/lit/ - Literature

When the expression of the creator's idea would be aided by violating a grammatical rule more than it would be hindered by that violation, it's okay to do it.

Only the writer can make the judgment as to whether or not that's the case, and he or she, if he or she wants to be taken seriously, had better hope it was the right decision to make.

using the voice of insanity obviously. love being the perfect subject to voice it.

>>2120747
>>2120747

>the black want splashing their faces
>saying again nine days never floated the loved
>nor nine months
>nor nine lives

I don't have anything really to add other than wow, doesn't that send shivers down your spine?

>nine days never floated the loved

Awesome.

But there's no grammar being massively broken, OP - poetry is about metaphor and rhythm and scansion and the feel of words as they vibrate against the cage you throw them into and say NO WORDS, YOU ARE NOT WILD NOW - U R POEM. STAY STILL, BUT MOVE AND DANCE FOR THE PRETTY BOY, HE IS PAYING.

So anyway, grammar is less important to poetry than is the rhythm and the meaning. The fact that Beckett has clearly fucked with your head, and his poetry has made you scurry amongst his words like a little rat, scared of the future, this means that poetry is working.

You don't get that in a novel - because novels aren't as good.

>>2120776
General Vagueness !9N4nUN7jEY

v defined

>>2120747

>I like the feel it gives the poem though.
>I like the feel it gives the poem though.
>I like the feel it gives the poem though.
>I like the feel it gives the poem though.
>I like the feel it gives the poem though.
>I like the feel it gives the poem though.
>I like the feel it gives the poem though.

I cannot explain how amazing it feels to read this for once on /lit/. Young padawan (since it's Becket, maybe a Paddywan, amirite?), you are beginning to reach the borders of poetry.

Beckett is something else - his poetics are more like music, to me - something baroque where you listen to it and think "how can two choirboys and a harp be so pleasing, and yet I have no erection".

Beckett is like harpsichord hip-hop. His novels are pretty fucking extraordinary as well.

Greatest writer of the 20th century? Greatest Writer of the 20th century, although pic related may be knocking on the window. but we'll tell the blind cunt that the party was round the corner and his driver ripped him off, to be sure.

>>2120776
Yeah, the grammar must have have been chosen to express something. It's hard trying to figure out what that something is. I relate to it intangibly, whatever it is.
>>2120783
Haha, I agree with much of what you said. It does send shivers down my spine. For me poetry is better because it has so many more instant thrills.

>grammar is less important to poetry than is the rhythm and the meaning
This is similar to what Joan Jett was saying. I suppose I'll have to think about this when I write. It's kind of a difficult thing to apply.

>>2120793

oh ho ho ho ho. that would be the wrong picture. i was probaly bean all posmodern annironik.

>I suppose I'll have to think about this when I write. It's kind of a difficult thing to apply.

OK. Beckett was probably the 20th century's best writer, BUT, he was not it's greatest poet. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr. John Berryman:

Dream Song 4
Filling her compact & delicious body
with chicken paprika, she glanced at me
twice.
Fainting with interest, I hungered back
and only the fact that her husband & four other people
kept me from springing on her

or falling at her little feet and crying
"You are the hottest one for years of night
Henry's dazed eyes
have enjoyed, Brilliance." I advanced upon
(despairing) my spumoni. -- Sir Bones: is stuffed,
de world, wif feeding girls. --
Black hair, complexion Latin, jewelled eyes
downcast . . . The slob beside her feasts . . . What wonders is
she sitting on, over there?
The restaurant buzzes. She might as well be on Mars.
Where did it all go wrong? There ought to be a law against Henry.
--Mr. Bones: there is.

gentlemen and scholars, may i present you with:

The Bigness Of Cannon
E. E. Cummings

the bigness of cannon
is skilful,

but i have seen
death’s clever enormous voice
which hides in a fragility
of poppies….

i say that sometimes
on these long talkative animals
are laid fists of huger silence.

I have seen all the silence
full of vivid noiseless boys

at Roupy
i have seen
between barrages,

the night utter ripe unspeaking girls.

