objectively judge art."

Well, touche. But I know something about art too.

It can pretty damn well be subjectively bad just like everything else.

Thus, prose with line breaks can still be bad, and it tends to be; at least, that's my subjective opinion.

>inb4 objectivity is a spook

>>8893854
>You're being disingenuous.

No. You mustn't be familiar with 19th-century classical if you think it's difficult. Your entire argument is made up of vague allusions to history so I wouldn't be surprised if you view classical music as one unchanging block in much the same way you view poetry.

>Or have you not been paying attention?

Nothing left to add. It's straight-forward and immediate. You don't need any theory to think of a heart being a flea-filled attic or whatever.

>You are implying it.

I'm explicitly stating otherwise, multiple times. How many more times do I have to say "no I don't think everything is subjective" before you learn how to fucking read? And again, your demonstrated inability to read and understand words that are immediately in your face and as plain as day is probably why you have such a hard time with contemporary poetry.

>How about you define art?

Why would I want to do that?

Hey guys! I know everyone here is intent on dividing themselves into warring factions and arguing semantics meaninglessly, but I cam eup with a better idea! How about we all post some poetry we enjoy, from any time period, historical or contemporary, and then we exalt its merits? That way, instead of empty arguments and contextless accusations, we can try to support our own subjective arguments, instead of stupidly trying to shoot down others' subjective arguments. Wouldn't that be much more logical and fun?

:D

Here's a poem I like. More precisely, I enjoy the strange non-metric rhymes and rather silly dialect, the strange syntactic inversions and mixture of elegance and prosaic language, making it sound both familiar and surrealy foreign. I think it's a great merging of modern and classic poetic styles. It's Dream Song 77 by John Berryman -

Seedy Henry rose up shy in de world
& shaved & swung his barbells, duded Henry up
and p.a.'d poor thousands of persons on topics of grand
moment to Henry, ah to those less & none.
Wif a book of his in either hand
he is stript down to move on.

—Come away, Mr. Bones.

—Henry is tired of the winter,
& haircuts, & a squeamish comfy ruin-prone proud national
mind, & Spring (in the city so called).
Henry likes Fall.
Hé would be prepared to líve in a world of Fáll
for ever, impenitent Henry.
But the snows and summers grieve & dream;

thése fierce & airy occupations, and love,
raved away so many of Henry's years
it is a wonder that, with in each hand
one of his own mad books and all,
ancient fires for eyes, his head full
& his heart full, he's making ready to move on.

>>8893857

Are you trying to say people are not making these kinds of paintings anymore? Pollock is extremely late modernism.

Contemporary art is immediate, and inferior. To justify its existence, you need jargon. It thus becomes not accessible. Do you not understand this?

>kitsch

That's not a valid reason.

>>8893868

I'm obviously using classical as a general term to talk of stuff going from praetorius or older to very modern stuff. That should be obvious.

I quite frankly don't believe you.

If you say art is not in fact everything, and that it is in fact only certain things, then it has a definition for you. What is it?

>>8893881
Barely anyone paints anymore. Even rarer still is anything resembling abstract expressionism. People tend to like the immediacy of photography more than abstraction since the art world is so dependent on its market these days. Anything purposely inaccessible won't sell. Without sales you are unknown.

Contemporary poetry is much the same; its expression is obvious and refers to explicit experience that may resonate with others. Do we have poetic greats these days? We may only find out after the next generation of poetry passes when we can draw upon our contemporary poets as a sort of precedent. You don't need theory to explain the immediacy of contemporary poetry since it speaks for itself. Your narrative is not going to stick no matter how many times you repeat it at me.

>That's not a valid reason.

It is. People think rhyming or certain forms are like unnecessary gimmicks because the idea these days is that poetry is expression. I don't think art is generally definable as expression but it seems to be the thing that drives artistic creation since maybe the Romantic period.

> from praetorius or older to very modern stuff.

Then you should know that it is not a homogeneous block with the same forms and levels of accessibility throughout.

>What is it?

This is only answerable by looking at the entire history of art i.e. not discounting contemporary art. I'm not giving you a definition because it's irrelevant to my point and it would take too long to answer.

>>8893896

The Parnassien certainly thought differently.

How can you claim to properly express what you mean without a serious mastery of the language and its devices? How can you express something that is not shallow without resorting to the time honored techniques of the past, without rhyming or forms?What's the point of expressing something if it is so shallow that it become self-evident? You might as well stay shut.

>>8893301
Whitman's great. I was pleasantly surprised at how good free verse poetry can be

File: opfer.jpg (68KB, 404x666px) Image search: [Google]

68KB, 404x666px

>tfw formalist
>tfw also woke af

>>8893896
If you don't define art, then calling something "art" is meaningless. If I told you that a poem was art and I told you the same poem was ajdjduxndic, without defining these terms, the terms are equally useless and meaningless.

OP got spanked

this thread is unintentionally funny because several commenters have referred to "contemporary poetry" when they were thinking of styles that haven't been relevant or widely practiced in at least a couple decades.

>>8894293
Gdfh

ITT: Scrublords struggle with the concept of subjective value

See also;
'Stop liking what I don't like'

>>8893538
you are a true brainlet

>>8894537
Subjectivity eschews any form of discussion.

>I think thing A is better than thing B because of these reasons
>Comparing things is impossible because everyone's opinions are equally valid

Where do we go from there?

>>8893348
Artistry is craft.

Go fuck yourself.

>Some poets have considered free verse restrictive in its own way. In 1922 Robert Bridges voiced his reservations in the essay 'Humdrum and Harum-Scarum.' Robert Frost later remarked that writing free verse was like "playing tennis without a net." William Carlos Williams said "being an art form, verse cannot be free in the sense of having no limitations or guiding principles".[7] Yvor Winters, the poet/critic said "the free verse that is really verse, the best that is, of W.C. Williams, H. D., Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and Ezra Pound is the antithesis of free"[8]

>>8895500
No it isn't.

>>8894475
So every art history essay is meaningless because they didn't define what 'art' was in the first paragraph?

>>8895787
If they're trying to argue that something (movement, work, etc.) should be considered art, and doesn't at least implicitly define art (i.e. The statement "This painting should be considered art because it makes me feel strong emotions." defines art implicitly as "something that makes me feel strong emotions."), then their argument is meaningless.

If they're trying to argue that a piece of art is part of a movement without defining the movement explicitly or implicitly, then their argument is meaningless.

If they're discussing possible interpretations of a piece of art, then whether or not a piece is art doesn't matter to the argument presented in the essay.

If they're talking about the historical impacts of art and art movements, then the artistic merit of the art or movements is completely irrelevant to its effects on the history of the world.

If the definition of something is common knowledge and the author is going off of that, then it's fine, but it may lead to confusion.

In this thread, several people are trying to determine whether contemporary poetry should be considered art. To do so, we need to define art. There appears to be some confusion of what constitutes art. The only way to move forward with the discussion is to come to a consensus of what constitutes art.

The main ideas about what makes art that I've seen in this thread are either a historical basis or something along the lines of how it sounds.

