Poetry's Cause

@Fido,

Why would you say that you hate rhymes? The idea of rhyming gives a poem a lyrical quality. As long as it doesn't divert from the main context that the poem is trying to achieve, where it ends up that the stanzas are only there to achieve the rhyme itself, I think it's quite a nice thing.

@Tyr,

Tyr wrote:

Why would you say that you hate rhymes? The idea of rhyming gives a poem a lyrical quality. As long as it doesn't divert from the main context that the poem is trying to achieve, where it ends up that the stanzas are only there to achieve the rhyme itself, I think it's quite a nice thing.

A rhyme is a curse. Have you never noticed that quality, even to telivision magic? Did you know that the Latin name Carmen, which means song is where we get our word charm? I think rhymes give poetry a nearly primitive quality, and covers it with dust and cobwebs, when if it is neatly done, it is seldom noticable, and is tucked inside the lines, never ending lines. And, as you say, lyrics rhyme; and I would not try to write a song without it; but they do turn the poem from its purpose, since reality does not rhyme, and there is an element of fate if the story can be told with rhymes, and told truly; and that does not happen. Since the story is everything, and the expression of sentiment is everything too, tell the truth, and let go of the rhyme so soon as it drags the story from its path. Clearly, rhymes ruin more thoughts than they carry. And I know because I do it naturally enough, and hate it all the more for that. Thanks

@Fido,

But surely, without the rhyme, or some other form of creative tool that creates an emotive response or makes the reader properly think, it would no longer carries that monicker of a poem. Without this creative elements, to lend foundations to the wording, the document is just that, a document. You say that reality doesn't rhyme, but surely a poem, amongst other things, is really only an interpretation of that reality. Like you say...a story.

@boagie,

To me, poetry is a condensed way of explaining or trying to explain the world. Poetry helps us to examine our world, or someone else's. It's an exclaimation that we think and love and hate. Poetry asks us to notice ourselves and our thoughts. Great poems can change the world and the way we collectively understand it. When I write it, I like to experiment with different forms such as magical realism, or rythm and rhyming patterns (although unlike debudding I don't necessarily like to see a regular rhyme pattern or any rhyme at all). Irregular and internal rhyme sound more interesting to me, along with a somewhat irregular beat.

@Tyr,

Tyr wrote:

But surely, without the rhyme, or some other form of creative tool that creates an emotive response or makes the reader properly think, it would no longer carries that monicker of a poem. Without this creative elements, to lend foundations to the wording, the document is just that, a document. You say that reality doesn't rhyme, but surely a poem, amongst other things, is really only an interpretation of that reality. Like you say...a story.

Well yes, and if the narrative is compelling, and the story is profound then the reader will supply the interest, as one must always do with life anyway. And as a fiction, a made thing, one should surrender the notion of truth and accept that at its best, it is an inexact rendering of reality. But, the idea of fate, which I think is behind all rhyme, that words were only waiting to be arranged in such a fashion as to show both truth, and to rhyme, I think, is non sense. And yet, when a poem has rhyme, as in the many repetitions and variations of the terrible deadly worm that killed Beowulf, then it makes an impression while the contrived rhymed end lines detracts. I have written poetry by the yard, and even now, I am soaking Harley oil up with some crap long past. And I would do the same with all I write, and pull it into the tomb with me when I go, caring not if I was here, counting it all vanity gravely delivered, and meaningless after all.

@Heather phil,

Heather wrote:

To me, poetry is a condensed way of explaining or trying to explain the world. Poetry helps us to examine our world, or someone else's. It's an exclaimation that we think and love and hate. Poetry asks us to notice ourselves and our thoughts. Great poems can change the world and the way we collectively understand it. When I write it, I like to experiment with different forms such as magical realism, or rythm and rhyming patterns (although unlike debudding I don't necessarily like to see a regular rhyme pattern or any rhyme at all). Irregular and internal rhyme sound more interesting to me, along with a somewhat irregular beat.

Poetry, like everything else on this earth is a form of relationship. As an ancient form, it relies on repetition, and rhyme to hold it in the mind of the minstral, the scald, and the poet, because it preceeds writing. But now we write, and rhymed poetry has only one purpose, and that is as lyric where it is expected, and also easily remembered. But Poetry is so queeeer, the property of queeers, and it is all gooey, and introspective, and it is all done without telling any good tale, and is all about meemeemee. I speak to love, and lust, and hate, and cupidus. The dance of moth with flame thrower, the mouse with the cat, the bird with the snake, the love of life and the futility of it all. And who cannot say to some one that I would never have existed but for the love of you? What else demands such just elegy as the soul of a woman? I can't bear most so called poetry. It is all mirror and no beauty. Where is the drama, the relationship, the grasping after possibilities, the luxury of hope, the poverty of reality. There should be in all poetry what the Illiad gave to the Greeks, and yet gives, and that is man at the center of the stage, a plaything of the gods and cosmic forces, daring death and defeat for the hand of love.

