Poetry thread poll

I quite like Liz Phair (more the old stuff though, whitechocolatespaceegg and all that).

But I'm more of a reader than a contributor so my say truly means nothing.

Good luck with the essay!

it's a good thread that.

I think you should mention it, liz phair's cool.

In truth, my answer is, characteristically, no.

To make up for it, I am going to mention the fact that Cozen has penned an amazing miniature biography of you. Two of them, in fact.

I would like to read your essay(s), I think.

Wait, what on earth has the poetry thread taught you? I'm not convinced it's a very good teaching tool.

(Perhaps the forum in general, but the poetry thread itself?)

Well, it probably isn't a good teaching tool for people who have a decent knowledge of poetry -- but you have no idea how ignorant I am about the stuff! It's shameful. Poetry seems to speak a language that is unlike that of fiction; too many people, even lovers of prose,including my sorry self, aren't taught it in school. But I can look at the poetry thread and see things I really like and do a bit more research on the author and sort of slowly wriggle my way into the language of poetry.

Pomefox's no vote weighs heavy, because if ten people are OK with the sun on their noses and one person isn't, that still equals a sunburned nose.

Mention of the poetry thread in the essay would be as an example of how a poetry novice might find advice from people who know their poetry.

(Bio... biography? Is it fictional? I feel funny... like the tingling you get when the girl who cuts your hair touches the clippers to the back of your neck...)

Poets are easy to find, online and in the real world. They write blogs, hang out at webzines (such as mine, wink wink) and go to readings. Does Chicago have a poetry bookstore?

Perhaps my heavy vote was unfair. I don't mean to snow on the parade. I am sure Chicagoans are lovely. It is just publicity, in general, that I fear. And genies never gladly reenter their bottles.

some poets I like who read very "contemporary fiction-y" to me: Stephen Dobyns, Bob Hicok, Tony Hoagland, Richard Wilbur, Elizabeth Bishop (maybe), Stephen Dunn.

Why I always think of Wilbur in the fiction/poetry blur.

Once again, the Reader is extremely parochial, so the genie is a small and dopey one... this essay wouldn't even be available online. But your further suggestions are great -- maybe I could just make a more general comment, like "well, ask some damn poets," to paraphrase Casuistry... oh! Hang on, Casuistry, are you hinting that I might plug your webzine? Well, that's easy then: Casuistry, any objections to my talking about Casuistry in print? Speak now or...

(And Chicago has no poetry bookstore as far as I'm aware... besides the European bookstore the "alternative" place is Quimby's, which mostly stocks comics and crap that scenesters like to have on their coffee tables -- Betty Paige cover #22000008878979898 -- Ohhhh, I'm not being fair, I love comics and they have lots of books I like, but you know what I mean...)

(xpost)

You can talk about me all you want, as long as it isn't too slanderous. You can even use my real name, Chris Piuma, if you want. You can send me a first draft and I'll give you suggestions. I'm pretty easy, even for a poet.

And Quimby's is awesome, though I don't recall it having a poetry selection I'd care about.

I've been thinking more and more about running some sort of "learn to appreciate poetry" type class. In part to hammer out my own thoughts about the subject, and in part out of my belief that most people already DO care about poetry, thank you very much, they just don't need it in its least forgiving form, the stuff that gets published in books labelled as "poetry".

No slander, no libel, scout's honor -- and thank you in advance for your offer of looking at the draft! It sort of turns into a book review after the part I'm talking about -- it's a fiction book written by a poet -- so you might not be interested if you haven't read the book, but...

Unless you live in Chicago I can't write anything about your class, but if it goes well, keep me up to date -- I'm leaving town in a few months and might be able to find ways to keep up my freelancing.

I live in Portland, which is like Chicago... except completely different. The class is totally theoretical right now, though, but some recent conversations with people (including ILXors) are making me think it might be a good and interesting thing to do.

Oooh, I've visited Portland... it's like Chicago in that it's a city, but unlike it in that the weather is humane and the prices aren't so horribly high. Wish I were moving there, but I don't want to pay out of state tuition and I've been told it's impossible to find work END NON SEQUITUR.