>unrhymed poetry with no meter
I'm not against it, but personally I will never get into it. I don't have much respect for poetic form in general, it's a stupid waste of letters easily replaced with music, still one cannot help but appreciate the neatness and melodic quality in a well-structured poem. Free verse is just prose with some patterns of recognition thrown in the mix, I don't care for it

>>8895300
See this post -> >>8893869

>>8895961
The main argument is whether it is poetry, and there have been arguments put forward as to why it is or isn't poetry. OP argues musicality and I have been pressing him to explain why he thinks this constitutes poetry but the responses have been light on conviction or detail. My only job in this thread is to undermine his definition rather than to put forward my own, because the truth is art forms are generally defined by what they are not rather than any shared constant throughout history, as the change in 20th century art practice complicate these things.

His model thinks contemporary poetry is not poetry because he can't reconcile the two. But we need to reconcile the two to come up with a definition of art. Defining it from the start isn't the issue with the thread, it's the lackluster OP.

>>8896010
OP here. I never argued that contemporary poetry is not poetry, I just argued that it was shit.
>My only job [...] is to undermine his definition rather than to put forward my own
Contemporary art in a nutshell. You're an aesthetic nihilist.

>>8896010
>>8896028
What separates good poetry from bad poetry?

>>8895774

Yes it is.

>>8896139

Good poetry should be constrained by number. Modern poetry is like some sort of stupid therapy exercise, just putting feels on paper. Real poetry is really hard and it sounds really good. It's like if car manufacturers started putting out wheels and scooters and said this was the car of the future.

Eliot, Williams, Whitman, Pound were all "free verse" but all had number, just different numbers in different lines. Just like Greek choruses. These poets today are just writing prose and chopping it up into lines. I could make a better poem than any of them by taking some exalted passage from a great prose writer and chopping it into lines.

>>8896139
Musicality, cadence, rhythm, rhyme, form, versification, progression etc.

>>8896139
Holy shit. I know you think you're an ebin Socratic method man but saying that everything is subjective is thought-terminating and worthless.

>>8893382
Horrible, now i want to be le wrong generation kid.

if you don't rhyme in your poems then you are not a poet.

>>8896139

The same thing that separates bad art from good art : Depth of reflexion that is matched or combined with artistic talent. Artistic talent being something like being able to paint well, when it comes to painting. In poetry, that would be mastery of the language and of words.

If all you have is artistic talent, then you get pretty stuff but that is void of intelligence (thomas kinkade). It also allows computer generated stuff to become art and nobody wants that, that would be the death of art.

If you all have is depth of reflexion, then you're left with obscurantist garbage, or things like Pierre Brassau.

From what I've seen of most contemporary poetry, it's void of both.

>>8896169
When did I say everything was subjective?

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29KB, 486x307px

>>8896202
That's obviously your point
>hurr durr have you ever tried revisiting your subjective standards? Ugliness is beauty, lies are truth, freedom is slavery

>>8896213
My point was to get definitions that we could discuss and use to determine whether or not OP's statement that contemporary poetry is shit could actually be proven or disproven, as I outlined in this >>8894475 post. With all the definitions currently presented in these posts:
>>8896163
>>8896164
>>8896185
>>8896192
contemporary poetry is shit.

By the way, I mostly agree with >>8896192 on what constitutes good and bad art.

>>8896239
music is now the medium of poetry

>>8896028
When you say it's 'prose with line breaks' you are not saying it's poetry.

>You're an aesthetic nihilist.

You're fucking retarded and again I have to tell you that you're wrong. I appreciate different arts for different purposes, owing to the socio-historic and theoretical contexts in which it is produced. I'm not stupid enough to judge contemporary poetry by non-contemporary standards.

Prove to me your idea of poetry is objective. Define your terms.

>>8896139
It depends on the context of the poem.

>>8896676

>Art can only be judged by its historical context

There are no multiple standards. There is only one standard, and everything produced is part of that hierarchy. Contemporary standards are fucking trash, so the poetry they engenders is naturally garbage as well.

You are the fucking retarded one.

>>8896694

No.

>>8896705
>There are no multiple standards

Yes there are. If I judged Homer by its adherence to the rules of Japanese linked verse then by that measure Homer would be shit. Can you reconcile Greek epic with Japanese court poetry by terms of 'musicality'?

>>8896716

The rules of Japanese court poetry are successful at generating good poetry.

The rules of Greek Poetry are successful at generating good poetry.

Ancient Greek and Classical Japanese are vastly different languages, so necessarily the standards and rules will be different, but there are rules and standards. They are logical and serve to enchance poetry. The standards of Contemporary Poetry do not make poetry better.


The rules of Contemporary Poetry are unsuccessful at generating good poetry, because Contemporary Poetry is not good.

Goodness is an intrinsic, objective quality of a thing and it transcends all historical contexts and cultures. There is a limit to how objective we can be, obviously. Who can say who is objectively superior between Rimbaud and Nakahara? It would be hard to demonstrate if one is better than the other. However, it's clear and obvious that Rimbaud is better than some random meme Japanese poet from the same era, and vice versa.

The standards of Contemporary Poetry sully poetry. Robert frost famously said that free verse poetry is like playing tennis without a net.

Free verse limits poetry most of the time.

Self-expression is nice and all when you have Rimbaud's talent and mastery of the forms, but without a grounding in poetry you quite simply cannot produce worthwhile poetry. A form of poetry that does away with all of what allowed poetry to be good is a form that fails to generate good poetry.

>>8896795
>The standards of Contemporary Poetry do not make poetry better.

Subjective claim.

>The rules of Contemporary Poetry are unsuccessful at generating good poetry, because Contemporary Poetry is not good.

Begging the question.

>Goodness is an intrinsic, objective quality of a thing and it transcends all historical contexts and cultures.

So contemporary poetry can be good.

>The standards of Contemporary Poetry sully poetry.

Subjective.

>Free verse limits poetry most of the time.

Weasel words.

>A form of poetry that does away with all of what allowed poetry to be good is a form that fails to generate good poetry.

It did away with all things extraneous to making good poetry.

Any model that fails to account for all forms of poetry cannot be said to be objective. You have been unable to do this, thus it can be said you do not have an objective standard of poetry.

There is really no substance to your argument. None. You conveniently stop replying to points I make in favour of strawmanning others. Learn to think, learn to read, learn to write. You're an embarrassment to poetry you pathetic pseud.

>>8896862
I don't believe in objective poetic standards like the person you're replying to but you're a psued. You don't have any arguments, you're just claiming that everything is subjective and nothing is equal. We're allowed to have taste and aesthetic ideals. I should be able to point out that meme contemporary poetry is talentless garbage without some psued telling me I just don't "get it". Free verse is beautiful when done right (WC Williams, Whitman, Pound) but garbage when the poet knows nothing about poetry. I think YOU need to learn to read and write. You can't justify ugliness and stupidity. Free verse never intended to strip things "extraneous". You still need talent and study. No great poet wrote without a model or inspiration. Read ABC of Reading and the Anxiety of Influence.

>>8896716
If Ezra Pound and William Blake switched places in time and nothing else changed, would both of their collections of poetry become shit?

>>8896879
>you're just claiming that everything is subjective and nothing is equal.

You can't read either. I haven't once claimed everything is subjective and I've actually explicitly stated multiple times that I don't believe that to be true.

>We're allowed to have taste and aesthetic ideals.

