/lit/ - Literature

I personally don’t like Wordsworth or Blake. Everything ain’t for everybody.

I do however like Coleridge a lot, and Byron. Alex Haley is good. Don’t give a shit about Dickinson and that’s okay.

Read around until you find something you like. Don’t worry about status, people’s reputations are often based on who they were connected to when alive, or who they impressed after they died.

Poetry’s a lot more like songwriting than anything else. You don’t have to understand all the technical pieces of it to enjoy it, and you don’t need to know all the terms for the meter. That type of analysis was invented by high school teachers to fill class time.

>>22641083
Write poetry, read criticism. Read poetry, write criticism.

>>22641083
Dude just read, you don't need to "get" poetry any more than you need to get 4channel shitposts. Poems aren't ciphers and they're not math problems. Arguably, reading without any investigative effort, trusting the poet's design, is the highest degree of respect to his work. If you enjoy a poem you will eventually return to it, read it more, notice small details, memorize the best verses, note the internal rhyme and the clever linguistic tricks that bring structure and symmetry to it, but don't go hunting for it, just fucking treat it like music in print.

>>22641712
How do you “treat it like music” though? That is my main question. When I read a poem in English, I see nothing in it other than a constrained set of sentences.

You shouldn't be analyzing the meter or structure of poetry as you read it any more than you analyze the structure of music as you listen to it. All that stuff is there to allow the writer to emphasize and play with spoken language. Which naturally means you need to read poetry OUT LOUD. That's how its intended to be delivered and listened to.
The next step would be to try writing some poetry yourself and copy and modify the techniques used by poets you've read to elicit the desired effect on the spoken word. But that's an entirely separate process from enjoying poetry as the listener.

You 'get' poetry the same way you 'get' any other piece of creative work. You let the medium evoke it's essence in your imagination and enjoy the sentiment left behind, potentially musing on it. Not everyone likes the same art, maybe you haven't found a particular poet or poem you genuinely like yet for whatever reason. Naturally some works are harder to penetrate than others, usually either for the gradient of their particular level of abstraction or just their reliance on a certain level of understood convention being required to put the work into context. So, if this is the case for you start with popular contemporary work, and then work your way backwards in time from there is all the accurate advice I can really give you. Personally I am a fan of Rudyard Kipling, and of antiquity Euripides.

>>22641083
Buy the Norton Anthology of Poetry and just read around.

>>22641731
Penetrate, lol

>>22641083
Are you bouncing around different authors and schools of poetry? Once I found some poetry I enjoyed, I was able to start branching out into other forms of poetry that had previously not affected me at all.

i feel like this forum usually recommends starting with classics or whatever, but if you're just trying to enjoy stuff just start with what you enjoy lol. like I went backwards from New York School poets to Rimbaud and Baudelaire to Milton and Dante all of which I love now, but it had to start with me just enjoying O'Hara's cozy pop-ramblings about drinking cold cokes on the sidewalk.

>>22641776
Funnily enough, Dante is the only poet I have truly enjoyed. But yes, I have mostly tried the “classic” poets. Do you recommend a particular pop-poet?

I like William Blake but I have only read Songs of Innocence and of Experience

>>22641799
I tried to get into Blake because I love his etchings of Job, but I wasn’t enjoying myself much so I stopped. Maybe I should give him another shot.

>>22641810
When I got two kittens it all made sense

>>22641794
Milton not do it for you, then? Here’s some 20th century guys n gals.

>O’Hara
pretty popular. It wasn’t so long ago that copies of Lunch Poems were everywhere in my city. Check out “Meditations in an Emergency.”
> Ashbery
opaque, pleasant, and dynamic. If you don’t like free verse he’s done a few sestinas. He also did my favorite translations of Rimbaud.
>Elliot
If you tried the Waste Land, try again with Four Quartets. A modernist I’ll recommend to anyone.
>Pound
His cantos get all the attention, but his translations of japanese and chinese poems are beautiful. He saw translation as an important exercise and practice.
>Alice Notley
Her earlier works are my fav. I like her Disobedience collection
>Bernadette Mayer
Midwinters Day. Domestic, quiet.

