Wombat summed it up, when it was said above Joyce wouldn't be published today, I thought that he had touble enough finding an American woman running a Paris bookshop mad enough to fork out for a first edition of Ulysses. How many painting did Van Gogh sell during his lifetime. None
Nothing new here so.
We are having a couple of weeks of nice weather here, which is brilliant and badly needed after the summer we didn't have. We go out and do things and so I found myself in Coole park last week, wandering the Seven Woods but finding the Swans absent[the turlough was so low there was hardly any water left] and I pondered Yeats and all that crowd that used to gather there.
A few weeks ago I walked the steet and a man walked by, I could have sworn it was Seamus Heaney [this country is a small place, you run into all sorts of people all the time], now he looked pretty much like a serious enough poet. So I assume there must be a few around here and there.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-13 12:47 ]</font>
OT: What happened to poetry?
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TelegramSam
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The same reason Britney Spears is rich and famous but even good rock bands can't get signed. If it can't be easily watered down and fed to the masses, if it doesn't rake in billions, it won't get published.
Our society in general has become stupid and no longer has a culture. It's just mcdonalds and madonna, all fluff. No wonder other countries laugh at Americans. (And just for the record, after I get out of college, I am moving to europe, hopefully permanently)
Jim hit the nail on the head, more or less.
Big business is what killed culture. Human greed is what forced the arts underground. People are too busy worshipping the almighty $$$ to care about culture and art.
Our society in general has become stupid and no longer has a culture. It's just mcdonalds and madonna, all fluff. No wonder other countries laugh at Americans. (And just for the record, after I get out of college, I am moving to europe, hopefully permanently)
Jim hit the nail on the head, more or less.
Big business is what killed culture. Human greed is what forced the arts underground. People are too busy worshipping the almighty $$$ to care about culture and art.
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AnnaDMartinez
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- Tell us something.: Good to be home, many changes here, but C&F is still my home! I think about the "old" bunch here and hold you all in the light, I am so lucky to have you all in my life!
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thurlowe
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I'd like to point out a silver lining here. For most branches of the arts, there are institutions looking for artists to support. WELL-FUNDED institutions. One example is the Gilmore Foundation in my town, which searches the globe for pianists, finds one, and surprises him or her with a $500,000 prize every 4 years (http://gilmore.org/). On a smaller scale, a local progressive band I guest with, Blue Dahlia, was just granted enought money from the Michigan Council of the Arts to record its original soundtrack to the Buster Keaton silent, "The General" AND pay for three live performances with the film around the state.
Sooo...
Poets still get published, plays still get produced, composers still see their works premiered, and artists are still exhibited. Maybe the water cooler crowd is more likely to talk about Rachel & Ross on "Friends," but scratch the surface and you're likely to find creative people being creative everywhere, as well as people who appreciate them.
Sooo...
Poets still get published, plays still get produced, composers still see their works premiered, and artists are still exhibited. Maybe the water cooler crowd is more likely to talk about Rachel & Ross on "Friends," but scratch the surface and you're likely to find creative people being creative everywhere, as well as people who appreciate them.
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PhilO
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In almost every era it seems there is an undercurrent that the arts (including music) are non-essentials. Unfortunately that's why they are the first to be cut from our NYC public school curriculum whenever there's a budget "crisis." It's too bad, because that more than anything reflects our unique humanity.
Good to hear that there are groups everywhere who will continue to support the arts no matter what else is happening.
Philo
Good to hear that there are groups everywhere who will continue to support the arts no matter what else is happening.
Philo
"This is this; this ain't something else. This is this." - Robert DeNiro, "The Deer Hunter," 1978.
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Dale
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Very interesting thread. Allow me to contribute a couple of things.
First, I would agree with much of what has been said here--an exception being Chuck Clark's assertion that modern poets are lazy. Having worked on one of my poems off and on for five years, I can assure that poets still work very hard at the craft.
Many people bemoan the fact that poetry no longer rhymes and follows no particular rhythms. That's generally true, although some of the older rhyme-and-meter style still gets printed. This is a matter of taste. With all due respects to that school, I can hardly stand to listen to it or read it. It's a matter of taste.
Others complain that poetry is too dense and obscure of language to be meaningful to most readers. This does not represent a change in poetry--it's a change in readers. T.S. Elliot was certainly not any easier to read and does not use more direct language than people being published today. Even more true of giants like Hart Crane. I think the lack of readership of poetry is about a general decline in literary reading--not a fundamental change in poets or poetry.