Sure, I don't argue that. All I ask for is some sort of coherence or depth to these ideals, which has not been demonstrated in this thread.

>You can't justify ugliness and stupidity.

I'm not trying to. Something being 'not beautiful' doesn't make it ugly. Something lacking 'intelligence' doesn't make it stupid. Also these terms haven't been defined. There's no definition to this model of poetry at all, even though I've been asking for it since the beginning.

>You still need talent and study.

What is 'talent'? Adherence to ideals? These ideals don't have to be the rules of form and good poetry can exist without them.

>>8896862

You were asked many posts ago to define what constitutes as art, and have been dodging the question ever since. You refuse to put forth any definition or any claim and instead just type defensive, noncommittal shit like '' I don't think it's all subjective'', when clearly implying it, or making an ideological claim about the nature of art, and then saying it's not ideology. You're a coward, and a fucking disgrace.
''It did away with all things extraneous to making good poetry.''

Wrong. Structure is necessary for good poetry. Contemporary Poetry does away with most structure, so it's shit.

''Any model that fails to account for all forms of poetry cannot be said to be objective. You have been unable to do this, thus it can be said you do not have an objective standard of poetry.
''

This does not logically follow, you fucking retard.

>>8896893
Their poetry would have changed. Assuming it stays the same, shit to who? Us now?

>>8896902
You're a retard. What are you even arguing for, or do you just want to make everyone realize that everything is subjective? My subjective experience still matters. There is no objectivity here, I'm not claiming that. You're being reductionist and missing the forest for the trees.

>>8896904
No I did put forward claims but you ignored them because they were too inconvenient for your pseud model of poetry, your 'objective standards' that can't make sense of art outside its poorly-defined parameters. What a failure, both you as a thinker and as a person.

>Structure is necessary for good poetry

"Wrong." Good argument.

>This does not logically follow, you fucking retard.

"Wrong."

>>8896915
>and nothing else changed

They publish the same exact poems. Pound still writes "In the Station of a Metro" and Blake still writes "The Poison Tree". If that still doesn't work for you, switch movements, so that Modernism takes place in Blake's time and Romanticism takes place in Ezra Pound's time. Would their poems now become shit to us?

>>8896862

''It did away with all things extraneous to making good poetry.''

If those things are not necessary for good poetry, then what is? And what is good poetry?

>>8896917
>or do you just want to make everyone realize that everything is subjective?

Again, no. Fuck off out of /lit/ if you can't read.

>>8896962
Good poetry is poetry that I like.
>>8896968
What is your point?

>>8896961
Pound writes about a metro before they exist?

By the way "In the Station of a Metro" draws heavily from Japanese inspiration but by the standards of Japanese poetry it is rather bad.

Also compare his poem to the contemporary poem posted earlier in the thread. Is there not imagist precedent?

>>8896862
>Any model that fails to account for all forms of poetry THAT I LIKE cannot be said to be objective. You have been unable to do this, thus it can be said you do not have an objective standard of poetry.

Fixed your post for you, unless you want to argue that all poetry is good, in which case, you should just stop everything.

>>8896954

You put forward claims with no evidence.

''your 'objective standards' that can't make sense of art outside its poorly-defined parameters''

You are literally unable to make sense of art outside of the historical and social context that created it. Everyone is calling you out on your relativism, and you say the contrary, completely oblivious to the fact that the things you have said logically lead to a relativistic position. You literally do not understand the logical conclusions of what you are saying.

>>8896962
There's no easy answer for this. "It depends."

Good poetry when? Where?

>>8896993
>If that still doesn't work for you, switch movements, so that Modernism takes place in Blake's time and Romanticism takes place in Ezra Pound's time. Would their poems now become shit to us?

>>8896999
No, whether I like the forms or not is irrelevant. I don't like the pre-Raphaelites but I would include them in a model for painting because they're important. That is objectivity, not saying "contemporary art is shit" because it doesn't fit within parameters I developed without taking contemporary art into account in the first place.

>>8897004

This is dodging the question.

>>8897013

Nobody ever said Contemporary Poetry is not poetry, just that it's mostly bad poetry. It is taken into the model.

What are you even saying?

>>8897002
>You put forward claims with no evidence.

That's what you're fucking doing you idiot. "Blah blah goodness, talent." What are you talking about? Your posts are full of fallacies.

>You are literally unable to make sense of art outside of the historical and social context that created it.

No, that's you, which is why you don't like contemporary poetry.

>Everyone is calling you out on your relativism

Relativism isn't "it's all subjective" in the way that you have been using it, i.e. "everything is equal and good." There are still standards in question.

>>8897008
Still nonsense.

>>8897033
Yeah dude let's just throw away all standards of quality, artistry, and talent.

You're obviously not cut out for art.

>>8897028
I'm not dodging it I'm asking for it to be better defined.

>Nobody ever said Contemporary Poetry is not poetry

'prose with line breaks'?

>>8897041
Now what are you talking about? Contemporary poetry still has standards. It still uses an arrangement of words. What do you mean by talent? It's only ever exclusive to your model?

Is it not the ability to adhere to certain conditions of production?

>>8897054
>everything is relative man, just reconsider your views
You could say this about any poem. By your non-standards, bad poetry doesn't exist.

>>8897039
Still dodging the question. It's a hypothetical question. You do know that the least important part of the hypothetical question is how the situation arose in the first place.

Assume that, somehow, history happened in such a way that poets wrote like the Modernists during Blake's time and like the Romantics during Pound's time. The specifics don't matter, only that history unfolded this way, that technology remained the same, and that Pound and Blake still wrote their original poetry. Would we consider at least one of them shit?

>>8897064
It's relative in terms of socio-historic and theoretical contexts. I've said this. Bad poetry can still be produced in these contexts if they don't adhere to the standards of the time, place, etc.

What's the point in me telling you my position if you keep forgetting what I tell you? I bet you still think I hate all poetry that isn't contemporary.

>>8897033

Here's a list.

''No it doesn't need 'poetic grounding', quite obviously.''

''I can't think of any non-pseud opinion as to why certain forms are superior to others.
''

''Artistry isn't decided by craft. The mechanisms of art and artistic experience aren't dependent on craft. There's literally nothing that says it is.
''

''not that expression is the purpose of art.''

''Ugliness is subjective.''

''Poetry doesn't have to be beautiful,''

''because the truth is art forms are generally defined by what they are not rather than any shared constant throughout histor''

'' I don't think art is generally definable as expression but it seems to be the thing that drives artistic creation since maybe the Romantic period.''

(What is the Parnasse) (You fucking retard)

All baseless statements with no evidence. You are a coward, period. You reduce the value of art to the standards of the movement in which it was created. That is relativism.

>>8897076
It's a nonsense hypothetical. "What if history went backwards"?

>>8897079
I know that poetry is relative to context. I can still say that this poetry is shit, that I don't like it and disagree with the poets on an aesthetic level. That's how art is made, by reaction. The Modernists hated Victorian poetry. The Romantics hated Augustan poetry, and so on. Were they wrong and stupid for having different artistic ideals?

>>8897079

''It's relative in terms of socio-historic and theoretical contexts.''

Here's the thing : it's fucking not.

Gautier is good in any era.

Shakespeare is good in any era.

Qu Yuan is good in any era.

