Time
Congealed sauce.
Apples peeled
Turning brown.
Big Ben pealed
Sombre sound.
End of days
Circle round.
Old folkways
Hit the ground.
Time
Concealed loss.
by Walden 17 October 2002
OT: What happened to poetry?
Right, you can't set T. S. Eliot
to music. Too busy. You have the
music of the poem and the music
of the music. Good song lyrics
often sound weak alone.
But the
craft of good poetry is there
in good song lyrics, and
possibly one of the reasons
poetry is less good
lately is that the craft
of the finely turned phrase
has diminished--
as evidenced by
what's happened to
song lyrics.
Also there may be an
idea out there that
if one writes in rhyme
and meter, the rhyme
has to wallop you,
gallumph along, as
Kipling's verses do.
'Down to Gehenna or up to the throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.'
But rhyme can be quite
subtle, almost
unnoticeable,
the chief effect being
to lend the poem
force and beauty.
So:
Someday, when I'm feeling low
When the world is cold
I will get a glow
just thinking of you,
And the way you look
tonight.
Is rhyming, but only
slightly and the rhyme
on 'glow' is on a passing
word. Works, too.
Traditional poetic
forms, like sonnets, evolved
to lend maximum subtle force
to verse. Good stuff usually
doesn't gallop, though some
of it does. Poetry would
regain a fair amount of
its audience, I think,
if people tried more
of that. It is the music
of the English language.
About kipling, George Orwell
said something interesting.
Kipling, Orwell said, is
a good bad poet. He is writing
bad poems very well.
Of the Kipling verse
I quoted above, Orwell
said that it is 'a vulgar
idea, vigorously expressed.'
Orwell thinks that some
people are extraordinarily
good at vigorously
expressing platitudes,
so that one day when
you feel encumbered by
your wife and seven children,
well, there is the verse
waiting for you to express
the obvious thought that
'he travels the fastest who
travels alone.'
Some of the most enjoyable
poems do that.
to music. Too busy. You have the
music of the poem and the music
of the music. Good song lyrics
often sound weak alone.
But the
craft of good poetry is there
in good song lyrics, and
possibly one of the reasons
poetry is less good
lately is that the craft
of the finely turned phrase
has diminished--
as evidenced by
what's happened to
song lyrics.
Also there may be an
idea out there that
if one writes in rhyme
and meter, the rhyme
has to wallop you,
gallumph along, as
Kipling's verses do.
'Down to Gehenna or up to the throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.'
But rhyme can be quite
subtle, almost
unnoticeable,
the chief effect being
to lend the poem
force and beauty.
So:
Someday, when I'm feeling low
When the world is cold
I will get a glow
just thinking of you,
And the way you look
tonight.
Is rhyming, but only
slightly and the rhyme
on 'glow' is on a passing
word. Works, too.
Traditional poetic
forms, like sonnets, evolved
to lend maximum subtle force
to verse. Good stuff usually
doesn't gallop, though some
of it does. Poetry would
regain a fair amount of
its audience, I think,
if people tried more
of that. It is the music
of the English language.
About kipling, George Orwell
said something interesting.
Kipling, Orwell said, is
a good bad poet. He is writing
bad poems very well.
Of the Kipling verse
I quoted above, Orwell
said that it is 'a vulgar
idea, vigorously expressed.'
Orwell thinks that some
people are extraordinarily
good at vigorously
expressing platitudes,
so that one day when
you feel encumbered by
your wife and seven children,
well, there is the verse
waiting for you to express
the obvious thought that
'he travels the fastest who
travels alone.'
Some of the most enjoyable
poems do that.
-
Wombat
- Posts: 7105
- Joined: Mon Sep 23, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Location: Probably Evanston, possibly Wollongong
I've been really fascinated by the song-writing twist this thread has taken. About 18 months ago I returned to songwriting after many years away—I haven't written stand-alone poetry since undergraduate days—and I write all my own lyrics. Although I write prose fluently—perhaps too fluently—I found it really difficult to get started at first. I hadn't looked for a rhyme outside songwriting since I was about 15.
