Novel Tree

From "Poetryoke":   "What is more, songs with substantial lyrics outlive 'silly love songs'.  Four decades later, 'Imagine' gets far more air play than the cringefests that made the Beatles famous:  'She Loves You', 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand', 'I Saw Her Standing There', etc."

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     No doubt you are familiar with Del Shannon's 1961 hit song, "The Runaway", which was used as the theme song to the 1986-87 NBC TV series, "Crime Story".  Thus, 25 years--a whole generation--later this song was being preserved in our common culture.  Similarly, hundreds of songs from the 1960s and later have been covered by today's artists.  Renditions of songs by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young are easily recognized by young people today--few of them sung by the original artist.  This longevity drops off as we go back to the 1950s and virtually disappears as we regard the 1940s.  Remarkably, this was about as evident in 1986 as it is today.  That is, in 2014 we might look back more than half a century to the 1960s;  in 1986 we might look back 25 years to 1961;  but, in 1961, we wouldn't look back more than a decade for songs to cover or use in movies or commercials.  Outside the protest genre, at least, our lyrical roots do not go much deeper than the 1960s. 

     The evidence is overwhelming:  the greatest English language lyrics were written in the last 50-60 years.  Why the switch from "songs" to "lyrics"?  Because the most reliable lifespan indicator is not music or performance but words.  

     Note how few songwriters you can name from before 1950.  This isn't a case of generational narcissism.  Even a cursory glance at lyrics by Ferron, Simon and Garfunkel, John Stewart, the Joans (Mitchell and Baez), Stan Rogers, and others should be enough to bring us to this inevitable conclusion:   

   Contemporary Songwriters:   ✓
      Classical Songwriters:   x

     I trust I don't need to convince you that there are no Shakespeares alive today.

         Contemporary Poets:   x
            Classical Poets:   ✓

   Contemporary Playwrights:   x
      Classical Playwrights:   ✓

Alison Pick

     The sense one has is that today's best versers have gone where the money is:  into song lyrics.  True, the vast majority of lyrics suck, as they always have, but we are only concerned with the verses that will survive the test of time.

     What about prose, though?  How do the great novelists of our time (e.g.¹ Carole Shields, Timothy Findley, Alison Pick, etc.) compare to those of the past (e.g.¹ Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, George Orwell, etc.)?  Not as storytellers, mind you, but as writers?

     No, it's not a trick question.  In fact, it's not even a tough one.

     Contemporary Novelists:   ✓
        Classical Novelists:   x

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Footnotes:

¹ - Your list is as good as mine.

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Why Publish?

pub·lic

[puhb-lik]
adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or affecting a population or a community as a whole: public funds; a public nuisance.
2. done, made, acting, etc., for the community as a whole: public prosecution.
3. open to all persons: a public meeting.
4. of, pertaining to, or being in the service of a community or nation, especially as a government officer: a public official.

pub·lish
[puhb-lish]
verb (used with object)

1. to issue (printed or otherwise reproduced textual or graphic material, computer software, etc.) for sale or distribution to the public.
2. to issue publicly the work of: Random House publishes Faulkner.
4. to make publicly or generally known.

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    By the above definition, the word "publish" would not apply to anything directed at a subset of the public, even if it is technically available to everyone.  A poetry collection that we know or should know will only sell to friends and relatives is no more "published" than our family newsletter or our personalized holiday greeting cards.  Tomes targeted at other poets or at a teacher's class (including books that sell thousands because they are required reading) would not qualify.  Thus, we could argue that not one book of poetry has been published in generations. 

    Put another way, if a company releases a book without promoting or supporting it are they publishing or merely printing it?

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #72

Fortune and Fame:

    The two main reasons to publish are money and exposure.  Since there is little recompense from royalties, "money" translates to a job teaching poetry or, perhaps, winning an award.  Both require a recognized publisher;  submissions to judging committees from indies or self-publishers are often relegated, unopened, to the circular file.

    If looking for exposure, do you want to use the most or least convenient, segmented and expensive medium?