Ferdowsî is good in any era.

>>8897085
You're getting upset that I'm just saying 'no' when you make a claim with no evidence? I'm not to blame for that.

If you can make a claim with evidence or reasoning then I will discuss it. Until then I am going to just say 'no' every time you say something 'is, just because'. There's a purpose behind how I have handled this argument, but you're just being hypocritical.

>You reduce the value of art to the standards of the movement in which it was created. That is relativism.

Yes but I don't think everything is equal or there is no such thing as bad art which usually accompanies your accusation that I'm being 'subjective'.

>>8897086
Fine. Let us say that someone in the Romantic Period wrote stuff very similar to Modernist poetry. They had no major effect on history. Would that poet's poetry be shit?

>>8897095
Are contemporary poets wrong and stupid for having different artistic ideals?

>>8897117
I think so.

>>8897105
Nah they're all shit.

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>>8897111
>Let us say that someone in the Romantic Period wrote stuff very similar to Modernist poetry.
I got you pham

>>8897108

No. You are hypocritical for saying I have made claims without evidence when you've been doing the same since the start of this thread.

''Yes''

So you do admit it then. You're not a full on relativist that believes everything is equal or that there is no such thing as bad art, but you do in fact reduce the value of art to the standards of the movement in which it was created. That is a light form of relativism. It implies that there can be no inferior movements or periods in art.

>>8897111
The Modernist poetry probably wouldn't be written about or even published because there's no clear progression of the ideas.

>>8897117

Yes. Their artistic ideals are shallow.

>>8897123
Ok, and here is where the disagreement is. My point from the start has been it is fine for you to think that contemporary poetry is shit as a basic aesthetic reaction but the way you are trying to justify it is flawed and not objective. I have been suggesting that maybe you are not considering all you possibly can in your judgment of contemporary work (i.e. the context) and you are asserting a standard with a really poor justification.

>>8897151
Assume it was. Don't dodge this. If a person wrote poetry that did not fit their time period, would their poetry be shit, even if their poetry would fit in perfectly with some movement a hundred years or so into the future? Also, see this -> >>8897133

>>8897146
No I'm not. I'm not required to give you any evidence. The burden of proof is on you for making the claim. If you want to argue with no evidence I will give you responses with no evidence. The fact you got annoyed with this is your hypocrisy, but I'm doing it because you set the precedent.

>>8897172
Why should I care what you think? You're tasteless. I've put it into its context and I still don't like it.

>>8897153
"No."

>>8897013
What is wrong with the method outlined in >>8896192?
It is objective and it accounts for all types of poetry (as it does not care about the type of poetry).

>>8897183

But you made claims before I did? You started posting before I did lad.

''No it doesn't need 'poetic grounding', quite obviously.''

I hadn't even posted by the time you said this.

You set the precedent, not I.

>>8897188

Also.

Yes.

>>8897178
It could possibly be considered shit until it fit in with a movement in the future. Unless it wasn't considered shit and that poetry caused the movement. I'm not sure how you conceive of how poetry rises to prominence but it doesn't seem realistic.

You're one step away from saying "imagine there was good poetry, would it still be shit?"

>>8897187
Ok well I hope you enjoy your chicken tendies of literature.

>>8897199
The main problem is the last sentence. There's no examples given like earlier, and no way to verify if it really is void of both.

>>8897211
wew lad. I hope you recognize the irony that you're defending the literary establishment from all attacks while considering me to be a narrow-minded pleb. I guess Keats was retarded for hating Alexander Pope, and Eliot was a pleb for not being able to into Tennyson.

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>>8897211

>Implying Contemporary Poetry, in relation to food, isn't the exact definition of a hot pocket

>>8897202
I thought you were OP. I have been responding to him.

>>8897207
I am exactly one step away from saying "Imagine there was good poetry, would it still be shit?" I am saying "Imagine there was good poetry, would it be shit under YOUR STANDARDS under some very specific conditions?" Capitalization is for emphasis, not to be shouting in anger.

It's entirely possible that some visionary in the Romantic Period tried to write Modernist poetry and never got it published. Mendel's work on genetics went years without being noticed.

>>8897220
I guess Keats and Eliot actually had working models of what they considered poetry. I don't care about the conclusions, just the reasoning.
>>8897172

>>8897233
Any model I could throw at you, you'd just cry "subjective!" and feel smart.

>>8897232
No you've misinterpreted my standards. You're trying to say that poets separated by 100 years and still working in the same tradition count as wildly different times that if you switched them they would be hated as poets.

>It's entirely possible that some visionary in the Romantic Period tried to write Modernist poetry and never got it published.

You mean it would have been shit poetry at the time.

>>8897235
Not at all. If there was basis (i.e. evidence or reasoning) for what you believed I would have no trouble accepting it, as I have done with
>>8896192

But you have just said something about goodness = form and really haven't developed your point.

>>8897249
I have developed my point, you just dismissed it without thought. And I don't really need "evidence or reasoning" when your nihilistic relativistic view ignores any argument I throw at it a priori.

>>8897258
Where did you develop it? Not in any familiar formal logic. Seems like you're doing for criticism what you accuse contemporary poets of doing for poetry.

You do need evidence or reasoning.

>>8897249

I don't think goodness = form in a 1:1 relationship.

Consider a mountain. The peak is where you want to be. It's beauty, or it's mastery, or it's something like that. There are many paths that lead to the mountaintop (movements, or forms). For example, you can take the north side, or the south one, and so on. So there are many ways to reach the top, but the top is an objective thing, it exists by itself, and it exists according to an objective metric (height).

My belief is that contemporary poetry is a path that is barely on the mountain, and that will probably not lead you to the top. Maybe it stops somewhere before the peak, and you have to take a different one. Maybe, even worse, it's not on the mountain at all, and leads downward to the fiery pits of hell.

>>8897273
>aesthetic arguments should be made in formal logic
Fucking wew lad. I've developed my aesthetic views. What more justification do you fucking need? You're a child shaking his head and saying "nuh-uh".

>>8893348
>Artistry isn't decided by craft. The mechanisms of art and artistic experience aren't dependent on craft. There's literally nothing that says it is

You are literally a moron who has no idea what the fuck he's talking about. It's hilarious you are asking another anon to "read a few more books" when you clearly haven't read any, probably just shitty blogs. Art is literally skill/craft. Experimentation is used to achieve new skills and knowledge, it's not some kind of mystical artistic experience.

>>8897286
>My belief is that contemporary poetry is a path that is barely on the mountain, and that will probably not lead you to the top.

Why?

>>8897288
That's what you're doing but it's directed at contemporary poetry. If you don't use any sort of logic you're a child shaking his head. And now you're shaking your head at the thought of using logic.

>>8897249
O.K. This is a similar idea to >>8896192, but a little more developed. The two parts of this criterion are along the lines of impact and talent, where impact is what you get out of it. Impact would include important philosophical points, humor, ideas, emotions, etc. Impact is basically how it affects you. Talent on the other hand is hard to measure. So, I'm proposing that we can measure talent by how well something is done vs. how well an average Joe with no experience can do something. For instance, you would not have a talented breather. On the other hand, if you took someone off the street and asked them to paint something like a Delacroix painting or a van Gogh, they probably couldn’t do it. The idea behind this is that if you could do something just as good as someone else, why would you need to go to them to do that something? Talent applies to all parts of a work, including coming up with plot, style, etc.