@Fido,

Are you saying that Shakespeare was queeer?

Are you saying that songwriters are all queeers?

I think as long as the rhyming does not take away from the context then it only adds to the beauty of poetry. Its only one of many styles of poetry, one that I favor whether you do or not. I enjoy writing poetry on society, humanity, and insanity, because perhaps I may not feel formality can change the world the same way creativity does.

@Holiday20310401,

Quote:

But Poetry is so queeeer, the property of queeers, and it is all gooey, and introspective, and it is all done without telling any good tale, and is all about meemeemee.

Isn't this.... simply false? As Holiday points out, Shakespeare rhymes, and manages to tell many classic tales in the process. Dante was a poet, a rhyming poet.
Any expression about the human condition is about humans, and must be, at least to some degree, introspective.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate Milton just as well as I appreciate any rhyming poet - they just have different styles.

What's wrong with being queer? Either way the term is used, to mean 'strange' or 'homosexual', so what? Hunter Thompson was certainly queer (strange) and Freddie Mercury was certainly queer (homosexual).

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401 wrote:

Are you saying that Shakespeare was queeer?

Are you saying that songwriters are all queeers?

I think as long as the rhyming does not take away from the context then it only adds to the beauty of poetry. Its only one of many styles of poetry, one that I favor whether you do or not. I enjoy writing poetry on society, humanity, and insanity, because perhaps I may not feel formality can change the world the same way creativity does.

Shakespeare maybe. Songwriters some times. I did not say rhyme was out of place in song, but out of place everywhere else. When you have to bend the truth to make it rhyme you have gone too far. It is not formality that changes the world, or creativity, but people. If you cannot change your self, you will never change the world, and if you have changed yourself you have already changed the world, and what is more, you have come face to face with the greatest impediment to change anywhere. Thanks.

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

Isn't this.... simply false? As Holiday points out, Shakespeare rhymes, and manages to tell many classic tales in the process. Dante was a poet, a rhyming poet.
Any expression about the human condition is about humans, and must be, at least to some degree, introspective.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate Milton just as well as I appreciate any rhyming poet - they just have different styles.

What's wrong with being queer? Either way the term is used, to mean 'strange' or 'homosexual', so what? Hunter Thompson was certainly queer (strange) and Freddie Mercury was certainly queer (homosexual).

All fiction is false. Why make fiction doubly false with rhyme? Machiavelli and Dante were both losers in the power struggles of their time. Should we create losers to create the creative? What those people did in their day does not mean a wit in this time. It certainly does not make for good poetry to rhyme, even if no song would be possible without it.
Consider this. Poetry can be like a window or a mirror. If you use it to see self, you only see self, but if you use it to see the whole of the world, you still see self, and the world, and it really is bigger than ourselves, and we really are not alone, and it is not all about me.
The only thing wrong with being queeer is that queeers gravitate to the art world. And politics and power generally. The reason why some did not want them in the military is that it gave to some great power over subordinates and this often meant the power over life or death. But, for the most part, it is like any biological man playing the part of a woman and having the power of a man and the respect normally accorded to men. Maybe you do not feel like a man. Okay. Does that mean you feel like a woman? How would you ever know since you have never had to endure a fraction of what women deal with all the time. So, you walk just like a woman, like the Bob Dylan song; does that make you a woman, or any more able to judge art, better at cooking, generally more sensitive, or humane? I don't think so. And I don't think poetry or people should be what they are not. And that goes for queeers too. What ever they are, if they are not men or women they should not try to be the opposite only because they are not what they are said to be on their birth certificates.

There are a lot of qualities that add up to a good poem, and end rhyming lines is usually not one of them. I used to write a lot, and out of the pile I put aside, much introspective, some pornographic, there was some good poems; but they have served their purpose, and I have moved on. If you don't see that rhymes are not good poetry, keep after it. I don't know if there is a reasoned argument that can be made against it. I still read an occasional rhyme, like the Rhymes of a Rolling Stone; but there is a story behind it, a quite compelling story, of man triumphant over his own pain desparate to squeeze some life out of nature, and it is still terribly old fashioned. Try this for an exercise. The next time you write a rhyme, cut it all to pieces and reassemble it so all the rhymes are internal, and let metre hold the structure together. I'll try to give you an example, Maybe, but right now I have everything in the air and I am hoping it falls together instead of falling on me. Thanks

@Fido,

Quote:

All fiction is false. Why make fiction doubly false with rhyme?

