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Shouldn't poetry be interesting?

The worst of course are love poems.
Self confessional is usually self-indulgent rubbish, unless it skilfully engages the readers own depths.
Philosophically is likely to be trite rubbish.

The worst of all is 'inspirational'

I've done a lot of reading and critiquing lately and the quality of poetry here has dropped to mostly fucking boring.

Kailashana is right. Neopoet is dying from complacency.

Don't write for yourself, write for your reader and try to make a difference.

Read good poetry. Learn new words. Try to excite, offend, engage, above all consider the music of your language.

Members are learning from the workshops but not using their new-found skills in their poetry.

Most of the poems I've read lately are boring self-indulgent crap.

Comments

Well this came on line just after I deleted my entry for your workshop which you suggested I put on as a workshop piece, and all you did was give me a load of abuse.
But I think a complete reassessment of what is and what is not, on Neo at the moment, would be a good Idea,
Yours Ian.T

.
There are a million reasons to believe in yourself,
So find more reasons to believe in others..

When one flies only in skies

builds castles in the air
the earth appears
as a big lump of shit
and
all must be blind not to notice it.
Four letter words are used
when the lack of knowing is abused
and
crappy folks like me
appear utterly confused,
what of poetry you speak
it’s all fuckin emotional
hardly recreational.
Period.

loved

and ego cancer will kill your poetic abilities, such as they are.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

Cheers
Love
and
Hate
you still see
I don't
all the best Jess
tc

I have suffered since decades
yet I live still
as you infuse
life within
How can ego Cancer
ever me kill?

read the other way around,
if you want grammar,
in poetry to be sound...

loved

JESS'S WISH
13th April 2012.

Excite, offend, engage,
is this the sight of heaven wished by Jess,
the blinding flashes scour our eyes
like poisonous venom splashed,
and smarting blood red tears glint as they fall,
bled from the heart of each as they read all,
the all you wish this site to be, become,

and I for one pass by the gory mass of dreaded suicides,
my life I choose, design, and burden not with such
as turns my blood blue cold,
I am no coward, can be bold
and thrum the drum of horror at a pain, or someone slain,
what excesses would you have us taste,
your drug of effacement, forget our individuality
and write as if we were not us?

What's all the fuss, there's much that isn't poetry,
but somewhere one has to start,
and some develop into art,
you're telling us to stop, shut up, keep quiet,
when we're all here to learn
and help each other,
friend foe and even lover.

Ann.

"The image of yourself which you see in a mirror Is dead,
but the reflection of the moon on water, lives." Kenzan.

just ranting.
You know how it is, you cop a bad run and think Neopoet is dying, then cop a run of brilliance from old-timers and newcomers and the joy is re-engaged. I don't even remember writing this blog.

Perhaps it is only my perceptions that change.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

you are right, but sometimes its the mood people are in. I found since I've been here that there are times when the poetry is just fair, (I include myself) and other times when the poetry is just amazing. Poetry is like the wheel of life. sometimes we're on top of our game and other times we're not. For instance your best poetry comes when you are not medicated. so i would say that the medicated state in your lower wheel. All that I am saying is watch closely as the change comes and as it is gone again. The workshops are working, but like everything time and experience show up later, never right away. You will see it, I believe that we must take the good with the bad. In reality we learn from both. though I have to say, that you are correct in bringing it to our attention. That is what a good professor always does.
Respect to you, for really caring even though some may not see it that way, but I do appreciate your undying dedication to make this a better place.

Eddie

LIFE ISN'T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS
IT'S ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO DANCE IN THE RAIN.
VIVIAN GREENE

did you see my reply to Ann before you posted this? I said much the same thing.
You might also check out my latest blog
http://www.neopoet.com/weirdelf/blog/sat-2012-04-14-0154

And especially thanks for the validation, kinda shaky and it is appreciated right now.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

I guess my comment when in as you wrote yours
This is the thing about you that I respect the most, that you do get angery, but then you see logic, which you have lots of.

Eddie

LIFE ISN'T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS
IT'S ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO DANCE IN THE RAIN.
VIVIAN GREENE

How are you doing? I like what you said here so I just chimed in for a minute here.

Poetry is like the wheel of life. sometimes we're on top of our game and other times we're not.

So true to word this is

Che Bello

How bad is writing for yourself?

I usually look at poetry as more of expressing your self than trying to create an impression on the reader.

No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job. - TS Eliot

http://www.wsgeorge.com/

as there are people who are literate. But very few of them are poets. Personal poetry doesn't need to be read by anyone else unless it expresses something that affects other people. Most poetry is pure self-indulgent crap.

It is far more important to write something important.
“A poet's work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.”
― Salman Rushdie

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

Now the hard part. Who determines what's interesting? ..........stan

if you're honest.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

the amount of comments on a poem usaully determines the interest. you have made a valid point.
but sometimes it is also (at less here) the person who wrote it.
Wow, did I open a can of worms. that is only an opinion.
Eddie
...