Having said that, I do think that the editorial process is too elitist and "inside". I feel qualified to say that having published 17 or 18 poems in 2 1/2 years in nine or ten different magazines. There's way too much of poets writing for other poets.
The current US poet laureate is Billy Collins. Mr. Collins' work is known for being much more accessible and, if you will, down to earth, than is typical these days. I like it very much, actually. His readings are popular and his books sell well (for poetry). So, naturally, a lot of poets think he's a bad choice!
If you want to explore what is going on in poetry these days I would recommend the current issue of POETRY magazine (double issue, 90th anniversary). I'd also strongly suggest visiting this website:
http://www.favoritepoem.org/
Here's a poem I like a lot.
Facing It
by Yusef Komunyakaa
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
and here are two more with my thanks for your patience:
Let Evening Come
Jane Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
"Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You In The Morning"
Alice Walker
Looking down into my fathers
dead face
for the last time
my mother said without
tears, without smiles
but with civility
"Good night, Willie Lee, Ill see you
in the morning."
And it was then I knew that the healing
of all our wounds
is forgiveness
that permits a promise
of our return
at the end.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DaleWisely on 2002-10-13 16:11 ]</font>
First, I would agree with much of what has been said here--an exception being Chuck Clark's assertion that modern poets are lazy. Having worked on one of my poems off and on for five years, I can assure that poets still work very hard at the craft.
Many people bemoan the fact that poetry no longer rhymes and follows no particular rhythms. That's generally true, although some of the older rhyme-and-meter style still gets printed. This is a matter of taste. With all due respects to that school, I can hardly stand to listen to it or read it. It's a matter of taste.
Others complain that poetry is too dense and obscure of language to be meaningful to most readers. This does not represent a change in poetry--it's a change in readers. T.S. Elliot was certainly not any easier to read and does not use more direct language than people being published today. Even more true of giants like Hart Crane. I think the lack of readership of poetry is about a general decline in literary reading--not a fundamental change in poets or poetry.
Having said that, I do think that the editorial process is too elitist and "inside". I feel qualified to say that having published 17 or 18 poems in 2 1/2 years in nine or ten different magazines. There's way too much of poets writing for other poets.
The current US poet laureate is Billy Collins. Mr. Collins' work is known for being much more accessible and, if you will, down to earth, than is typical these days. I like it very much, actually. His readings are popular and his books sell well (for poetry). So, naturally, a lot of poets think he's a bad choice!
If you want to explore what is going on in poetry these days I would recommend the current issue of POETRY magazine (double issue, 90th anniversary). I'd also strongly suggest visiting this website:
http://www.favoritepoem.org/
Here's a poem I like a lot.
Facing It
by Yusef Komunyakaa
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
and here are two more with my thanks for your patience:
Let Evening Come
Jane Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
"Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You In The Morning"
Alice Walker
Looking down into my fathers
dead face
for the last time
my mother said without
tears, without smiles
but with civility
"Good night, Willie Lee, Ill see you
in the morning."
And it was then I knew that the healing
of all our wounds
is forgiveness
that permits a promise
of our return
at the end.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DaleWisely on 2002-10-13 16:11 ]</font>
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Blackbird
- Posts: 172
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- Location: Vancouver, B.C.
It's important to remember that we don't yet know who will turn out to be the significant artists of our era - that will be determined by the influence those artists have on future generations. What's more, there are wonderful artists working in many media, some of which don't fall into the old established categories. But to know about them, you need to be prepared to put a lot of time and effort into learning about what's going on in the arts. There have never been all that many people prepared to do that, sometimes for the very good reasons that people are pursuing interests of their own.
I saw an interesting documentary on Harry Smith at the Vancouver Film Festival. He worked in the fields of song collecting, film, anthropology (collecting examples of culture from many groups), painting and drawing. His work was so rich and varied, he will surely be studied for decades, and he influenced many other artists, yet his name is not generally known.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Blackbird on 2002-10-13 16:11 ]</font>
I saw an interesting documentary on Harry Smith at the Vancouver Film Festival. He worked in the fields of song collecting, film, anthropology (collecting examples of culture from many groups), painting and drawing. His work was so rich and varied, he will surely be studied for decades, and he influenced many other artists, yet his name is not generally known.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Blackbird on 2002-10-13 16:11 ]</font>
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fatveg
- Posts: 280
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- Location: Portland, OR
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Hmmm.
I don't know, if the argument is that the arts aren't mainstream any more, then I guess I can agree. Certaily, in a mass media that regards PBS as 'high brow'(!) then there isn't going to be much in the way of the arts.