     It's not a trick question.  If audience is your desire, top quality ezines like "The HyperTexts", "The Pedestal", and the defunct "Autumn Sky Poetry" and "Shit Creek Review" are the ticket.  People can't link from social media¹ to a page in a book!

     So why not avail yourself of Print On Demand, vanity and other self-publishing options (e.g. cross- and cooperative publishing², nanopresses, etc.)?  Well, unless you have some special marketing ploy such as performance contest or limited edition marketing³, there may be an insurmountable problem:  you likely wouldn't have the wherewithal to reach the broader poetry market even if it existed.  Which it doesn't.  In other words:  Self-publishing is an oxymoron.

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #93

     If you are going to "self-publish" I'd urge you to do so online, perhaps using a blog like this one.  In addition to the worldwide access and linkage mentioned earlier, along with saving yourself a lot of bother with print formatting, you will have full creative control at zero expense to your wallet or the nation's forests.

     So, is there any good news here?  Believe it or not, yes, there is.  Not only is poetry being [mostly self-]published but, in one of the largest outlets around, it competes surprisingly well against fiction (though not against music).

     Youtube!

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Footnotes:

¹ - While on the subject of social media, have you had this experience?  The editor of a prominent magazine posts Tweets or Facebook entries of Letters of Complaint regarding one or more poems they've published.  (Can you say "catty"?)  Sure enough, a flood of sychophants start going all Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show on the critic.  What is remarkable is that not one of them refers to the underlying piece.  Unlike them, you made the mistake of reading the work being criticized.  Bad move.  Seared your corneas.

² - Crosspublishing and cooperative formats involve two (crosspublishing) or more (cooperative) writers forming an organization to edit and publish each other's books.


³ - Limited edition marketing exploits collectors' fetishes by publishing a very few copies of volume and using that rarity as a selling feature.  For example, an author might print up one autographed copy of a book each month or year and auction it off on EBay.  There is usually a cover story explaining the paucity of copies.

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    Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull".  Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook.  Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.

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Earl Gray, Esquirrel

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Poetryoke

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #50

     Lyrics suck.

     That's not an opinion.  It's a statistically verifiable, scientifically quantifiable fact.  Take all the songs you know.  Read their lyrics.  Recite them at an open mike, if you dare.  See how few songs work as poetry.  Aside from some verses by Leonard Cohen (we've mentioned "Famous Blue Raincoat" in this context), Bob Dylan and a handful of others, the success rate for lyrics is closer to .1% than the 10% suggested by Theodore "90% of everything is crap" Sturgeon.  No matter how small that number is, it exceeds the number of successful¹ contemporary poems (i.e. zero) by a factor of infinity.

     Think about that.  Over the last half century, as bad as lyrics have been, their success rate as poetry is infinitely better than poetry's success rate as poetry.

     On the one hand, saying that lyrics don't make good poetry is like saying apples don't make good orange juice.  They are entirely different media and art forms.  On the other hand, as the exemptions prove, there is no reason lyrics have to suck.  What is more, songs with substantial lyrics outlive "silly love songs".  Four decades later, "Imagine" gets far more air play than the cringefests that made the Beatles famous:  "She Loves You", "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", "I Saw Her Standing There", etc. 

"Ruins" by Cat Stephens

Ruins posted by Earl Gray on Vimeo.


     Aside from the video's use of multiversing, where the audio and visual verses feature parallel themes, what is remarkable about "Ruins"?  It is singing but, let's face it, it ain't opera.  It also lacks the sparkling technique and mindblowing tropes we look for in literary verse.  It ain't poetry².  Rather, it is the evocative modulation of tone, pace, pitch and volume we might expect from a competent storyteller.  It is what is missing from poetry.