LIFE ISN'T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS
IT'S ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO DANCE IN THE RAIN.
VIVIAN GREENE

I've done a lot of reading and critiquing lately and the

quality

of poetry here has dropped ....to mostly.... '''fucking''''

boring.

but fucking can never be boring ....
if one implies physically
then yes.. what says jess

but how can one anyone ensure
all poems are enjoyed by only one for sure
and thus the boredom ensues
many of us still pursue
to please and be heard
not seen

you may continue to frustrate me...

loved

As in actually read a poem and give a lucid reply with criticism and suggestion?

I don't believe you. Give me an example.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

I quoted your line only,
hope you re see.

loved

I think what Eddie had to say here is relevant. It is not so much that you are solely writing for yourself as it is "What you write" which in the end may bring up a thought or feeling to your reader of your work. Maybe it may be a time your reader thought or felt the same way about what you have written. As far as popularity contests I am not in the game of that either to see who can get the most votes, up or down. Each writer no matter what they write or how they write have their own meanings placed to their own parchment.

What works for one may not work for another.
Who is the ultimate judge and jury of a poem or a story?

The reader, of course.

If you get a message or a thought after reading a poem either you got it or you just didn't. If it is a simple poem like: Roses are Red Violets are Blue, well than it is what it is. We can not change the world and we can not change how someone interprets a song or a poem. The poem should give the reader food for thought like how much can I share my words with the people reading it and get back feedback that is either accepted or not. We do this through our own words. And yes Jess there is much room for improvement in all writers, or poets that want to expand their knowledge and reach more readers with "their story"

Poetry is a story about your life and you always write what you want.

Oh hells bells how did I get on Elfs page by the way? Smiles:) It's all good Elf. No time for drama dragging anymore. Just thought I would leave my nickels worth. I have not been in here in a long while so I am not up to speed.

Just saying.
Be well Jess

Peace

Mona aka Magics

you would leave your 2 cents worth, instead of tree fiddy in small change.

Love you mona but you do rattle on, as a poet make your words count.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

Your tag line is perfect, but who is, "House MD" ?

Eddie
...

LIFE ISN'T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS
IT'S ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO DANCE IN THE RAIN.
VIVIAN GREENE

Who is a brilliant diagnostician but also a drug addict and a complete bastard.

Need I say more?

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

You only get better with age:)

Words... You take this stuff so serious Elf. Why is everything so brow beating with you? You get too carried away. I never met anyone on here that was so darn crass as you. And the medication thing, that is an old excuse for dismissive behaviors. Stay off the computer.

Take it easy..life is all about chances..some of us get it and some of us don't. If I only could have ignored your arse in here I would still be in here writing. There that's honesty for ya. All the other stuff is BS.

Time to move forward. Take a look around and see what is honesty and what is BS. Then maybe you could carry on an intellectual conversation with someone without your ego getting in the way or your opinion being the only one folks have to adhere to. I see nothing has changed much.

Be Well Elf Self

but what painter likes seeing paint splashed on the floor? (except Pollack)
what musician likes seeing instruments smashed? (except Roger Daltrey)

all words are magical and potent, and wasting them is always a shame.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

I did not know you were sick. Hope you feel better already.

Mona

The dung of the mind
festering crap falling from over active mouths
Wisdom condemned to the many,
To be as poison from the blowpipe of the drivel merchants.
Give me a peace where I can drive,
words that can convey to set brains.
That we write because we want to.

We can write for you of many things
Forms of writing flee as we curse.
Strange words flow out of our pens
Why? just to give someone out there,
we will never really know.
A trip of importance, a burst of ego.

Now we write most times
for our own Ego's damn you
That I have written too much,
it has drained my pen.
Let me write for me also
then ask if you need a piece of me.

Tell me what is it you are looking for.
A Bard? do me a favour he 's dead
A line or two from a classic
They have already been written.
Crap I give to you, to throw back at me
Yet I know something has stuck to your hands.
I write from some other pen

The trend to hate anything that is not perfection
This should be my line
In your world of perfection you will see me
There in the queue with the ones that also wrote
Why do you want me to step out of line
Does the above answer your questions of others why's
Come let us walk with all the poets
There we can talk and make new Bards

Ian.T

.
There are a million reasons to believe in yourself,
So find more reasons to believe in others..

Everyone else can fuck off

Honestly, there is room for mediocrity in almost every human endeavour but no room for it in poetry.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

been away for a bit, and have found it very interesting
to come back and read neo

i seldom, if ever, feel the need to respond to comments, but
i've been coming back to this particular one;
"Honestly, there is room for mediocrity in almost every human endeavour..."
i read it ... went and pondered on it ... and then pondered some more

i think it's one of the biggest horses arses comments i've ever read
and i'm actually gobsmacked that it came from you

not an attack jess, nor an opinion expressed to initiate
any self-serving, egotistical debate ... just something i had to say as
that statement irritated me like a seed stuck between teeth ...
i couldn't let it go until i addressed it

cheers
p

Wasn't it a smug, elitist, awful thing to say!
I'm so glad someone picked me up on it.