>>2120804

Actually, 4chan's way of representan text messed that up a bit - you should go to

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15207

and look at it there - there's more Berryman there as well. Check out Ashbery while you're there as well. You'll like him, you fucking faggot. But ashbery's pretty rokkin' as well.

>>2120793
>His novels are pretty fucking extraordinary as well
I read Molloy and thought it was pretty amazing. I love the way the character Molloy is simultaneously so strange and funny and poetic. And the ending is one of the most mind-bending and memorable I've come across.

Malone Dies is a different story though unfortunately. I'm reading it at the moment. While Molloy didn't have so much of a plot (and I loved it for it), Malone Dies is so much more extreme in that respect. It's so much harder. I couldn't wrap my head around this sentence:
>The forms are many in which the unchanging seeks relief from its formlessness

This one's awesome, as well:

John Berryman - Dream Song 50

In a motion of night they massed nearer my post.
I hummed a short blues. When the stars went out
I studied my weapons system.
Grenades, the portable rack, the yellow spout
of the anthrax-ray: in order. Yes, and most
of my pencils were sharp.

This edge of the galaxy has often seen
a defence so stiff, but it could only go
one way.
—Mr Bones, your troubles give me vertigo,
& backache. Somehow, when I make your scene,
I cave to feel as if

de roses of dawns & pearls of dusks, made up
by some ol' writer-man, got right forgot
& the greennesses of ours.
Springwater grow so thick it gonna clot
and the pleasing ladies cease. I figure, yup,
you is bad powers.

>>2120814

>The forms are many in which the unchanging seeks relief from its formlessness

There are lots of different ways in which a someone who perceives themselves as constant and unchanging looks for ways to avoid thinking about all the ways in which they are not so together as they would have hoped.

>>2120810

Aw man, dropping some ol' skool beats - respect is due, cos that is a proper fukken poem man. Gotta love the cummings.

>>2120793
>I cannot explain how amazing it feels to read this for once on /lit/.

I agree. It seems the majority of this board's posters cannot stomach a poem which doesn't contain a definite meter and strict rhyme scheme. It is as if there hasn't been a "real" poem written since the death of Keats.

BOOYAKASHA, bringin' knowledge an respect to the Sam Beckett scene - nuff respeck an love an alla dem t'ing. Hear me now:

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

YOU GOT MOTHERFUCKING BURNING KINGFISHERS UP IN YO SHIT? THOUGHT NOT, BITCH. MANLEY HOPKINS POSSE REPRESENTING IN THE ELL EYE TEEE.

There was this terrific battle.
The noise was as much
As the limits of possible noise could take.
There were screams higher groans deeper
Than any ear could hold.
Many eardrums burst and some walls
Collapsed to escape the noise.
Everything struggled on its way
Through this tearing deafness
As through a torrent in a dark cave.

The cartridges were banging off, as planned,
The fingers were keeping things going
According to excitement and orders.
The unhurt eyes were full of deadliness.
The bullets pursued their courses
Through clods of stone, earth, and skin,
Through intestines pocket-books, brains, hair, teeth
According to Universal laws
And mouths cried "Mamma"
From sudden traps of calculus,
Theorems wrenched men in two,
Shock-severed eyes watched blood
Squandering as from a drain-pipe
Into the blanks between the stars.
Faces slammed down into clay
As for the making of a life-mask
Knew that even on the sun's surface
They could not be learning more or more to the point
Reality was giving it's lesson,
Its mishmash of scripture and physics,
With here, brains in hands, for example,
And there, legs in a treetop.
There was no escape except into death.
And still it went on--it outlasted
Many prayers, many a proved watch
Many bodies in excellent trim,
Till the explosives ran out
And sheer weariness supervened
And what was left looked round at what was left.

(cont.)

>>2120850
Then everybody wept,
Or sat, too exhausted to weep,
Or lay, too hurt to weep.
And when the smoke cleared it became clear
This has happened too often before
And was going to happen too often in the future
And happened too easily
Bones were too like lath and twigs
Blood was too like water
Cries were too like silence
The most terrible grimaces too like footprints in mud
And shooting somebody through the midriff
Was too like striking a match
Too like potting a snooker ball
Too like tearing up a bill
Blasting the whole world to bits
Was too like slamming a door,
Too like dropping in a chair
Exhausted with rage
Too like being blown up yourself
Which happened too easily
With too like no consequences.