     Imagine if there were no singing in "Ruins", just speech with music.  I don't mean background music, as in videos like "Beans".  I mean a song told rather than sung.  If you live where there are red squirrels--we grays are too shy for this--you have heard pairs of them doing this every spring and fall.  One makes a patterned sound, like the beatbox performer in an a capella group.  The other is the poetry performer.  Indeed, they call it "speaking song", where "speaking" can be a verb ("I am speaking [a] song") or a modifier ("Do you prefer Spoken Word or Speaking Song?").  Those who may think the two are arguing would half right;  this is part of their mating ritual.  Trust those reds to make an art form out of a lover's quarrel!

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #1

     Are you, like most of us gray squirrels, glossophobic?  Here is an exercise that, among countless other benefits, can help you combat that fear without ever saying a word in public:  Pick a song that you think works as poetry.  Be sure to include performance value in your criterion.  Record yourself performing--not reading or reciting but performing--the words as if you were telling that story to friends at, say, a bar.  Aim for natural language, not the incessant screaming you'll find at a slam, the robotic monotones of the typical poetry reading, or the headbanging beat of rappers or novice verse chanters.  Listen to the playback.  Repeat until you sound like a normal human being as opposed to a poet, singer, computer voice simulation or Dr. Dre.

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #106

     Once you've mastered that, try a more difficult version of the drill:  obtain, make or get a friend to make an instrumental/karaoke version of the song.  Listen to this on headphones as you record your speech.  Not so easy!

     This exercise can be a form of entertainment, "poetryoke", where the idea is to perform the words as an actor rather than a singer.

     Spoken songs could also evolve into a legitimate art form among humans, as it is with red squirrels.  Songwriters may write their verses with an eye toward dramatic performance--speaking--rather than singing.  The notes might exist only in the author's imagination--the piece might never be produced with singing--but the melody could hover like a ghost in the audience's mind.

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Footnotes:

¹ - As measured by those who can recite it.

² - That is, at first blush, it ain't what many would consider great poetry.

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    Your feedback is appreciated!

    Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull".  Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook.  Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.

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    We look forward to hearing from you.

Signed,

Earl Gray, Esquirrel

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Your Favorite Law?

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #0

    What is your favorite Law of Poetry?

    You can find the text listed here:

http://www.firesides.ca/EarlGrayLawsOfPoetry.htm

    ...and click on "Rule #_" in the column on the left to see the individual photomeme.

     Otherwise, you can view a slower pictorial listing here:

http://www.firesides.ca/EarlGraysLawsOfPoetry.htm

    ...and click on the image.

    Please post your answer and reasons here, on your blog or on social media.  We look forward to hearing from you!

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    Your feedback is appreciated!

    Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull".  Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook.  Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.

    If you would like to contact us confidentially or blog here as "Gray for a Day" please use the box below, marking your post as "Private" and including your email address;  the moderator will bring your post to our attention and prevent it from appearing publicly.

    Thank you for your interest in Commerical Poetry.

Signed,

Earl Gray, Esquirrel

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The New Yorker Poem

Peter John Ross

From "Dansuke Watermelon":

     "It is exceedingly difficult for a stellar poet to unlearn everything they know, ignore every aesthetic instinct and resist every temptation to infuse some element of art into what they are writing.  No doubt you've read the story of Usenetter Peter John Ross valiantly attempting to write as badly as Billy Collins.  After 20 minutes he gave up, having authored a villanelle which, by all objective measurements, was better than anything BC has ever produced." 

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     The infamous "New Yorker" poem is defined as a slapdash affair by a celebrity poet.  On the production side, these efforts¹ succeed at inspiring the aspiring;  new poets say:  "Hell, even I can do better than that!"  On the demand side, I assume their purpose is to attract readers to that publication while driving them away from poetry as a whole. 

    "If that is from the best, I shudder at the rest!"

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #23

     Occasionally, though, we are confronted by a collapse of all failsafes.  Here we see what appears to be a cento collected from a tourist phrasebook by an 8-year-old ESL student.  On crack.

Today I'm flying low and I'm
not saying a word.