>>22642224
Thank you my friend, those are great recommendations.

I haven’t read Milton besides some small bits for school. I am sure I will get to it at some point.

>>22641712
>poetry isn't a riddle
then how come every single poetry nerd strokes their minuscule cocks over how intellectually superior they are?

>>22641083

When You Are Old - W. B. Yeats read by Cillian Murphy | Powerful Life Poetry - 1:55min

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dEHjBPS21A8&pp=ygUfd2hlbiB5b3UgYXJlIG9sZCBjaWxsaWFuIG11cnBoeQ%3D%3D

>>22641746
This is good

>>22641083
But Mary Oliver’s Handbook is better

Every American who wants to better understand poetry should read a lot of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry.

>>22642303
Don't forget Longfellow.

I think the musical aspect is an important part of “getting” poetry, but what made me really “get it” was realizing that poetry is something like demonstrating talent with language. A a really good poem is not all that unlike watching a professional athlete in their sport, the swordplay of a master swordsman, a painter who is so skilled with a brush and colors that it’s almost unfathomable how they can go from a blank canvas to something so beautiful. When you write a poem, you’re basically playing with language in order to make something that is somehow more than just mere language. You know what I mean? It’s like language elevated to its most good and true purpose and understanding that is the key to appreciating and through appreciating “getting” poetry.

>>22642275
It's less about intellectual superiority and more about breaking the cult-like conditioning of the modern realignment of culture. You have to realize that poetry was central to culture, rather than just a peripheral niche for academic frauds, for the vast majority of literate (and before) history - the fact that it's been so unceremoniously pushed aside in favor of novels and philosophy is no less of a reversal than the turn from monarchy to democracy, and it's really disorienting to realize the extent to which people, even in an pseudo-countercultural community that is ostensibly based on literature, are limited to an extremely provincial perspective.

>>22641083
Read Actual Air by David Berman. That usually resonates with most beginners and is an incredible gateway. Can find it for free online.

>>22642265
no problem anon. hope you find somethin you enjoy whether on this list or not.

>>22641083
>I find that I can’t really focus on the meter and the meaning of the poem at the same time.
I read primarily poetry but I totally get this, I think it's just a muscle you have to build and maybe a sign that you have to re-read poetry in order to really read it. It's like music, sight reading something smoothly when playing it for the first time is difficult and you wouldn't necessarily expect to get full enjoyment out of the piece when trying to do that. You have to spend time with it, get to know it.
>but I still don’t really get what is so great about a poem as opposed to other, more clear forms of writing
Poetry is about pleasure, not communicating information. If you are reading for information, poetry is not for you.

>>22641083
Learn a different language. English poetry sucks.

>>22642303
>Every American who wants to better understand poetry should read a lot of Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry.
Poe's poetry is riddled with mistakes. He was not a skilled poet. His work sucks.

>>22641799
>>>22641810
Go try out The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, great way to see the multiplicity of Blake's work. I feel it encompasses all the different aspects of his body of work without it being too overwhelming because his later stuff can be much harder to get into

>>22644826
What don't you like about English poetry? Why is poetry in other languages better?
>“Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer remember,
>Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice
>Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its left hand,
>And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice presided
>Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the people.
>Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the balance,
>Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them.
>But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted;
>Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty
>Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman’s palace
>That a necklace of pearls was lost, and erelong a suspicion
>Fell on an orphan girl who lived as a maid in the household.
>She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold,
>Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of Justice.
>As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended,
>Lo! o’er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the thunder
>Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand
>Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance,
>And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie,
>Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was inwoven.”
>>22644866
>Poe's poetry is riddled with mistakes
Any examples?

It's just prose with line breaks and other extra steps. Don't dismiss me too quickly. The psych literature is clear that creativity flourishes within constraints, no matter how artificial they are. Poetry is a set of artifivial constraints. That's why many successful writers are failed poets.