I never really thought of my efforts as stand-alone poetry but whenever I come up with a line I'd like in a poem I do feel especially pleased. Like Jim I'm a bit of a sucker for the old standards. But reading through 'My Funny Valentine' earlier, one verse in particular struck me as rather weak but I never think that when I hear it sung.
One thing Dale said earlier struck me. He pointed out how good poetry leaves you wondering. What exactly is the story here? The most recent song I wrote and demoed was written to make the listener uncertain in exactly this way. It's about the needless loss of young life. But you're never told what happened to the victim or even if he's dead. Nor do you know how each character reflecting on his 'loss' is related to him or to eachother. That just seemed like the right way to do it. Still, I wouldn't feel comfortable offering it as stand-alone poetry, even though I like some of the lines.
I have an LP on which a well-known actor (whose name I forget) recites 'Satisfaction' in a dull, gormless Sarf Lundun accent and then follows it with a rendition of 'Blowing in the Wind' given the kind of treatment usually reserved for a Shakespearean soliloquy. I'm ambivalent. It seemed a bit like the Stan Frieberg mickey-take on Heartbreak Hotel which is superficially funny once and then just seems symptomatic of a total incapacity to understand a style of music, viciously expressed. But I used to do this version of 'Satisfaction' as a party piece all the same and it always cracked people up, probably because my mocking never obscured my affection for the song.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Wombat on 2002-10-17 13:47 ]</font>
I never really thought of my efforts as stand-alone poetry but whenever I come up with a line I'd like in a poem I do feel especially pleased. Like Jim I'm a bit of a sucker for the old standards. But reading through 'My Funny Valentine' earlier, one verse in particular struck me as rather weak but I never think that when I hear it sung.
One thing Dale said earlier struck me. He pointed out how good poetry leaves you wondering. What exactly is the story here? The most recent song I wrote and demoed was written to make the listener uncertain in exactly this way. It's about the needless loss of young life. But you're never told what happened to the victim or even if he's dead. Nor do you know how each character reflecting on his 'loss' is related to him or to eachother. That just seemed like the right way to do it. Still, I wouldn't feel comfortable offering it as stand-alone poetry, even though I like some of the lines.
I have an LP on which a well-known actor (whose name I forget) recites 'Satisfaction' in a dull, gormless Sarf Lundun accent and then follows it with a rendition of 'Blowing in the Wind' given the kind of treatment usually reserved for a Shakespearean soliloquy. I'm ambivalent. It seemed a bit like the Stan Frieberg mickey-take on Heartbreak Hotel which is superficially funny once and then just seems symptomatic of a total incapacity to understand a style of music, viciously expressed. But I used to do this version of 'Satisfaction' as a party piece all the same and it always cracked people up, probably because my mocking never obscured my affection for the song.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Wombat on 2002-10-17 13:47 ]</font>
-
LeeMarsh
- Posts: 1284
- Joined: Sun Jun 10, 2001 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Location: Odenton, MD (Wash-Baltimore Area)
Where has all the 'good' poetry gone?
I don't think thats the question for many of us. I think instead, we might ask, "Where is our sense of the poetic?"
I think for many folks that sense becomes anchored in our adolescense and early adulthood. It is at that time that the poets of the day, plant thier hooks into our souls. The chaos of raging hormones, the emerging identifies, the clash of high ideals with mundane practicalities of survival, our awakening awareness of the infinite and our grounding in the moment; all of these thing give the poet a magical entry into our hearts and souls. My sense of poetry has its roots in the 60's, 70's, and 80's.
Jim said.
<blockquote>"Good song lyrics often sound week alone"
"Concerning song lyrics, it seems to me that nobody is writing today with the craftsmanship of the 30s."</blockquote>
Maybe sometimes or for some folks; but my roots draw on a multitude of exceptions from 1960's through the 1980's and beyond. Those root are so ripe with counter examples. If one exception proves a rule, a hundred exceptions pretty much invalidate it for me.
