/lit/ - Literature

>>14511843

Depends on what I'm reading. Good fiction? Yes. Bad fiction? No. Non-fiction? No. Academic Biology research papers? Hell no. I also don't subvocalize words I've never seen before.

Needs music to really work, but even as just text you can see the rhythm.

Can we get a lyrics thread going? Who's your favourite lyricist? How do you approach lyrics? Do you think due to the medium they're inherently subordinate to the music, or can they be equal to or sometimes above it?

I have a hard time treating lyrics as literature sometimes because I get too carried away by the music. The one huge exception is Joanna Newsom. I own all her albums in physical format so I've gone through every word along with the liner notes, and her words are up there with all of my favourite poets and authors. She writes incredibly intricate and polished lyrics, can be painstakingly anal about form, which I love (especially in her last album Divers), and touches on some fantastic themes (from motherhood and family to time travel and multiverses). She also really engages with big authors such as Joyce and Shelley in a fascinating manner. Her love of Nabokov also shows throughout her work, in the wordplay, sounds (especially alliteration) and complexity.

Here's some examples:

En Gallop
>Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism.

Emily
>Come on home, the poppies are all grown knee-deep by now
>Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow
>Peonies nod in the breeze and while they wetly bow
>With hydrocephalitic listlessness ants mop up-a their brow
>And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour
>The butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours
>And my clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines
>Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines

Baby Birch
>There is a blacksmith and there is a shepherd and there is a butcher boy
>And there is a barber who's cutting and cutting away at my only joy
>I saw a rabbit as swift as a knife and as pale as a candlestick
>And I had thought it'd be harder to do but I caught her and skinned her quick, held her there
>Kicking and mewling upended unspooling unsung and blue
>Told her wherever you go little runaway bunny I will find you
>And then she ran
>As they're liable to do

>Be at peace baby, and be gone
>Be at peace baby, and be gone

Sapokanikan
>And the records they left are cryptic at best
>Lost in obsolescence
>The text will not yield, nor x-ray reveal
>With any fluorescence
>Where the hand of the master begins and ends

Time, as a Symptom
>Joy! Again, around–a pause, a sound–a song:
>A way a lone a last a loved a long
>A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend
>(Areion, Rharian, go free and graze. Amen.)

>A shore, a tide, unmoored–a sight, abroad:
>A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god)
>No time. No flock. No chime, no clock. No end
>White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: transcend!

>White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: transcend!
>White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: transcend!
>White star, white ship–Nightjar, transmit: trans-


Pic related. There's a small mistake in the last line but whatever.