Rhyme doesn't necessarily entail falsity. You give Shakespeare a break, so why categorically dismiss rhyme? Sure, some poets are terrible poets, but others happen to be quite talented.

And I have to disagree that fiction is false - fiction is not historically accurate, but the content of the fiction may very well be true. For example, Candide his historically inaccurate, but the satire and philosophical journey present many truths to the reader.

Quote:

Machiavelli and Dante were both losers in the power struggles of their time. Should we create losers to create the creative? What those people did in their day does not mean a wit in this time. It certainly does not make for good poetry to rhyme, even if no song would be possible without it.

Machiavelli was a poet?

Back to the point - Dante certainly does mean something in our time. His influence has, if anything, grown since his death and remains immense today. Would you call Dante a poor poet?

Quote:

Consider this. Poetry can be like a window or a mirror. If you use it to see self, you only see self, but if you use it to see the whole of the world, you still see self, and the world, and it really is bigger than ourselves, and we really are not alone, and it is not all about me.

All fine and wonderful - but I do not see how this defends your previous negative appraisal of rhymed poetry.

Quote:

The only thing wrong with being queeer is that queeers gravitate to the art world. And politics and power generally. The reason why some did not want them in the military is that it gave to some great power over subordinates and this often meant the power over life or death. But, for the most part, it is like any biological man playing the part of a woman and having the power of a man and the respect normally accorded to men. Maybe you do not feel like a man. Okay. Does that mean you feel like a woman? How would you ever know since you have never had to endure a fraction of what women deal with all the time. So, you walk just like a woman, like the Bob Dylan song; does that make you a woman, or any more able to judge art, better at cooking, generally more sensitive, or humane? I don't think so. And I don't think poetry or people should be what they are not. And that goes for queeers too. What ever they are, if they are not men or women they should not try to be the opposite only because they are not what they are said to be on their birth certificates.

Wow, Fido, I didn't expect such blatant bigotry from you. The stereotypes and misrepresentations of homosexuals in this paragraph is... depressing.

Quote:

There are a lot of qualities that add up to a good poem, and end rhyming lines is usually not one of them.

Rhymes do not make a poem. There needs to be more, I'll give you that. But we also have to look at the wit in some of the rhymes - the various half rhymes and smart plays on words. If you've read Shakespeare, you know exactly what sort of rhymes these are. And the Bard was not the only poet capable of producing a witty rhyme.

@Didymos Thomas,

I would not say that I catagorically reject rhyme. In music and in some thing like Shakespeare it is memorative device, helping the performer to remember lines, and helping the audience remember too. But if we say rhyme or reason it is to say they are not the same thing, and if not reasonable, then it is artifice, and artificial, and not art.

@Fido,

Quote:

I would not say that I catagorically reject rhyme. In music and in some thing like Shakespeare it is memorative device, helping the performer to remember lines, and helping the audience remember too.

But memory isn't the only value to rhyme. There is also a wit involved. Shakespeare being the great example. Here, from the first sonnet:

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
What's the value of this rhyme beyond memorization? The use of content implies self pleasure. See, that's pretty smart.

Quote:

But if we say rhyme or reason it is to say they are not the same thing, and if not reasonable, then it is artifice, and artificial, and not art.

You're using a figure of speech. Nice, but not much of an argument. Besides the fact that the opposite of reasonable is not artificial...
Art is concerned with what is aesthetically pleasing. Rhymes sometimes are aesthetically pleasing, thus, rhymes are sometimes art - or at least good art.
Also, what is unreasonable may still be art. Picaso shows us images that are entirely unreasonable. That's the beauty.

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

But memory isn't the only value to rhyme. There is also a wit involved. Shakespeare being the great example. Here, from the first sonnet:

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
What's the value of this rhyme beyond memorization? The use of content implies self pleasure. See, that's pretty smart.

You're using a figure of speech. Nice, but not much of an argument. Besides the fact that the opposite of reasonable is not artificial...
Art is concerned with what is aesthetically pleasing. Rhymes sometimes are aesthetically pleasing, thus, rhymes are sometimes art - or at least good art.
Also, what is unreasonable may still be art. Picaso shows us images that are entirely unreasonable. That's the beauty.