In my roots, often a good poem combines with a good tune to make a great song. I could probably come up with hundreds of examples from that era in my life; but, here is one that was planted in the middle (1975).
<blockquote>
THE EDMUND FITZGERALD
(Gordon Lightfoot)
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitchigumi
The lady, it's said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early
The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling.
The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
When the wave broke over the whaling
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind
When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM the main hatchway gave in
He said fellas it's been good to know ya.
The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have gulfed deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Ole Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
The iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitchigumi
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.
</blockquote>
So if you want to find todays poetry, look to those that are in flux, those that are in the processes of defining or re-defining themselves. Those folks might know which poets have impaled them, slapped them, consoled them, or left them breathless. Of course, if your so inclined, you might chose to find your own poets by embarking on a journey of re-imagining, redefining, re-inventing the self you currently carry around. If you chose the latter, drop me a line, maybe we've seen similar signposts. At the very least, we might commiserate over twisting ankles on the same pot holes.
In the meantime, trust that today invents a large number of 'well turned phrases', even if they aren't turned to or for us. Maybe a little loss of the imediacy of poetry in my life is a worthwhile trade-off against the chaos of having to go through adolescense again. I like a little poetry, so I'll continue my own re-invention at my own pace. A pace that gives me time to enjoy my life's lyrics and my music.
I don't think thats the question for many of us. I think instead, we might ask, "Where is our sense of the poetic?"
I think for many folks that sense becomes anchored in our adolescense and early adulthood. It is at that time that the poets of the day, plant thier hooks into our souls. The chaos of raging hormones, the emerging identifies, the clash of high ideals with mundane practicalities of survival, our awakening awareness of the infinite and our grounding in the moment; all of these thing give the poet a magical entry into our hearts and souls. My sense of poetry has its roots in the 60's, 70's, and 80's.
Jim said.
<blockquote>"Good song lyrics often sound week alone"
"Concerning song lyrics, it seems to me that nobody is writing today with the craftsmanship of the 30s."</blockquote>
Maybe sometimes or for some folks; but my roots draw on a multitude of exceptions from 1960's through the 1980's and beyond. Those root are so ripe with counter examples. If one exception proves a rule, a hundred exceptions pretty much invalidate it for me.
In my roots, often a good poem combines with a good tune to make a great song. I could probably come up with hundreds of examples from that era in my life; but, here is one that was planted in the middle (1975).
<blockquote>
THE EDMUND FITZGERALD
(Gordon Lightfoot)
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitchigumi
The lady, it's said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early
The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling.
The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
When the wave broke over the whaling
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind
When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya
At 7PM the main hatchway gave in
He said fellas it's been good to know ya.
The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd fifteen more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have gulfed deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Ole Michigan steams like a young man's dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
The iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitchigumi
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.
</blockquote>
So if you want to find todays poetry, look to those that are in flux, those that are in the processes of defining or re-defining themselves. Those folks might know which poets have impaled them, slapped them, consoled them, or left them breathless. Of course, if your so inclined, you might chose to find your own poets by embarking on a journey of re-imagining, redefining, re-inventing the self you currently carry around. If you chose the latter, drop me a line, maybe we've seen similar signposts. At the very least, we might commiserate over twisting ankles on the same pot holes.
In the meantime, trust that today invents a large number of 'well turned phrases', even if they aren't turned to or for us. Maybe a little loss of the imediacy of poetry in my life is a worthwhile trade-off against the chaos of having to go through adolescense again. I like a little poetry, so I'll continue my own re-invention at my own pace. A pace that gives me time to enjoy my life's lyrics and my music.
Enjoy Your Music,
Lee Marsh
From Odenton, MD.
Lee Marsh
From Odenton, MD.