tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3761818636919513619.post451097936975450845..comments2024-03-28T02:17:51.115-05:00Comments on Commercial Poetry: The Dumbest Poetry Treatise Ever WrittenUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3761818636919513619.post-34260950354910008632013-06-26T01:33:42.979-05:002013-06-26T01:33:42.979-05:00D'accord.
Your comments got me thinking... D'accord.<br /><br /> Your comments got me thinking again about two mysteries: Why does someone dedicate their career to something whose elements don't interest them (i.e. "atheist priests), something that they don't care to see re-popularized (i.e. "orphaned poetry").<br /><br /> Thanks, Rapashree.<br /><br />EtSEarl the Squirrelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03740374291537401772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3761818636919513619.post-66716914701510511372013-06-25T12:08:51.132-05:002013-06-25T12:08:51.132-05:00Well, I don't myself exactly have a "prob...Well, I don't myself exactly have a "problem" with them, for they have personally done me no harm yet.<br /><br />It IS discouraging however, to see people who are supposed to be in the business of promoting poetry (and are presumably being funded and subsidised, with actual money, to do just that) displaying at once that they have little knowledge of poetry itself, and no idea of how to promote it effectively.<br /><br />I don't know for sure whether I'm on the right track with the supposition that (to distill my rather verbose analysis into something a bit more pithy) this peculiar, audience-rejecting attitude, along with the insipid, fallacy-riddled non-logic that is used to sustain it, is actually purposeful, not due to random stupidity. I.e. a number of rather foolish individuals who know little about poetry wish to maintain their comfortable positions (heads down insensate in the sand, exposed rears rather absurdly waggling in the passing winds) as part of modern poetry's ostrichy self-declared elite; and articles like this are a way for them to rationalise satisfactorily their desire to do so. <br /><br />Perhaps it IS just foolishness and a failure to think things through, but either way the contemporary crisis in poetry's popularity won't be solved by perpetuating the same old errors of judgment as have driven it to dwindle to its present position. The belief that Poetry (the "serious" kind of poetry, of course, whatever that is taken to be) is an art so sophisticated as to be able to appeal only to a tiny and expert "Elite" is one of the most damaging of those errors, because ultimately self-perpetuating. <br /><br />I would have thought anyone who truly cared about promoting poetry as an art form would realise THIS, at least, however compromised their aesthetic judgement and knowledge may be. But maybe I expect too much of the self-proclaimed sages of contemporary poetry, they don't seem like a very bright bunch on the whole. Anyway, that's more than enough ranting, I'll be wanting to start a blog myself at this rate, but I think if I want to affect anything I'm better off writing some actual poetry, that someone somewhere might want to read. ;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3761818636919513619.post-51157639946296862132013-06-24T20:56:03.486-05:002013-06-24T20:56:03.486-05:00Well said, Ragashree. Myself, I don't have a ...Well said, Ragashree. Myself, I don't have a problem with the Poetry Foundation per se. As a Raider fan, it was the Commitment to Failure (i.e. they won't support verse because people like it) that baffled me.<br /><br />Thanks for responding, Ragashree!<br /><br />EtSEarl the Squirrelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03740374291537401772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3761818636919513619.post-14426953650950458982013-06-24T03:01:41.522-05:002013-06-24T03:01:41.522-05:00That was, indeed, gloriously stupid.
If we were ...That was, indeed, gloriously stupid. <br /><br />If we were being supremely charitable, I suppose we could presume him to be using "verse" as a rather sloppy synonym for "light verse", which seems his main point of reference throughout. The article becomes slightly more coherent then, though it still doesn't excuse what is apparently his remarkable ignorance of perfectly standard terminology, which can be looked up in the dictionary in about three seconds, removing entirely the need for his specious, floundering misdefinition.<br /><br />I don't feel like being charitable, though. The whole article reeks of mendaciousness to me. Normally if a person is making an honest attempt to explain the meanings of particular terms, they will begin by providing basic definitions from a standard, reputable source (such as a dictionary) then attempt to put these in further context in the process of explanation. To go half way through an article which purports to be all about disambiguating two related terms, then essentially make up your own definitions for both, while acting as though no alternatives exist, then failing to use your own definition consistently in any case, is the work of someone who is fully intent on using those words equivocally to confuse the reader. His own narrow and eccentric definition of “verse” isn’t even useful to him, except as a stalking horse for his real purpose, which is why he shows no inclination to stick with it. I suspect that the real purpose for burbling such vacuous intellectual froth is to be found in this sentence:<br /><br />“It also matters to the Poetry Foundation and organizations like it, which must make choices and use their finite resources to support some kinds of poetry while not others.” <br /><br />This is to say that, since he has provided a satisfactory distinction between “Verse” and “Poetry” (satisfactory, that is, to the supporters and members of the Poetry Foundation, who are far too clueless to know when they are being taken for a ride, as evinced by the comments on the article), it should be obvious to everyone (who is a moron) that “Poetry”, is a far more valuable and precious activity than “Verse”. Therefore, it is evident that Poetry, and not Verse, is the form that deserves our moral support and financial backing. However, we shouldn’t knock poor inferior Verse TOO much, because it does serve the valuable function of engaging with its crude and infantile techniques the attention of those who are not yet capable of understanding true Poetry. Perhaps one day, with sufficient maturity and education, these neophytes will come to appreciate our true depths and (unrhymed, unmetered) subtleties of our Art.<br /><br />At this point, a lot of lazy ignorant people who fondly believe they are poets, and that they have a superior understanding of poetry to the foolish, barely literate, verse-loving mass of humanity, pat themselves on their metaphorical backs, secure in the knowledge that all’s right with the Poetry world. And by such means the Status Quo blunders on down the road to nowhere, earnestly gazing at its own navel as it goes, feeling perfectly vindicated in its own boundless self-regard.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3761818636919513619.post-62813020219211259932012-03-04T00:19:05.895-06:002012-03-04T00:19:05.895-06:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com