By these two measures, many contemporary poets would fail.

>>8897294
Counter his arguments with your own you wannabe Socrates
>>8897298
Hmm? You're saying that my reaction is not justified with no argument other than calling me a formalist, then you say that I need to use "logic" to argue my position. I'm gonna assume you're underage and just discovered philosophy.

>>8897290
Maybe you should read Nishiwaki Junzaburo. He separated 'art' from its mechanics.

Craft is craft, which is why the status of the artist changed in the Renaissance when artists argued that painting was more than a craft. It's also why the mechanical copying of nature like landscape and still life always occupied lower tiers in the hierarchy of genres.

>>8897294

Because it creates poems like these

''A cornerstone. Marble pilings. Curbstones and brick.
I saw rooftops. The sun after a rain shower.
Liz, there are children in clumsy jackets. Cobblestones
and the sun now in a curbside pool.
I will call in an hour where you are sleeping. I’ve been walking
for 7 hrs on yr name day.
Dead, I am calling you now.
There are colonnades. Yellow wrappers in the square.
Just what you’d suspect: a market with flowers and matrons,
handbags.
Beauty walks this world. It ages everything.
I am far and I am an animal and I am just another I-am poem,
a we-see poem, a they-love poem.
The green. All the different windows.
There is so much stone here. And grass. So beautiful each
translucent electric blade.
And the noise. Cheers folding into traffic. These things.
Things that have been already said many times:
leaf, zipper, sparrow, lintel, scarf, window shade.''

Honestly, what the fuck is that? Compare with the following

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

>>8893772
Nothing of Pound's is banal, it can be jumbled and confused but I find this such a personal fault that it holds significance.

>>8893772
Pound was a genius. The issue is his cheap, uneducated imitators.

>>8897306
I would say that you can also measure talent by how successful the artist is in achieving artistic goals, even adhering to specific standards. Contemporary poetry certainly has impact. If it doesn't reach you, it reaches someone else, so the point of contention is talent.

I mentioned before the deskilling of arts in the 20th century. One can still be a talented artist even though they can't paint like the old masters. Consider photography, where technical competence is valued but often not as highly as what is captured in the photograph.

'Talent' in this case is the ability to effectively 'capture' something, which is something noticeable in art since the idea of the 'sublime' took hold in the Romantic period (forgetting the idea of trying to 'capture beauty', I can go into this distinction if you want.) I can show you a picture of a bee and you might not like it, but that doesn't take away from how effectively it was captured.

I don't think it's really a coincidence that photography was invented during the height of the Romantic period.

>>8897310
>Counter his arguments with your own you wannabe Socrates

He hasn't made an argument. I want to know why he thinks this so I can counter it.

>Hmm? You're saying that my reaction is not justified with no argument other than calling me a formalist

I'm sorry I called you a formalist, I didn't know it would hurt your feelings. Do you want to try making a point now?

>>8897345
In that case, you just have to decide that you don't like an artist's artistic goals.
>>8897350
Re-read my posts, I'm OP btw

>>8897318
I don't see anything wrong with either poem. Does the first need more hyphens? It has a few.

>>8897345

''I would say that you can also measure talent by how successful the artist is in achieving artistic goals''

You can't define talent as that.

''One can still be a talented artist even though they can't paint like the old masters.''

I don't think so.

Photography is low art, just like video games.

>>8897318
>Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

OMG yes where are they? where are the songs? beautiful! magnificent!

>>8897360
>thinking some shit garbage by some literally who vs To Autumn by Keats are in any way comparable
Are you clinically retarded?

>>8897360

The first poem is absolutely awful compared to the second.

Inferior in all aspects really.

>>8897364

You're not really helping yourself. If Keat's ugly, everything by contemporary poets is lower than trash.

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>>8897364
>making fun of Keats
It's one of the most beautiful poems in the English language, sorry you don't get it

>>8897355
>In that case, you just have to decide that you don't like an artist's artistic goals.

Not really. It still allows for a poem you don't like to still be good because it is successful. You may dislike it for other reasons.

>>8897379

Something having success doesn't mean it's good or has worth anon. Think fifty shades of grey or jk rowling, or even worse stuff.

>>8897363
>You can't define talent as that.

I JUST FUCKING DID HAHA

>I don't think so.

Cool.

>>8897345
That's decent. I can understand not directly comparing, say, Michelangelo and Picasso. Both are great in their own ways and express different things. But if I disagree with the artistic goal, it's shit.

Imagine a postmodern artist started selling his own feces as shock art. He's succeeding at his own goals, but I still think it's garbage and that he's a hack.

>>8897366
Not an argument.

>>8897313
>Maybe you should read Nishiwaki Junzaburo. He separated 'art' from its mechanics

Why Junzaburo? It was separated elaborately beforehand by John Cage, Beuys, Duchamp etc. It isn't clear whether you think art is entirely separated from skill(I don't like saying craft since it has an alternative meaning) or more than just skill - which is blatantly obvious to the point of irrelevance.

>>8897374
>The first poem is absolutely awful compared to the second.
>Inferior in all aspects really.

"No."

>>8897383

1) Someone can set his artistic goals to be about anything.

2) Meaning anything can be an art production.

3) Also meaning anything can have value as art if it has success.

This definition falls flat on its face.

See this post

>>8897388

An artist in the uk was selling paintings which consisted of her vomiting on them. Assuming she was successful with them, do you actually think it would be good art?

>>8897375
where are the fucking songs frogfag

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>>8897390
>>8897395
>all art is equal
>random contemporary poets are on the same level as Keats
This is your brain on postmodernism

>>8897398
>An artist in the uk was selling paintings which consisted of her vomiting on them. Assuming she was successful with them, do you actually think it would be good art?
No. That's what I'm saying. I can dislike art and artistic goals.

>>8897402
You're trying to be ironic, right?

>>8897406

Replied to the wrong post lad. Sorry.

>>8897395

I guess this is the theoratical horizon of your ideology, to say some literally who is on the same level as Keats. You can't win like this.

>>8897382
Well I specifically mean success 'artistically' rather than financial success. I'll continue to address this in my response to another post:

>>8897388
Well that's where socio-historic and theoretical context matter. It wouldn't be a successful work because we already have "Artist's Shit", which is developed from more than just shocking the audience. It (apparently) contrasts artistic production with bodily production. And it's a fair assessment really even if you think shit belongs in the toilet. It's not really saying "art is shit" just that ideas are generated from experience (i.e. eating), processed (digested), and eventually produced (shat). That is if there is even shit in the cans, because it is uncertain.

Shit is only good art in certain contexts, but it's not immediately barred from being art just because it's shit.

Also this is why I keep talking about artistic precedent. Even if contemporary poetry doesn't engage with forms or musicality it still engages with other issues and concerns produced by art that did. It's not just words. I mean you wouldn't mistake it for a painting or music.

>>8897345
But if everyone can effectively "capture" something, is it really talent? Am I a talented photographer because my camera autofocuses, autobalances, autozooms in on all the cool stuff, etc.? If I tape a camera to a tree to record a beehive, am I a talented cameraman?

>>8897420
I certainly wouldn't mistake it for decency.