So the survivors stayed.
And the earth and the sky stayed.
Everything took the blame.

Not a leaf flinched, nobody smiled.

>>2120850

Well, the crows were OK, but the other contestant had kingfishers, and they caught on fire. I think you've got a future, it's just not on this show.

Three issues of a contemporary poetry magazine here, in PDF. It's adventurous as well. Interesting reading!

http://halfcircle.org/J_O_U_R_N_A_L.html

>>2120864

yeah yeah, prolly porn or a virus. no thankee.

This is my belief on it.

"When the written word wanders away from conventional rules, it ought to be moving toward something. Color outside the lines, yes, but do so because you’re drawing a new picture, not because you’re scribble-checking whether the ballpoint pen still has ink."

-Reasoning With Vampires. http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/overview

>>2120850

Yeh, nice. I like the way that everyone else tried to keep theirs a bit shorter, and more punchy, and then you launched a wall of fucking text, because you're an attention seeking tripfag cunt.

Yeah, that was sweet.

>>2120885
This is me, I'd like to continue and sadly 4chan has no 'edit' button.

As far as breaking grammar rules (in anything) goes, like RWV said, do it with a purpose. If you have a reason to besides "WELL IT SEEMS COOL LOL", do it.

Actually, do it even if it's "WELL IT SEEMS COOL LOL", because the occasional experimentation is always a positive thing, and sometimes you can find out awesome shit from it.

I don't write poetry, I write fiction, but I figure this rings true for poetry as well?

>>2120886
It's a brilliant fucking poem relevant to the original point of the thread. Go fuck yourself, the attention should go to the poem... if you're not a moron.

>>2120879
>porn or a virus
>J_O_U_R_N_A_L.html

You, sir, are a cunt. Same goes for you >>2120886
If you spent any time here, you'd know Behemoth is awesome.

>>2120904
Hi, Behemoth.

>>2120893

In poetry, it seems to me that you have two options really.

option 1:

obey the forms, do the metre, check all your trochees and iambs and alla dem shit, maintain your scansion and a tight asshole, because here come da poetry

option 2)

Ignore dem form and stuff, but now you gotta be super fucking awesome, like Samuel L. Beckett/Christopher Smartt/Ted Hughes level awesome, because now you are on your own bitch. You fall, we ain't catching you.

The only important thing about poetry is that it makes you shudder or cry or come or violent: any of the feelings that sex or music create - then you're into poetry.

>>2120906
>hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr samefag durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
This ain't /b/ man go home.

>>2120904

>mfw both of the posts you replied to were by the same person, so you could have saved some typing.

>not mfw some newfag summercunt seems to think that the worst tripfag since the kristallnacht of tripfags is somehow anything less than execrable.

>>2120904
>>2120864

Oh, fucking marvellous. Pr0n AND viruses. Cheers, fuckers.

>>2120914
The problem with Behemoth (and most tripfags, really) is that he's just too fucking arrogant.

It's off-putting as fuck.

>>2120920

IF poster AND arrogant THEN trip

IF poster AND do NOT try too hard THEN anon

>>2120925
I'm one of the only people you will ever see on 4chan concede points in a debate or straight up say "I don't know."

All this just for posting a poem relevant to the thread in the first place...

So does someone else have something to actually contribute?

My Erotic Double by John Ashbery

He says he doesn't feel like working today.
It's just as well. Here in the shade
Behind the house, protected from street noises,
One can go over all kinds of old feeling,
Throw some away, keep others. The wordplay
Between us gets very intense when there are
Fewer feelings around to confuse things.
Another go-round? No, but the last things
You always find to say are charming, and rescue me
Before the night does. We are afloat
On our dreams as on a barge made of ice,
Shot through with questions and fissures of starlight
That keep us awake, thinking about the dreams
As they are happening. Some occurrence. You said it.

I said it but I can hide it. But I choose not to.
Thank you. You are a very pleasant person.
Thank you. You are too.

The Fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law devine
In one another's being mingle -
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain'd its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea -
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

Shelley