But as far as I can see the arts are alive, and as well (struggling) as they have ever been. I defer to the others who have pointed out some great current poets, artists and musicians, but I would add Seamus Heaney (surprised he didn't come right to the top on THIS board!) for poetry and Steve Martland, Graham Fitkin, John Adams, John Zorn and Steve Reich for 'classical' music, and Lucian Freud for painting. Among the recently dead but still current I would add the great Messaen and Tippet.
I often hear this idea of a golden age' where arts were more mainstream. I'm 40, and I wouldn't say the bulk of my peers are particularly into the arts. The trouble is, the same is true when I think of my friends who are 60 or 20 as well.
So it's still there. It takes some effort to hunt it out, but it is there. And my suspicion is that it has always been so.
But check out Seamus Heaney at http://www.ibiblio.org/dykki/poetry/hea ... y-cov.html
Fatveg
PS If you prefer your poetry to rhyme, that's fine. But if you make it axiomatic that poetry _has_ to rhyme, then you're writing of much of the finest poetry from the last couple of centuries. The trouble is that much recent rhyming verse is to poetry what Thomas Kinkade is to painting
(oops, Freud aint dead yet!)
_________________
<img src="http://www.dreammask.com/images/om_mani.gif">
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: fatveg on 2002-10-13 16:55 ]</font>
I don't know, if the argument is that the arts aren't mainstream any more, then I guess I can agree. Certaily, in a mass media that regards PBS as 'high brow'(!) then there isn't going to be much in the way of the arts.
But as far as I can see the arts are alive, and as well (struggling) as they have ever been. I defer to the others who have pointed out some great current poets, artists and musicians, but I would add Seamus Heaney (surprised he didn't come right to the top on THIS board!) for poetry and Steve Martland, Graham Fitkin, John Adams, John Zorn and Steve Reich for 'classical' music, and Lucian Freud for painting. Among the recently dead but still current I would add the great Messaen and Tippet.
I often hear this idea of a golden age' where arts were more mainstream. I'm 40, and I wouldn't say the bulk of my peers are particularly into the arts. The trouble is, the same is true when I think of my friends who are 60 or 20 as well.
So it's still there. It takes some effort to hunt it out, but it is there. And my suspicion is that it has always been so.
But check out Seamus Heaney at http://www.ibiblio.org/dykki/poetry/hea ... y-cov.html
Fatveg
PS If you prefer your poetry to rhyme, that's fine. But if you make it axiomatic that poetry _has_ to rhyme, then you're writing of much of the finest poetry from the last couple of centuries. The trouble is that much recent rhyming verse is to poetry what Thomas Kinkade is to painting
(oops, Freud aint dead yet!)
_________________
<img src="http://www.dreammask.com/images/om_mani.gif">
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: fatveg on 2002-10-13 16:55 ]</font>
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scottielvr
- Posts: 1348
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Re Dale's comment about elitism in publishing, I emphatically agree. There's no continuum there--just insider elitism at one end (the editors at the major publishing houses tend to be astonishingly uniform in their educational and cultural backgrounds) and the mass-market, lowest-common-denominator bottom line at the other. Does anyone feel optimism that the phenomenon of Internet publishing can have a positive effect on this (at least regarding the written word, and perhaps, music?), by, as it were, returning "power to the people" by bypassing the gatekeepers? Or will it only make matters worse by burying quality in megatons of drivel?
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Mack.Hoover
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Dale, Thanks for sharing those.
I like poetry that does not rhime, and uses words just unfamiliar enough to let me ponder what they really mean.
But also words so familiar they evoke strong mental images without a chance of missing their full meaning. And I love alliteration!
Where Are The Poets
-------------------
Poets aren't scarce,
Some are simply scared...
Some are scarred by sarcasm
Spoken thoughtlessly.
Why should I write for critical eyes
Or read for unhearing ears?
But I do, and
I'll tell you why:
There are some
Whose souls can be touched
By a word fitly spoken
And given a place...
In a poem.
-Mack Hoover 10/13/2002-
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mack.Hoover on 2002-10-13 17:32 ]</font>
I like poetry that does not rhime, and uses words just unfamiliar enough to let me ponder what they really mean.
But also words so familiar they evoke strong mental images without a chance of missing their full meaning. And I love alliteration!
Where Are The Poets
-------------------
Poets aren't scarce,
Some are simply scared...
Some are scarred by sarcasm
Spoken thoughtlessly.
Why should I write for critical eyes
Or read for unhearing ears?
But I do, and
I'll tell you why:
There are some
Whose souls can be touched
By a word fitly spoken
And given a place...