>>8897420

Shit is never art, period, because theory is cheap.

This is what I was saying in my earlier posts, about needing a 20 pages essay to justify art being art. '' It (apparently) contrasts artistic production with bodily production. And it's a fair assessment really even if you think shit belongs in the toilet. It's not really saying "art is shit" just that ideas are generated from experience (i.e. eating), processed (digested), and eventually produced (shat). That is if there is even shit in the cans, because it is uncertain.
''

This is drivel. Anyone can type, anyone can say this. The medium becomes irrelevant. Art becomes meaningless.

Read this

http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2007/02/art_bollocks_re.html

>>8897393
Because he also offered a model of poetry (per Reverdy) as being generated in the contrast of two distinct realities. It's just an example.

My point is that 'skill' or 'talent' isn't strictly defined by mechanical competence and there is room for this to be applied to art production throughout history.

>>8897403
This again? I'm not saying all art is equal.

>Muh Keats

>>8897420

''but it's not immediately barred from being art just because it's shit.
''

It's not barred from being art, it's barred from being good art, which is what everyone's been saying for some time now.

>>8897415
I'm saying it's not 'awful', not that it's the same level.

>>8897433
So you admit that Keats is better than the contemporary poet?

>>8897421
Well what I said was that technical competence isn't what defines a good photographer. And not everyone can effectively capture something, because not everyone is talented.

Also since I don't think you read the follow-up post one has to be artistically relevant as well. Reconciling your art practice with current theory is always top priority.

>>8897436

I said it's awful compared to Keats, because Keats is just that much better. There's no point in me (or most people) interracting with contemporary poetry if this is a good example of what I'm going to get.

>>8897428
How is it drivel? Not everyone has a good grasp of theory.

>>8897435
No it's not. This hasn't been demonstrated.

>>8897458
How do you think one would "demonstrate" if a piece of art is good or bad?

>>8897438
I have no problem admitting that. It's not my point.

>>8897448
But being awful in comparison to Keats doesn't make it 'shit'. This is why I want you to make an actual argument of why it's shit rather than strange comparative exercises where the results are supposed to be self-evident else everyone just says 'muh Keats' (as evidenced in this thread).

''artistically relevant as well. Reconciling your art practice with current theory is always top priority.''

No.

Nous nous sommes mis dans la tête, qu’écrire un poème uniquement pour l’amour de la poésie, et reconnaître que tel a été notre dessein en l’écrivant, c’est avouer que le vrai sentiment de la dignité et de la force de la poésie nous fait radicalement défaut — tandis qu’en réalité, nous n’aurions qu’à rentrer un instant en nous-mêmes, pour découvrir immédiatement qu’il n’existe et ne peut exister sous le soleil d’œuvre plus absolument estimable, plus suprêmement noble, qu’un vrai poème, un poème per se, un poème, qui n’est que poème et rien de plus, un poème écrit pour le pur amour de la poésie.

Caring about being relevant is dirtying art.

>>8897450

The theory is extremely simple. The apparent difficulty behind it is obscurantist jargon. Even Foucault thought Derrida was retarded.

>>8897458

Two people proposed a definition, you didn't really answer either of them.

>>8897459

>>8897345
>>8897420
>>8897446

etc.

>>8897420
If most modern poets wrote down poems that consisted of sequences of letters, no spaces, no intention to make words, no intention to make it sound good, etc., would that become good poetry?

>>8897465
>But being awful in comparison to Keats doesn't make it 'shit'.
What kind of non-reasoning is this

>>8897466
>No.

Yes. What do you think people learned to do in the Academies? They learned theory.

>The theory is extremely simple.
Is your problem that it is too simple or it takes 20+ pages of jargon? What's obscure about it?

>you didn't really answer either of them.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

>>8897469
Even by that metric, none of the contemporary poems itt "effectively capture something". It's just a formless mess of meaningless words.

>>8897465

The poem in question is merely a repetition of images without rhyme or reason. The comparisons are shallow. The language is not effectively used to reinforce the idea of the poem, which is a central concept of all written things. There's no depth to it. Its musicality is inferior to literally any great poem before 1950.

It's just bad.

>>8897471
Sure. But it would have to be produced in the context of poetry i.e. some sort of book that explicitly states its intention (even if the book is just called 'Poetry').

But when people on here say "I can produce good pomo poetry: ekfhwiuehf98rf;;;ds9s0s0s0s0s0" it's not good.

which modern/contemporary poets are worth reading? thanks

>>8897486
>poetry is only good if it's accompanied by obscurantist theory

>>8897482
I don't put it past the people in the thread posting the most egregious examples of contemporary poetry to make a point.

In any case I still think they're effective. I have no problem with them, and I don't think the words are meaningless.

>>8897479

>The apparent difficulty behind it is obscurantist jargon

Did you not read this part? The theory is only difficult because it's meaningless. It's quite hard to make sense of something that lacks sense. So it's necessary to give the illusion of difficulty. This is what they learn.

''Sexual identity is intrinsically unattainable,” says Sontag; however,
according to Sargeant[3] , it is not so much sexual identity
that is intrinsically unattainable, but rather the paradigm, and hence the
meaninglessness, of sexual identity. De Selby[4] suggests
that the works of Burroughs are reminiscent of Spelling. However, the subject
is interpolated into a postcultural Marxism that includes sexuality as a
reality.

If one examines neocapitalist narrative, one is faced with a choice: either
reject capitalist neostructuralist theory or conclude that narrative is a
product of the masses. If neocapitalist narrative holds, we have to choose
between the postcultural paradigm of context and cultural discourse. Thus,
neocapitalist deconstructivism implies that society, perhaps ironically, has
significance, given that language is distinct from truth.

The subject is contextualised into a neocapitalist narrative that includes
consciousness as a totality. In a sense, Wilson[5] holds''

I direct you to this

http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/

Not that far from reality.

>>8897488
None

>>8897483
>without reason.

Needs to be demonstrated.

> The comparisons are shallow.

How?

>The language is not effectively used to reinforce the idea of the poem

Why is this important? What is the idea?

>There's no depth to it.

How?

Have you ever written an essay before?

>>8897491
You seriously think the poems in this thread are good?

You have literally zero taste.

>>8897486

You must be fucking joking. This is your brain on postmodernism.

''If most modern poets wrote down poems that consisted of sequences of letters, no spaces, no intention to make words, no intention to make it sound good, etc., would that become good poetry?
''

This can be good as long as there is some theoratical background to justify it. Is this what you actually think?

>>8897489
You'll make a point eventually.

>>8897500
>dude that's just like, your opinion, man

>>8897493
Sure there is obscurantist jargon theory but not all theory is obscurantist jargon. And the theory you have posted doesn't have anything to do with contemporary poetry.

The arguments made in your excerpt are as bad as the arguments you make about poetry: meaningless.

>>8897500

The only way for this poem to have depth is to give it to it with an essay or an interpretation. That is worthless art.

You seriously think I'm going to write an essay to demonstrate that some poem by a literally who postmodern poet is bad?

''Why is this important? What is the idea?
''

This is a basic concept of linguistic. If the sounds used in your writing refer to what you are saying, it's more powerful and prettier. That is why rhyming is important. It's also why that poem is shit, because it fails to use this important tool.