     Not an auspicious start:  a cliché and a lie.  Now we see as egregious a violation of the Barnacles Rule² as we can imagine:

I'm letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

     We've seen frozen ponds that weren't as flat as this next line:

The world goes on as it must,    

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #26

     After a soporific laundry list, the piece does an about face, plucking an unearned New Age koan of silence out of thin air:

Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.

     Such stunningly sophomoric pretentiousness can only be punctuated by a bong hit and a hearty "Far out, man!"

      We need a new unit of measurement to describe how bad this "poem" is.  It is whole Ferlinghettis worse than William McGonagall's "The Tay Bridge Disaster".  As you know, in order to avoid leaving prints criminals will file the flesh off their fingertips.  To avoid rereading this dreck, the blind may do the same.

      Such an eyesore forces us to re-evaluate not only this one poet's talent but our entire aesthetic criterion.  As you are aware, traditionally, we have tended to judge great poets by their finest works, few as they may be.  In light of the sample sizes and the fact that flukes happen, perhaps we should be looking at their worst products, excluding juvenilia.

Peter John Ross

     As we saw with Peter John Ross, there is a point where a poet's skill, practice and instincts kick in, preventing output such as the above.  Shakespeare's worst play is still being performed four centuries later.  D.P. Kristalo's worst poem, "Heartbreaker" (aka "Eve Marie"), is markedly better than any New Yorker poem and infinitely superior to the above (which is to say nothing).

     You must know that, no matter how drunk we might have gotten Maz, unconsciousness or death by alcohol poisoning would have set in long before she could have written as clumsily as Charles Bukowski.  You are born knowing that we could remove every brain cell from Derek Walcott's skull and his nervous system, on its own, would prevent him from writing as badly as Kahlil Gibran.

Earl the Squirrel's Rule #105

     Out of courtesy, I won't identify the well-known author of the example poem.  Nor do I encourage you to websearch it without consulting with your opthamologist first.  At the very least, ask yourself:  "Haven't I seen more than enough of it already?"

     New Yorker poems will continue to spur the curiosity of those who ask:  "Is the inelegance a product of the author's indifference or ineptitude?"

     Not one of us dares wonder what ghastly gargoyles must lurk in the editor's slush pile.

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Footnotes:

¹ - This cannot be the right word here.

² - The Barnacles Rule highlights random--sorry, "poetic"--word choices by substituting a form of the word "barnacle".  For example, "cringing darkness" might become "barnacling darkness".

     Notice how much more sense "barnacles of ambition" would make here.

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What Killed Poetry

Any questions?

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Golf Tip #1

    In approaching the green, a golfer will use a club with a greater angle in order to create more loft.  This height allows the ball to drop more like a hailstone than a bowling ball, increasing the chance that it will stay on the putting surface.

    Seeking this high trajectory, many novices will try to scoop the ball, hitting it at the beginning of the upswing.

    This is an error.  It may be counterintuitive, but the trick is to hit the ball on the downswing, allowing the club head's design to do its job.

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Earl the Squirrel's Rule #1

    Unskilled poets often attempt to force matters in similar fashion.  Some use artifice in delivery, overenunciating syllables, overstressing, undermodulating (e.g. droning or screaming), or pausing unnaturally at the end of lines.  Others use "poetic" language (e.g. WTF is "letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep"  about?), clumsy meter, proximate exact rhymes, or mawkish material.  Those beyond hope will wear a beret.

    Unless you're gunning for humor, tell your story with as few affectations as possible.

    Let the poetry do its job.

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     Your feedback is appreciated!

    Please take a moment to comment or ask questions below or, failing that, mark the post as "funny", "interesting", "silly" or "dull".  Also, feel free to expand this conversation by linking to it on Twitter or Facebook.  Please let us know if you've included us on your blogroll so that we can reciprocate.

    If you would like to contact us confidentially or blog here as "Gray for a Day" please use the box below, marking your post as "Private" and including your email address;  the moderator will bring your post to our attention and prevent it from appearing publicly.

    We look forward to hearing from you.

Signed,

Earl Gray, Esquirrel

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