In a poem.
-Mack Hoover 10/13/2002-
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mack.Hoover on 2002-10-13 17:32 ]</font>
-
Chuck_Clark
- Posts: 2213
- Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2001 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Illinois, last time I looked
I apologise to Dale and Mack and any others who consider themselves serious poets for what may seem to some to be an insulting assertion.
That said, I raise the question again, in hopefully gentler terms. As far as I can personally determine, much modern poetry, ESPECIALLY WHEN SPOKEN, is indistingushable from prose. So - in the absence of apparent rules, what then makes a particular string of words, howsomever punctuated, to be a poem?
When I try, I feel that I compose and write fairly well, yet I would never allege that any particular collection of my better phrases was poetry.
Are there some rules which elude my admittedly technically-oriented knowledge base? Or is it simply that poetry is whatever the writer says it is?
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Chuck_Clark on 2002-10-13 23:17 ]</font>
That said, I raise the question again, in hopefully gentler terms. As far as I can personally determine, much modern poetry, ESPECIALLY WHEN SPOKEN, is indistingushable from prose. So - in the absence of apparent rules, what then makes a particular string of words, howsomever punctuated, to be a poem?
When I try, I feel that I compose and write fairly well, yet I would never allege that any particular collection of my better phrases was poetry.
Are there some rules which elude my admittedly technically-oriented knowledge base? Or is it simply that poetry is whatever the writer says it is?
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Chuck_Clark on 2002-10-13 23:17 ]</font>
As Woody Allen said: 'I don't want
to achieve immortality through my
work. I want to achieve immortality
by not dying.' I wish I could
stick around another century.
I can't imagine what it will
be like. I think the arts
are about to undergo a
vast change--new media, new
technologies, art forms we
can barely imagine. I think
we live at the end of something like
the stone age, and that human
life in a hundred years may
be as different from our lives
as our lives are from
the cavemen.
The first half of the 20th
century had lots of artistic
and intellectual giants,
people who set vast trends.
The second half of the
century seemed to have
far fewer. In a curious way,
that's healthy, because
instead of a few great
people and everybody else
running after, you have
lots of very good people
thinking for themselves.
That sort of thing
prepares the ground
for great happenings.
Something is coming,
human creativity being
about as unstoppable
as human sexuality,
and it's gonna be
very interesting.
'And what rough beast...'
well, probably it will
be a virtual beast...
to achieve immortality through my
work. I want to achieve immortality
by not dying.' I wish I could
stick around another century.
I can't imagine what it will
be like. I think the arts
are about to undergo a
vast change--new media, new
technologies, art forms we
can barely imagine. I think
we live at the end of something like
the stone age, and that human
life in a hundred years may
be as different from our lives
as our lives are from
the cavemen.
The first half of the 20th
century had lots of artistic
and intellectual giants,
people who set vast trends.
The second half of the
century seemed to have
far fewer. In a curious way,
that's healthy, because
instead of a few great
people and everybody else
running after, you have
lots of very good people
thinking for themselves.
That sort of thing
prepares the ground
for great happenings.
Something is coming,
human creativity being
about as unstoppable
as human sexuality,
and it's gonna be
very interesting.
'And what rough beast...'
well, probably it will
be a virtual beast...
-
Sandy Jasper
- Posts: 299
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- Contact:
It is interesting to read this thread especially after the conversation my husband and I had this afternoon. We are working on our 2nd C.D. together and though we do not have a record deal we are content in that fact. We have come to the place where we realize the freedom we have in not being dictated to by someone who has no idea of the magic in our hearts and music. We can do a C.D. the way we feel in our hearts it should be done. Choose the music that moves us and thus move others with it. Now I am not saying that to have world wide success would not be pleasing, but for us it is more important to touch one person with our real music than to be molded into something or someone we do not know.
As for poets, my husband Steve is my favorite poet, when I am down or need an ego boost, I ask him to recite this one.
Lifetimes have I waited,
to hold you,
Sleeping in my arms,
Like a child,
Safe and warm,
Beneath the moon,
Untill the morning sun,
Carresses your face,
and I can kiss your sweet lips,
and steal you from a dream.
Steve Tozer
As for poets, my husband Steve is my favorite poet, when I am down or need an ego boost, I ask him to recite this one.
Lifetimes have I waited,
to hold you,
Sleeping in my arms,
Like a child,
Safe and warm,
Beneath the moon,
Untill the morning sun,
Carresses your face,
and I can kiss your sweet lips,
and steal you from a dream.
Steve Tozer