Read some books on linguistic

>>8897501
Muh Keats.

>>8897503
Sure.

>>8897527
>using "muh Keats" as an argument
Do you deny that Keats is one of the greatest poets who ever lived?

>>8897523
>The only way for this poem to have depth is to give it to it with an essay or an interpretation.

Not demonstrated.

>You seriously think I'm going to write an essay to demonstrate that some poem by a literally who postmodern poet is bad?

No I'm just wondering if you have any experience with actually making points -like- the ones you would find in an essay.

>If the sounds used in your writing refer to what you are saying, it's more powerful and prettier.

Relateability has its own power, resonance. 'Prettier' is meaningless.

Honestly just sounds like meaningless theory.

>>8897536
There's not much else I can say to the non-argument "OMG I can't believe you think that!"

Do you even read what you type?

>>8897544
>everything is meaningless because I said so
This is why you're so hard to debate

>>8897503
>how many layers of postmodernism are you on
>like,, maybe 5, or VI right now. my dude
>you are like a little baby watch this
>>>8897486

>>8897550
At this point you're just being contrarian.

>>8897551
I'm only saying it now because it has been one of the most prevalent arguments directed at contemporary art. Do a search for the word 'meaningless' in this thread. I'm only saying it now to demonstrate how much a non-argument it is to say such-and-such is 'meaningless'

>>8897561
So you were pretending to be retarded?

>>8897556
I'm sorry, did you want me to seriously engage with your point that I don't have taste? Do you want me to be paying attention to you?

>>8897565
If the argument that 'contemporary poetry is meaningless' is retarded then yes.

>>8897544

''Relateability has its own power, resonance.''

Relateability is irrelevant. True art is relatable to everyone because it touches the nature of humanity (think Shakespeare). What you are talking about is the lowest form of relateability.

Something written by an author of your own country is more relatable, but a better written work from an author of another country is even more relateable by nature of its quality.

Also, Keat's poem is obviously more relateable, and on a deeper level.

Who the fuck cannot appreciate the beauty of autumn?

What does the first poem relate to, exactly?

''Things that have been already said many times:
leaf, zipper, sparrow, lintel, scarf, window shade''

This shit?

>>8897566
What is there to engage? You're literally arguing that Keats and the contemporary poet are on the same level.
>>8897568
But contemporary poetry is meaningless. You're comparing two different things.

>>8897561

It's an argument presented against the entirety of postmodernism, and from very eminent thinkers. Do you think you can just brush it away with a post like this?

It's a serious attack. If it's meaningless, it has no business existing or being created.

>>8897571
>You're literally arguing that Keats and the contemporary poet are on the same level.

You mean that time I explicitly said they weren't? >>8897465

>But contemporary poetry is meaningless.

What a meaningless statement.

Are you having a good time?

>>8897580
>saying something is meaningless is a meaningless statement
Why?

I hate to admit it but I think OP is right. Ginsberg has the occasional pretty line, but beyond that its just crass ramblings about homosexual intercourse and drugs.

The old stuff was much more disciplined.

>>8897570
Where are the songs, John? Give me the fucking songs.

>>8897587
Not an argument.

>>8897429
>My point is that 'skill' or 'talent' isn't strictly defined by mechanical competence and there is room for this to be applied to art production throughout history.

Skill is not purely "mechanical competence" and neither is art purely skill yet they cannot exist without the framework of one another. Skill isn't just the application of the medium, it's the understanding of the variables of structure and form of the medium. You cannot have art without skill. Sure, some can make up for their lack of skill through psychological intensity or fresh concepts but it is still a necessary component.

>>8897576
Meaningless post.

>>8897587

That's a different anon, dumbfuck.

>>8897580
How is the statement "If something is meaningless, it has no business being created or existing." meaningless?

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>>8897592

Claiming something lacks meaning is not a meaningless statement, you absolute idiot.

Are the writings of Camus meaningless?

kek

>>8897595
Meaningless question.

>>8897598
Meaningless. Need 20+ pages of theory to understand this post.

>>8897595
The actual problem is that it is not demonstrated it is meaningless. It is made from a subjective point of view so it is just as viable to say that the person does not understand the meaning.

Just saying something is meaningless doesn't mean that the thing in question is actually meaningless. It's a non-argument.

If I could actually be told how that person came to the conclusion that it was meaningless I'd be able to weigh up the merits of the assessment and judge the conclusion accordingly. I'm just being told the conclusion and since I disagree there's no real discussion to be had.

I don't want to have to keep asking 'why' or 'how' every time someone makes a claim so I can actually engage with the point on a m-e-a-n-i-n-g-f-u-l level.

>>8897599

You need to be above 18 to browse this board.

Ô fins d'automne, hivers, printemps trempés de boue,
Endormeuses saisons ! je vous aime et vous loue
D'envelopper ainsi mon coeur et mon cerveau
D'un linceul vaporeux et d'un vague tombeau.

Dans cette grande plaine où l'autan froid se joue,
Où par les longues nuits la girouette s'enroue,
Mon âme mieux qu'au temps du tiède renouveau
Ouvrira largement ses ailes de corbeau.

Rien n'est plus doux au coeur plein de choses funèbres,
Et sur qui dès longtemps descendent les frimas,
Ô blafardes saisons, reines de nos climats,

Que l'aspect permanent de vos pâles ténèbres,
- Si ce n'est, par un soir sans lune, deux à deux,
D'endormir la douleur sur un lit hasardeux.

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>>8897599
Okay

>>8897609
Meaningless poem. Shallow. No depth.

>>8897607
What meaning did you get from the poem?
>>8897612
Wrong

>>8897617
All of it. I got all of the meaning.

>>8897621
And what is that specifically? What did you like about it?

>>8897607

The only way to properly demonstrate that it is meaningless would be to analyse every possible meaning that one can get from the poem, and then demonstrate how these meanings are not present in the poem by demonstrating that various aspects of the poem (choice of words, rhythm and so on) do not allow these hypotheses to be legitimate. That's way too much work for some random shit poem.

Do you know how hard it is to demonstrate that the sky is blue?

I made it pretty clear how it's inferior musically, at least. That should be sufficient.
>>8897612

You can't even read French faggot.

>>8897623
What are you fucking dumb? You didn't get the meaning?

>>8897628
I'd give you a (You) but gook moot disabled them

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>>8897628

Yes, I'm not very smart. Can you please explain the meaning for me, oh venerable Glaucon?

>>8897627
>to analyse every possible meaning that one can get from the poem

What meanings? Isn't it meaningless?

OH WAIT I get it now. It is because you don't immediately get the meaning that you think it is meaningless, just like I thought! But wait, you think it's shit because it has no meaning, but you won't look for meaning because you think it's shit.

"It's too much work" is the most telling thing you've written in this thread.

>>8897640
So what meaning did you get from the poem? Why is it good?

>>8897652
You're missing the point. Not getting meaning from the work doesn't make the work meaningless.

>>8897640

It's obviously meaningless, but to demonstrate that with rigour, that is the necessary method.

Meaningless is the lack of meaning. To demonstrate that something (like a bottle) is empty, you simply point out that it's empty. However, you are pretending that your eyes cannot see (or maybe you're just that dumb), so the only solution for me to demonstrate that it's empty is to name every thing in existence and say that they are not there.