One of my favourite songs is Avril Lavigne's 'Anything But Ordinary'

Nonetheless it is true that most people go through their lives being desperately in-content with ordinary, mediocrity, and doing nothing about it.

Poets truly have no excuse.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

original comment deleted

smacked of needy ... something i don't like
equating to cyberland

you or me smacked of needy? What did you want to say?

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

twas i smacked of needy! ...

i questioned this response from you;
"Wasn't it a smug, elitist, awful thing to say!
I'm so glad someone picked me up on it",
wondering if you were sincere in saying it, or taking
the piss...

then i thought to myself, why do i need to know?

cheers
p

p.s. read around my wanderings that you have
been unwell. hope you're recovered/ recovering, and
are being kind to your health

A completely stupid rash statement:-
(Honestly, there is room for mediocrity in almost every human endeavour but no room for it in poetry.
cheers,
Jess..)
You just show me your first attempts at poetry, where your perfection was present, and all the work that you did in perfection that gave you a Masters..
Please don't talk CRAP or were you perfect?????
About time you learned to teach as your teachers did where they gave you the benefit of the doubt many times and chided you into a pupil that was capable of passing your Masters or are you from some other planet that breeds perfect poets.
Those two words ring like bells "Perfect Poets" this is where you live, and how you arrived there, well I just give up on asking, there seems to be no point in having a site where perfection is the final object for all that join.
Your point about mediocrity is unfounded, poetry deals with all people that write short pieces for themselves or in perfection the Master poets.
Jess please get a grip of reality in writing, and accept that it is far better to teach for the improvement of others than to throw your Perfect Poetry at them, Yours Ian.T

.
There are a million reasons to believe in yourself,
So find more reasons to believe in others..

I think there is only one true judge of poetry. Time. If a person writes something that is recalled a few weeks after having been read, then the writer has been successful in at leat one poem as regards at least one person. The truest test is if years hence his/her poetry is recalled. Now that's poetry which is interesting. Much poetry here and elsewhere deals with current events. We all do it to some degree. This poetry is interesting for few weeks. Until the subject fades into the past. I still await the writer who will produce this generation's "GRAPES OF WRATH" or "DR.Zhivago". Now if this isn't enough B.S. I don't know what is lol........stan

I only think of Robert Frost.

You need to try much harder.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

True, there are current topics poets write about, however, to juxtapose that with other times and timeless ideals such as liberty, life, love, truth and justice.... will always be *au current*.

And yes, as I've said before, the greats that dealt with life liberty, love truth and justice in rhyme and meter will never be outdone. That perfection just ain't repeatable. Though I think today's performance poets recapture that. Listen to one of the best--Patricia Smith.

However, there are thousands of contemporary poems by contemporary poets who are recognized for their particular type of poetry. They're in poetry journals, ezines. And some of the best perhaps aren't recognized
because they aren't actively seeking recognition.

And yes, if it isn't interesting, doesn't uplift, or is unremembered the next week, it's forgetable....but please don't forget part of it is this fast-food society in which we live. Part of it is our failing as human beings not doing the work necessary on oneself to push the envelope.of who we are who is able to write THAT type of *remarkable* poetry.

~A

p.s. Nothing happened on Monday nights at my house. My son and I watched House religiously. Since then I/we rarely watch TV except for *talent* shows which are annoying but interesting when true talent is discovered and it's more than interesting to see the best of the best develop over the weeks.

~

And house is my new hero. You can just imagine how much I relate to him.

cheers,
Jess
A new workshop on the most important element of poetry-
'Rhythm and Meter in Poetry'
https://www.neopoet.com/workshop/rhythm-and-meter-poetry

author comment

I still recall the recommendation I was taught in the only literature class I ever took which was as a senior in high school and delivered by an old victorian style teacher. She stressed "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW!" Well I know the forests, construction and design and those whom I love. And I pretty much tamed my hot temper years ago. So would you suggest I write what I don't know and in a manner I prefer to avoid? Can you Really picture me yelling out rubbish to an audience like I've seen so many do at these poetry slams? don't...hold...your...breath lol. Now for originality. Am presently collaborating with a young poet here on something new which might be a sample of the direction poetry is moving toward. And when I master the formatting problems I'll restart posting some parallel poetry (which I think holds promise also).
In the mean time I'll just continue on boring everybody with what I do and still make an occasional foray into free verse. While hoping the words will come one day which will make a lasting impression about what our country has been going through lately..................stan

Invasion, No, intrusion No ,ONLY a modified version No? OK

WHY.???..occasional foray into free verse.....''
It's not only my domain..
and
WHY
....are all Neopoets going out of their way ....

only to please the one and only

I I i I i I ?!!!!
Stan this is for you...

loved

Sorry it was me I am the invader..I know I need to stay out the bad boy room.

Hi
where have you so long been ?
to London perhaps to stay with the Queen ,
plenty of water has flown down the Thames,
you haven't read lately
any one of my
GEMS

loved

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