/lit/ - Literature

Prose. Poems are for women

Poems. Prose is for women

Good verses are and far between. Good prose is plenty.
I do like reading some poetry though. For example, décimas. The following is a décima by the Dominican poet Juan Antonio Alix:

Dice don Martin Garata,
Persona de alto rango,
Que le gusta mucho el mango
Porque es una fruta grata.
Pero treparse en la mata
Y verse en los cogollitos,
Y en aprietos infinitos...
Como eso es tan peligroso,
El encuentra más sabroso
Coger los mangos bajitos.

Don Martín dice también
Que le gusta la castaña,
Pero cuando mano extraña
La saca de la sartén,
Y que se la pelen bien
Con todos los requisitos;
Pero arderse los deditos
Metiéndolos en la flama.
Eso sí que no se llama
Coger Los mangos bajitos.

Por eso la suerte ingrata
De la Patria no mejora
Porque muchos son ahora
Como don Martín Garata,
Que quieren meterse en plata
Ganando cuartos mansitos
Con monopolios bonitos,
Con chivos o contrabando,
O así, de cuenta de mando,
Coger los mangos bajitos.

Cuando hay revolución
Maña es la más antigua,
Despachar a la manigua
De brutos a una porción.
Que al mandarlos algún don
Ya se marchan derechitos,
Y los dones quietecitos
Cada cual queda en su casa.
Para cuando todo pasa,
Coger los mangos bajitos.

Cuando el toro está plantado
Se verán miles toreros,
Allí en los burladeros
Con el pitirrio apretado.
Cuando el toro otro ha matado
Al punto salen toditos,
Echando vivas a gritos
Y a empuñar buenos empleos,
Que son todos sus deseos
Coger los mangos bajitos.

Dejen ya la maña vieja
De mandar al monte gente
Para tumbar presidente
Sin dar motivos de queja;
Que la prudencia aconseja,
Que vivamos tranquilitos,
Como buenos hermanitos,
Que mucha sangre ha costado
Y la ruina del Estado
Coger los mangos bajitos.

Y que vean lo que ha costado
La tumba de dos poderes,
Que han muerto miles de seres
Que la tierra se ha tragado.
Cuántas viudas no han quedado,
Y huérfanos infinitos!
Cuántas miserias y gritos!
Y cuánta sangre correr!...
Por unos cuantos querer
Coger los mangos bajitos.

Ahora lo que han de hacer
Echarlo todo al olvido,
Y al Presidente elegido
Ayudarlo a sostener.
Y evitar que vuelva a haber
Más viudas y huerfanitos,
Más crímenes y delitos,
Y lárguense a trabajar,
Los que quieren,
SIN SUDAR,
Coger los mangos bajitos.

Viva la paz! Viva la Unión!
Y abajo los cogedores de mangos bajitos!
Allé, Allé, a buscar qué hacer,
Y dejen al país tranquilo!

>>14956495
It is easier to be a good poet than a good prose writer

Verse. Prose is too pozzed by modernity and often takes me out of something when i notice modern trends of structure and vernacular.

>>14956495
Prose and also >>14956848

>>14956495
I like poetic prose, rhyming is gay

>>14956495
this is the way to go. call it poetic prose or whatever.

>>14956848
lol look at Faulkner, Joyce, Nabokov. All failed poets who are good prose writers. Writing good poetry is EXTREMELY hard that not even the best prose writers can achieve it. Writing good prose is simpler, it's a more common type of writing.

Good prose does pay attention to rhythm and uses figurative language.

What is the point of writing ideas in rhythm? I'm legit autistic, please someone explain

>>14956848
t. someone who doesn't read or write poetry

>>14957032
Nowhere in the OP does it say "writing ideas in rhythm". Yes, you are legit autistic.

>>14957011
Faulkner said that failed poets turn to short stories, and when they fail at short stories they become novelists.

>>14957061

>>14957049
Not true. I was reading some Auden earlier this morning.
>>14957011
you could say the same thing about many poets who attempted to write good novels or more narrative literature after succeeding in poetry. Look at Eliot.

>>14956495
i prefer reading prose, i prefer writing poetically

>>14957079
>you could say the same thing about many poets who attempted to write good novels or more narrative literature after succeeding in poetry.
Shakespeare? That one went well.
>Look at Eliot.
You mean his plays? Either way it's a different case because he already had succeeded in the hardest form of literature, while the writers I mentioned were still to prove their worth.

>>14956829
las decimas son top patrician, muy exigentes en la estructura pero muy musicales. Excelente, gracias por compartir.

>>14956713
pleb detected

>>14957079
Eliot's verse dramas are usually well regarded by literary critics. I don't see what your point is.

Halfway between the cage and the cell the french language has cageot, a simple lattice box for the transportation of these fruits that'll surely make a malady out of any kind of suffocation.
Assembled in a way that makes it effortless to break after usage, it isn't used twice. It thus last even less than the melting, cloudy goods it contains.
On the corner of every street ending up at the halles, there it shines in the unbashful white woods glow. Still new, and slightly bushed of being irrevocably dumped on the road in an unfortunate pose, this object is most sympathetic after all – a fate, however, that shouldn't be dwelled upon at length.