Also you're fucking stupid.

>>8897657
>inb4 he replies the bottle has air in it, completely misses the point, and dodges the criticism.

>>8893262
that pepe's right eye looks like a horrified blackface emoticon watching as a giant green prison closes around him.

>>8897657
It's meaningless isn't self-evident as an empty bottle though. The words used have meaning individually and combined they form sentences that are also given meaning. The sentences form verses, etc, until the entire poem is constructed from referents which aren't meaningless.

Something meaningless would be like this:

Fe ut mil gar ro ru jep

But this?

"I saw rooftops."

What on Earth could the poet mean?

>>8897656

No, you are missing the point. It's obviously impossible to say with certainty if something has meaning or not. How can you know with 100% accuracy if the meaning that you see is intrinsic to the work, or if it's something your analysis is projecting unto it?

In doubt, you look elsewhere, meaning to other aspects of the poem. It's reasonable to assume that a poem with superior musicality, rhythm, language and choice of words is more likely to have intrinsic meaning compared to a poem which has worse musicality, choice of words and so on.

>>8897681
>It's obviously impossible to say with certainty if something has meaning or not.

Then don't fucking say it then?

>>8897680
You're not the same person who said >>8897486, right? Please let me be right.

>>8897683

Are you fucking dense?

>>8897680

''If most modern poets wrote down poems that consisted of sequences of letters, no spaces, no intention to make words, no intention to make it sound good, etc., would that become good poetry?
''
His answer

''Sure. But it would have to be produced in the context of poetry i.e. some sort of book that explicitly states its intention (even if the book is just called 'Poetry').
''

Please tell me this is not you

>>8897683
>It's obviously impossible to say with certainty if General Relativity is an accurate model of the universe or not.

Then don't fucking use it then?

>>8897680

Also, you're being disingenuous. Obviously I know the poem isn't completely meaningless.

It's logical, up to a point.

I'm saying there's no deeper meaning, that it's shallow and that to give it some kind of deep meaning you need obscurantist jargon.

It's thus inferior.

>>8897692
The meaning comes in the contrast between what is expected of poetry (the context of poetry) and the poem itself.

The poem you posted actually has a meaning as part of the poem i.e. its choice of words rather than theory.

>>8897698
General Relativity actually has a developed reasoning and evidence unlike "dur it's meaningless" and basically everything else the OP as said, as I have continuously pointed out through the thread (with no change in his approach to argument).

>>8897700
>I'm saying there's no deeper meaning

There's no deeper meaning to describing things about summer either. Unless you mean form, in which case you would need theory in order to explain how it is beautiful.

>>8897706

The meaning of the poem comes from what the author intends it to mean.

>>8897709

I did give you evidence. Also I'm not OP.

I really don't need theory to tell you that this

''Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.''

is more beautiful than this

''I will call in an hour where you are sleeping. I’ve been walking
for 7 hrs on yr name day.
Dead, I am calling you now.
There are colonnades. Yellow wrappers in the square.
Just what you’d suspect: a market with flowers and matrons,
handbags.''

>>8897709

Keat's poetry seeks beauty. Here's a poem with deeper meaning.


Seigneur, quand froide est la prairie,
Quand dans les hameaux abattus,
Les longs angélus se sont tus...
Sur la nature défleurie
Faites s'abattre des grands cieux
Les chers corbeaux délicieux.

Armée étrange aux cris sévères,
Les vents froids attaquent vos nids !
Vous, le long des fleuves jaunis,
Sur les routes aux vieux calvaires,
Sur les fossés et sur les trous,
Dispersez-vous, ralliez-vous !

Par milliers, sur les champs de France,
Où dorment les morts d'avant-hier,
Tournoyez, n'est-ce pas, l'hiver,
Pour que chaque passant repense !
Sois donc le crieur du devoir,
0 notre funèbre oiseau noir !

Mais, saints du ciel, en haut du chêne,
Mât perdu dans le soir charmé,
Laissez les fauvettes de mai
Pour ceux qu'au fond du bois enchaîne,
Dans l'herbe d'où l'on ne peut fuir,
La défaite sans avenir.

>>8897729
>I really don't need theory to tell you that this

Yes you do. It's beauty is not inherent. And honestly the term 'beauty' is meaningless.

>>8897729
>The meaning of the poem comes from what the author intends it to mean.

I meant in regards to the 'modernist poetry' hypothetical of a series of letters.

>>8897709
>There's no deeper meaning to describing things about summer either.
To Autumn is about decline, decay and death, the cycle of artistic creation and political reform.

>>8897744

>It's beauty is not inherent

It essentially is. French Poetry has rhymed for more than a thousand year; it wasn't without reason.

> And honestly the term 'beauty' is meaningless.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauty/

>>8897758
Says who?

>>8897748
>>8897758
>>8897759
Anything but whether the modern poets are doing things in the poem is irrelevant to >>8897744 for deciding whether a poem has artistic merit.

>>8897759
>The nature of beauty is one of the most enduring and controversial themes in Western philosophy

So I say it's 'meaningless' because its use in discussion doesn't always refer to one overall meaning and is open to a lot of equivocation fallacies. Referring to beauty as-is doesn't convince me of anything. I find things interesting not beautiful except when it comes to people, but the kind of beauty I would find in a person won't be found in a poem, even if a poet says he is trying to do just that (with his theory).

>it wasn't without reason

Theory?

>>8897779

Don't be dumb enough to confound the question of what is beautiful and a general definition of beauty such as : the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.

You would call a mountain range interesting and not beautiful?

No, because people have figured out, across time, that arranging words in certain manners, ie, rhyming, makes them objectively better sounding. It's not a movement. It's not a theory of poetry. It's a function of the human mind. The idea of repeating or playing with sounds to enchance their meaning is something found in poetry across the entire world, and from all periods, althought there are some (slight) differences.

Do you have a theory to explain why most people enjoy the sight of flowers?

>>8897744

Sure, 'beauty' is subjective and arbitrary, perhaps a bit absurd - but that does not make it meaningless.

Here is a fact - people prefer some things over others. It is by this basis that we define aesthetic taste and artistic value. It is the studying of these preferences, and the creating of synthetic objects which reflect and accentuate them that we call 'creating art'.

Fact: Rhyme and meter have proven themselves to be aesthetically pleasing. No, we don't need to know why. All we need to do is be able to replicate the process.

>>8897779
Note that this problem disappears once you, oh, I don't know, DEFINE YOUR FUCKING TERMS. Seriously. Being vague only makes you sound smart.

>>8897825
>arranging words in certain manners

Which is evident in the contemporary poem as well. There are different ways of arranging words that have different effects. I would agree that arrangements of words and how they modify each other is a fundamental aspect of all poetry, but to say that rhyming is inherently more beautiful than other arrangements its a stretch.

>>8897851
I'm using 'meaningless' in the same sense as it has been used previously in the thread. The contemporary poem is not meaningless of course because there is a logic behind its creation and meanings are generated in its use of words. But 'deeper meaning' in this case is absent from the use of 'beauty' as a descriptor, especially when it is being used as an argument in itself. Like I said, it's not convincing. There is no weight to it.

>>8897888
That is what I have been saying all thread. No news to me.