>>22641776
>>22641712
>>22642224
>>22643270
based poetry anons. fully agree with these guys OP. I would also add Larry Levis and AR Ammons's short poems as good starting points. Stay away from Ammons's longer work for a little bit. It's incredible but to really absorb it you need to be immersed in poetry for a while. The shorter lyrics (I think they're collected in a book titled "The Shorter Poems Of etc") are wonderful.

Also; OP; please read James Dickey's "The Firebombing" and "The Shark's Parlor" (both poems, you can find them online) so you don't wind up thinking that poetry is just something for effete consumptives. Muscular, powerful, thunderous poetry. Highly recommend.

>>22641083
Robert Browning was my gateway. His dramatic monologues are grounded in the literal and usually read like prose that just happens to rhyme in iambic pentameter.

>>22641083
What's your first language? English or Italian?

>>22641083
>I still don’t really get what is so great about a poem as opposed to other, more clear forms of writing
Good poetry attempts to capture what "clear" writing can't through ambiguity, reference and established tradition, while limiting themselves to musical rules meant to add that dionysian dimension and to set a limit of how well a single something can be expressed under those particular constraints. I suspect you read for a reason that doesn't jive with the goals of poetry. But if you are really trying to get into it I would recommend learning about the sublime, the archetypes and a little bit of how music works on peoples imagination. Jungs man and his symbols, Burkes philosophical inquiries into the sublime and Nietzsches birth of tragedy are pretty good at expressing what I think poetry is particularly good at getting at, though not directly. Also you kind of just have to find a poet you are actually into. For me my first poetic love was Thomas Moores translations of the odes to Anacrion. I would recommend them for sure.

>>22642375
Poetry was even more important in pre-literate times. Peasants used to have hundreds of lines memorised. It used to comprise large swathes of what was considered an education. Poetry used to be *the* culture: common words shared across a people that furnish the collective mental landscape. A large reason why poetry just doesn’t matter anymore is that our world is a culture of bastards.

>>22647636
Yeah I didn’t want to get into too much detail but this is very true. I’ve seen people say on here (no idea if this theory has any real truth to it but it makes some amount of sense) that the whole thing started out with the purpose of a memorization scheme.

>>22647556
Based Greek poetry appreciator. Anacreon is top tier, any other favorite Greeks, or favorite pieces by him? I’m trying to make my way through the whole extant corpus, first in translation then in the original. Alcaeus was the first one that really captured my imagination, probably due to his being one of the originators of the exile-poet tradition.

>>22648026
I don't have much more to recommend as far as the greeks Im afraid. All the other Greek poetry I have read is pretty standard (the epics, the hymns of orpheus and the homeric hymns) and all in translation. I will have to check out Alcaeus. What translation would you recommend? As far as Thomas Moore, I had an old complete collection of his works that has now fallen apart. He wrote a decent amount of anacreontics himself which I was particularly drawn to. I have always been drawn to revelry in poetry. You might check out the decadent poets if you are drawn to that kind of thing as well.

>>22648077
Oh I don't know that he's really objectively interesting, I just thought the whole warrior-poet concept was really cool. The actual material that exists from him is pretty meager and fragmentary, it shows a well-balanced poet who perhaps doesn't excel in any one area but possesses great force of personality and an integrated worldview and poetic voice capable of treating many different subjects without being discordant. As for translations I've just read the Loeb edition but I think there are some older translations that freely interpolate so as to fill in the missing fragments.

I love the revelry stuff too, I wish we had more dithyrambs preserved - I know there are a couple by Bacchylides, but I haven't gotten around to reading him yet.

I'm just now reading the Homeric Hymns, they're amazing, way better than I expected.

>>22648264
>I just thought the whole warrior-poet concept was really cool.
I see. I still may check it out. I just might find a pdf of it instead of buy it. If you are still interested in this subject I got a rec for you in the form of pic related. Literal poet knights with an introduction actually worth reading for its expansion on the role of translation in poetry.
>I'm just now reading the Homeric Hymns
The hymns are so good especially if you are looking for more Greek myth primary sources. The Hermes hymns are my favorite. The Orphic hymns are not as good because they are more straight hymn instead of a poetic telling of myth but I think they are invaluable for anybody that wants to write poetry using the greek pantheon as source material. They contain a lot of the different names and associations of all the gods and are, in themselves kind of celebratory in their nature.