Halfway between the cage and the cell the french language has cageot, a simple lattice box for the transportation of these fruits that'll surely make a malady out of any kind of suffocation.
Assembled in a way that makes it effortless to break after usage, it isn't used twice. It thus last even less than the melting, cloudy goods it contains.
On the corner of every street ending up at the halles, there it shines the unbashful white woods glow. Still new, and slightly bushed of being irrevocably dumped on the road in an unfortunate pose, this object is most sympathetic after all – a fate, however, that shouldn't be dwelled upon at length.

Has anybody read Billy Collins's poetry?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n-a8ELOVig4
>>14957272
¡De nada, compadre de sótano!

>>14956495
>"Prose does not pay attention to rhyme and rhythm"
Idiot. Must be your third level literature.

Holy fucking shit, imagine thinking that the "ordinary form" of language doesn't pay attention to metrical structure.

>>14957968
Very rarely. It mostly cares for content.

>>14957977
Language exists through time and space witn a rhythm whether it's spoken or in a text format

>>14958005
That's chaotic rhythm, what they mean here is poetic metre.

>>14956495
Wrong question these days. Better to ask
>Which do you prefer, /lit/:
>Prose passed off as verse?
>Or verse passed off as prose?

Prose. I tried to read Eugene Onegin once and actually finished it, but it really wasn't for me.

>>14956495
These are all horrible, horrible definitions. Whoever wrote it doesn't know first thing about language or versification.

>>14956829
Oh, my cousin told me about this, he used to write sones jarochos, and he told me that a great way to remember the décima structure is by doing two spiderman hands, palm facing down, thumbs next to each other. I miss the dude. Passed away in 2010

ABBAACCDDC

Is there even good english verse? I haven't read any poetry or similar things that I've at all liked.

How do I get into poetry?
What books should I read to get familiar with the definitions and subtleties. I found Pound's book to be extremely helpful but certain aspects about it remain elusive

Of course, if you somehow can write great poetry AND great prose, you're a god, aren't you?

>>14958640
what Pound book?

How did prose manage to overtake verse in recent literature?

>>14958657
ABC of Reading

>>14959720
the rise of realism in literature, the overtaking of religion and spirituality by rationalism and materialism, etc.

does anyone have any poetry collection recommendations for someone who never read any but is interested?

>>14956495
Preferring prose is the sure sign of a pleb

Good prose does pay attention to rhythm, and even rhyme.

>>14956495
Narrative verse>Prose

>>14958027
What's chaotic rhythm, really? It sounds like you made it up.

>>14957007
>poetic prose
Anon, this already exists and it's retarded.

>>14957119
>>14957550
Not them but I think a better example is Yeats, a very good poet whose plays suck cock.

>>14962658
I had to make a distinction considering you think every kind of rhythm is the same somehow. Yes, languages have their own distinct rhythm but that's not the same as what the OP refers to as "metrical rhythm" (aka poetic metre). Prose and spoken language don't have metrical rhythm generally.

>>14963651
He was a poet first and a playwright second. The guys I mentioned wanted to be poets first and failed. They weren't successful novelists when they wrote poetry. So, not really the same.

A line in verse is no thing;
two, still not some thing.
But three may impress upon
the reader a certain song
a rhythm, a beat
force him to take a seat
to appreciate fully
what no no thing would sully

What is a syllable, and why is this so hard? Carriage return.

>>14961176
>narrative prose
patrician

>>14964001
>upon...
>the reader (.)? a certain song
This is why I can never read verse or take its authors seriously. Why lay it out in this stupid way?
To make it easier
to read for musicians?
Fucking nonsense, I say.

>>14957011
It's a shame because they wrote such poetic prose. Like, at certain times in the episode Ithaca in Ulysses it reads like a John Ashbery poem

>>14956495
I’m disappointed the Verse part wasn’t written in verse

>>14960051
>the overtaking of religion and spirituality by rationalism and materialism

Has that improved literature in any way?

The best poems, plays, short stories, and novels are far above anything any of the illiterates on this board can produce anyway. Rather than tussle about stupid shit, read all of them and learn from all of them.

Poetry is the best form though since it does the most with least.

>>14966439
based

>>14959720
writing in verse is hard
writing in prose is easier

>>14960886
Look into the Norton Anthologies, anon. Highlight your favorite poems and go from there.

>>14966619
Prose is easier, but this is the equivalent of comparing Everest to K2. It both hard to achieve the poetic and philosophic concision of Yeats or Donne, as it is to achieve the sprawling historical immensity of Tolstoy or the wordplay of Joyce for pages and pages. One takes years of refinement and the other takes less refinement but more research and structuring. They are both immense endeavours.

>>14967031
thank you very much anon i appreciate it