Also, I don't think I'd recommend that someone who likes contemporary novels who wants to get into poetry to read some poetry that resembles contemporary novels. If you wanted to introduce someone who only liked polka to hiphop, would you suggest hiphop with accordion samples?

Yes!

I would think something transitional between the two would be a good starting point. You could also use prose poems ala Borges.

Or you could go the other way and give them poetry that resides far, far away from fiction's structure. But I think you might scare off more of 'em.

I think you should start with something that makes clear what the specific pleasures of poetry (as opposed to prose) are. If you pick a prosaic poem, it's too easy to just read it "as prose" (and probably be dissatisfied with it, since you missed out the poetic effects because you were so tuned into the prosaic ones, and prose does prose better than prosaic poems). But a piece where there is no real prose aspect can force you to notice what else is going on.

I think food dishes might be a better comparison then music. Like pizza vs Chinese food... would you really want to give the person something inbetween? Again, I suppose it depends if the person wants to tiptoe into the water or jump in... to further muddle my metaphors.

But I do think there's enough crossover between poetry and prose that fiction readers could benefit from seeing elements of poetry creeping out of the stories they might already be familiar with, and vice-versa. I also suspect Casuistry and I disagree on this perhaps b/c we enjoy/emphasize different aspects of poetry, which as a field is ridiculously broad. I'm drawn to poems that have a similar sort of narrative/plot/argument progression that I see in contemporary fiction. From what opinions I've seen of Casuistry's, he puts more value on other poetic traits. (in other words I am RIGHT, he is WRONG.)

Ah ha. See, being a fiction reader/writer, I'm in the habit of looking for a plot when I read poetry. I mean, besides my own ingrained reading habits -- scuse me if my literary history is TOTALLY ignint -- weren't the big written stories in English first told in poem form? The book I'm reviewing in the context of all this -- I do have to make this into a book review somehow -- is an epic tale that reminds me of stuff like Beowulf. (Well, except that it's about dinosaurs and scientists and shit...)

PS But it was reading Larkin's Jill that let me know how he communicates, which gave me a sort of decoder key to his poems, and the fact that I could enjoy them made me realize that I really need to know more about poetry/made me realize that I'm not too stupid to enjoy poetry, I just need to learn how to do it.

Well, here, to be clear. Here are four sentences:

My cat is white.
The cat that I own is white.
It's white, that cat of mine.
Mon chat est blanc.

The prose of those four sentences are the same. The poetry of those four sentences is different. (None of them are all that interesting on their own as poetry or prose, I'd argue.)

The interest in prose is on what is being said. As a reader, you're gleaning information, following a narrative, finding out facts.

The interest in poetry is how things are being said. You read it and enjoy the sounds, the grammar, the vocabulary, the juxtapositions, the impediments. You enjoy what we might call the physical characteristics of language.

(And, drawing from my examples above, I'd say a litmus test for which is which is: Poetry is that which can't be translated; prose more or less can. Although there are some implications of that if you think about it a lot which I'm not sure hold up, but for now it's a way of thinking about it.)

Obviously, there can't be prose without any poetry in it -- no matter what, you have to choose some way to say what you are saying. And similarly, it's very hard to find poetry without any sense of prose to it -- although you could argue that some extreme examples, especially in sound poetry or visual poetry, where this might be the case.

Beowulf can be read as prose, and it can be read as poetry, and I think most people would argue that a good reading of it requires you to look at both.

But it's easy to just read Beowulf for the story, for the prose, and so I think it makes a poor introduction to poetry for that reason: You don't have to focus on the poetry; the poetry is, at times, getting in the way of the prose. You should introduce someone to poetry by showing them poetry's unique pleasures. (And then showing them how these pleasures exist outside of poetry books, appreciating the poetry of found texts and the like, appreciating how jokes are often based on poetic effects, etc.)

Of course it's fine if after they get the idea, they go and read poetry that has strong prose elements, such as a plot!

By the way, Casuistry, have you read anything by Paul Fattaruso? It's his book I'm writing about.

No, but.

Ouch!