>>22649120
>I just might find a pdf of it instead of buy it
That's how I read it.
>pic related
I am vaguely aware of the troubadours, I've read Pound's poem about them and his translations of de Born, and I checked out Arnaut Daniel on his recommendation but it seemed like the kind of thing where a lot was lost in translation, that period is on my list of stuff to revisit though since I'm more comfortable with learning languages now (and I enjoyed the Song of Roland which I assume overlaps somewhat in style/sensibility). For all Pound's eccentricities and failings as a poet and translator, I find myself inexorably drawn closer and closer to his critical sensibilities the more I read.
>Greek myth primary sources
I love this aspect of Greek poetry, the way it's so tied in to their mythos. Even the tragedies throw in those little mythical digressions from the main mythical story that help to connect it even more with the whole of the culture.
>The Orphic hymns are not as good because they are more straight hymn instead of a poetic telling of myth
I thought they would be some extremely cool Bronze Age esoteric shit based on having read stuff about the Orphic religion predating mainstream Greek religion, but then I realized the actual hymns were mostly Classical or later and more self-consciously philosophical. I'll still probably check them out at some point though.

>>22649236
>that period is on my list of stuff to revisit though since I'm more comfortable with learning languages now
I get that. I too have plans on picking up german, french and greek in the interest of reading some things in the original. Very much part of that introduction I mentioned is the fact that poetry translation is at best the translators interpretation of the poem as they understand it and not even necessarily a metric one to one best translation (since in most cases that is near impossible). I very much feel that way about the collection of Baudlaire I have. I think he will be much better in the original language. I just can't justify working on it right now since there is so much in my native language of quality to go through already. I more or less just sate my curiosity on poets translating poets to get a decent representation of what Im missing out on when I get curious or when its a work that inspired some work I already really like.
>I love this aspect of Greek poetry, the way it's so tied in to their mythos.
Thats how I feel about my current obsession, poetry on arthurian legend. I think I might just be really drawn to myth and folk lore in deep poetic form. If I might rec one more thing in this thread to read that is actually native to english speakers, its the faerie queene. Edmund Spencer is second to none in my opinion (of the english speaking poets I've read any way). Its a shame he didn't finish it.

>>22649310
Yeah, I resigned myself long ago to the fact that poetry in translation is a pale imitation and one's plans for reading it must factor in time for learning languages. But I get what you mean about reading in translation for curiosity's sake, that's why I'm doing it that way for the Greeks, I can't bring myself to wait until I'm "fluent". Btw now I'm remembering that Nietzsche, whose aesthetic tastes I also respect, was another one who praised the Provencal tradition.

There's a lot to be said about myth and folklore and their relation to literature, but you're definitely not alone in feeling that way. I think to a certain extent art that is, or is based on, the collaborative project of a culture, is more satisfying than art that's moreso the product of an individual mind. But of course the latter type of art also does things that the former cannot. Arthurian stuff is cool, I don't really know much about it, I gravitated towards the matter of France because it was less familiar to me from popular culture but I'm definitely interested in delving into both of them. Chretien de Troyes seems to be considered one of the absolute best poets from that era in any language or genre. I like Spenser a lot, like I say I don't think the mythos thing can be fully instantiated by a single writer but his imagination is incredibly impressive all the same and he's so technically skilled and the imagery and emotions are so vivid that as a reader you have to just be really thankful that he pursued the project even if the concept is flawed on some higher abstract level. And, on the topic of the thread, it's a great example how poetry can thrive by embracing a certain degree of sumptuous, "excessive" verbosity and totally rejecting the primacy of communicating ideas. I know the critic George Saintsbury was a huge fan of Spenser, so you might be interested in his writings or find them to be a good guide.

>>22641083
READ

HOW

>>22649630
TO

>>22649634
READ

>>22641083
same here. too much formalism.
prose is poetry to me.