First of all, speech is an argument since we argue with our words that a dog is not a cat before the question ever comes up. And I do not doubt that there is wit in the contruction of nice rhymes, I am not against it because I am bad at it, but that it usually detracts, especially in a modern sense, and makes what might be otherwise good poetry seem like a nursury rhyme. And there is some value even in them, as in ride a (****) horse to banbury cross, that is an account of a human sacrifice. We just make little emotional progress or intellectual progress covering ground already covered with footprints. Make a new way. Learn the old to make the new.

Think of it. Maybe there was a reason they gagged Shakespeare as he lay dieing. In the area of formal drama he was great. I think he was very aware of the powers in his own land, and how easily they could result in sudden death. I think he glorified at least one battle that should never have been, in a hundred year war for empire that left the English worse off than before, as usual, and all for mad glory, and more madness. Shakespeare might be hard to read, and, as you can imagine, I have a complete set, but his gift to English is his greatest contribution, because when you know what rhymes with what you know a lot of how they in their time sounded. And there is no little of wisdom in his wit. But that was then, and we are now. Thanks

P.S... I understand that this is posted in the aesthetics section; and I understand that if something in the way of art does not follow some aesthetic formula, that is, at once pleasing and socially acceptable that it will not have much of a life as art, because art needs an audience. But, from the point of view of the artist, it should be about the art, as a method of bringing his inside out, his sub conscious reckoning of truth into a juxtaposition with reality. In that, there is not audience, and no aesthetic consideration.

@Holiday20310401,

YouTube - The Poem/Song That Never Ends

The above is a poem that I wrote. I was inspired by a song sung by Lambchops, a puppet. It is a song that just goes on and on and sings the same verse over and over, only I put my own words to it. Be warned, this is a long poem/song. You may get tired of listening to it. But it does have a profound meaning.

@de budding,

de_budding wrote:

I love the rhythm & rhyme of poetry; complex rhyming schemes get me reading faster, faster and faster, and I love it when several lines suddenly- out of chaos, cascade together at the end of the stanza revealing the rhyme scheme. If the construction of the poem is written so that there is a conclusive line at the point where this rhyme-revelation happens then I'm butter.

I am only recently starting to notice technique like assonance and alliteration, as well as more structural embellishments- lists, repetition. So I think I am starting to enjoy poetry more and more. But I can't stop scowling at a poem that doesn't use a rhyme scheme .

I think poetry is wonderfully expressive, but I feel limited by word-power.
I think it is time for a new approach, I have been trying avidly to write some form of poetry this week, but to no avail.

Dan.

Excellent post, de. May I point out the types of poems to which you're referring, such as the villanelle, are practically impossible to write? I find assonance and alliteration not only somewhat easier to write, and write well, but along with effects of rhythm and even simple effects like repitition, much more poetic. These are the poems that really mean the most to me--although poems such as "Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night" have a certain technical excellence that, like figure skating, is possible to appreciate for its difficulty.

@hammersklavier,

My favourite poet is Yeats.

Great Poem

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)

@Holiday20310401,

Ah Yeats.

The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things,
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.

One of my favourite poets too.
I write a lot of substandard poetry, I am hoping to get better with time.

Fido, I wonder, do you view the entire world with such a cynical eye? I am very skeptical of many things, but the arts enthrall me, and I think I would collapse under the sheer weight of my own misery without the belief that one thing humans can be positively attributed with is the aesthetic beauty of art, poetry and music and the ability to recognise it.

@ItMustBeKate,

The earth is cold
the sky is grey
an age grinds
though another day
Hold your breath
enjoy the pain
embrace your fate
don't complain
I am an atom
the monad
the eye
of the hurricane
I am a perfect storm of pain
and the winter has fallen fast upon me
and the night's constellations shine so clear
and with all my life I mourn you
and wish to hold you near
And if the spring forgets you
and the summer dances by
My memories will bathe you
in the tears that I would cry
if I could only own my pain
express it in destruction till not of life remains
and this I will not do while will guides me true
but will turn my pain to labors
be the beast of burden that I are
and carry on and make you proud
of my standing tall and seeing far

@Holiday20310401,

Ok, let's approach it this way. With a task. The following was selected fairly randomly and based on the discussion up to this point.
Here is a poem. Or, is it a poem? What makes it a poem or not a poem? Is it a good poem? Why or why not?

Come on out
It's ok
Suburban sprite
I've seen you
Getting around
Have you no mask
With the animals
In the silent cacophony
Ditsy dryad
So that's how it is
With a limp
From the wicked step
You went down
I picked you up
Sent you on your way
Naughty Nymph
You can't charm me

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