Quoting poetry on ILM

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Here is a well-placed Eliot quote. Has any other poetry been quoted on ILM?

― Jole, Saturday, 7 February 2004 14:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah. Everytime you quote a song, you quote poetry. People have been doing it on my thread.

― Aja (aja), Saturday, 7 February 2004 15:33 (twenty-two years ago)

"OK, either I use my gas station night shift paycheck to buy food and cigarettes and pay rent, or I get an extremely elaborate tattoo and a new cell phone battery. Choices."

Last section of the "Waste Land"?

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Saturday, 7 February 2004 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Aja, I don't agree. I don't think all lyricist consider their work to be poetry (and I would agree). When they do consider it poetry, it's usually bad poetry.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Saturday, 7 February 2004 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

But that's all song lyrics are. Poems.

They are even writen in stanzas.

I doesn't have to be something that was writen by Edgar Allen Poe or Longfellow, but it's still a poem.

― Aja (aja), Saturday, 7 February 2004 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's really useful to distinguish between poetry and lyrics (even though there is some overlap between them). Lyrics work with music. They don't have to hold up by themselves the way poems do. Poetry has to withstand the pressure of being examined without musical accompaniment. Lyrics can depend on the way a performer delivers them*, as well as other musical things that are happening (the fact that a certain line falls right after a particular guitar solo, or the way the rhythm of a line interacts with the primary beats in the song, etc.).

That's why I say that some lyrics are poetry, but not all.

*This brings up the thorny question of performance poetry and sound poetry which kind of mess up my neat scheme. I consider both of them to be closer to music than poetry per se.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Saturday, 7 February 2004 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Lyrics are still poems.

Unless they are the lyrics to a song like "Spike" by The Network.

― Aja (aja), Saturday, 7 February 2004 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Take a look at this thread: Can lyrics matter without music?

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Saturday, 7 February 2004 16:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Not that ILM is the final arbiter of anything, but maybe my view will seem less peculiar if you see other people making similar points.

― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Saturday, 7 February 2004 16:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Well you know, in songs, they repeat some of the words, just so they can have a chorous. The lyrics might sound alright alone without repeating the chorous.

― Aja (aja), Saturday, 7 February 2004 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I actually agree with both Aja and Rockist Scientist. It's necessary to distinguish between 'Poetry' that stands by itself as words on a page to be read or recited but which is a branch of a greater thing also (confusingly) called 'Poetry' which refers to a way of assembling words using certain linguistic effects (many of which are inherently musical as they involve sound and rhythm). The greater concept of Poetry stands in contrast with but is sometimes hard to distinguish from Prose. So song lyrics are definitely a branch of the greater concept of poetry and some of them (definitely a minority) work as purely aural poetry as well.

― Amarga (Amarga), Sunday, 8 February 2004 01:44 (twenty-two years ago)

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