/lit/ - Literature

bumping with a /lit/ classic

A Rumor in Gomorrah

A man has told me god is good,
and stands above all men,
that he will never cast us forth,
though drenched with lust and sin,
That though we heed him little,
and pursue our own accord
he will not seek our bane nor yet,
unsheath his deadly sword
that he forgives excesses
and will not our prayers reject.

There was rumor in Gomorrah,
to that very same effect.

A friend avers that government,
has all our cares in mind.
And will not neglect the comfort of
the poor, the halt, the blind.
he maintains unreservedly,
his faith in policy.
to bring the fruits of honor to
the strong the just, the free.
he says the great in power seek
the profit of all men

It was mentioned in Treblinka,
but I did not heed it then.

Technology will save us,
i have heard a stranger say.
The wonderment of science,
skill, and tools will win the day.
Our comfort and our safety
we may leave to wise devices.
And men who build and train them up,
will coddle all our vices.
they'll see the future clearly
and avert all waiting dooms.

I think I heard it spoken in
Titanic's smoking rooms.

The forgiveness of the strong is great,
I'm sure most men agree.
The wisest and the best of us
will surely all be free.
the bold men, wise in letters
with their eye on public weal.
will never be cast out or forced
their knowledge to conceal.
Time alters soon the hearts of kings,
and all will be put right.

I heard it in the Gulag
almost every single night.

So go forth with the banner
of of redemption wafting high
and shout the slogan "Liberty!"
in land and sea and sky.
Of justice, peace, forgiveness, love,
proclaim the coming reign.
And cry the truth to power,
and the vanity of gain
That mercy always triumphs,
and that men will all be free.

Go tell them in Gomorrah,
but you didn't come from me.

>>5474076
Kolsti's latest poem, called "Onions"

The subjectivist in me
says I’m already Shakespeare
But I haven’t been paid for my writing
since 2010.
(And I haven’t been paid to write
since 2009.)

I shoot classicists the Jaden Smith brow
when they dare suggest that
Tao Lin, E.L. James and Thomas Pynchon
aren’t inherently equal as artists.
I take the Costanza batting stance
when someone calls Schubert inarguably better than Nickelback.
That’s easy. If you’re real you’ll
kill yourself
mort de l’auteur motherfucker
mort de l’auteur motherfucker

I’m better than Joyce
I’m better than Wallace
I’m better than Cervantes
I’m better than Dante
I’m better than Pound and Stein and Homer and Hesse
I’m better than the whole canon and you can’t debate that
without defining your terms

define “art”
define “linguistic construct”
define “define”
define “better”
define “fuck off you edgy Marx-via-Batman Turdwig Shittgenstein”
define “fuck your postmetamucil”
define “stop viraling your shit on /lit/ you aren’t tao lin”
define “I would insult you by calling you an undergrad but you’re not even that”
define “literary giant”
define “arrogant”

>>5476574
I'm new to poetry, is the praise this guy getting ironic or not? The last stanza is pretty good, but I don't get what people mean if it's amazing. If they are being serious about it, can someone deconstruct it for me?

>>5476683
>That's easy. If you're real you'll
>kill yourself
>mort de l'auteur motherfucker
He's taking the postmodern embrace of subjectivity ("Tao Lin, E.L. James, and Thomas Pynchon") and the postmodern disregard for the author and implying there's a cowardice in having both of them. It's easy to wear thick-rimmed glasses and get an MFA and say Tao Lin is better than James Joyce, but calling yourself better than Shakespeare and Dante and Cervantes takes some balls. Then in the last stanza he sends some uniquely sharp fuck yous to detractors. "define 'arrogant'" is a pretty smart way to summarize the theme of the poem.

On top of all that, "Turdwig Shittgenstein", "postmetamucil", "Jaden Smith brow", "Costanza batting stance" and "mort de l'auteur motherfucker" are really great turns of phrase.

>>5476574
I can see what /lit/ sees in him. This one's great but that Phuc thing is shit.

>>5476767
I think I get it more now. Still have a question about it though. Don't these lines contradict each other?:


I shoot classicists the Jaden Smith brow
when they dare suggest that
Tao Lin, E.L. James and Thomas Pynchon
aren’t inherently equal as artists.
I take the Costanza batting stance
when someone calls Schubert inarguably better than Nickelback.

I'm probably reading something wrong, but what's the difference between them? Is it criticizing people who want to hold an opinion where they state that authors such as the first few are equal, and then make a statement saying one artist is objectively better than another?

>>5476913
He's just repeating the same sentiment. He's giving a condescending look to classicists who say tao, 50 shades woman and pinecone are NOT all equal. He's taking the costanza stance (shiggy) when people say Schubert is objectively better than Nickelback. He's the anti-youtube commenter I guess.

>>5476913
I thought about the same thing. Him criticizing criticism and then stating that he is in fact, the best one out there. I was going to post and ask why but then I just figured that that was the point, in a way.

>>5476936
Oh, okay, missed that. Thanks.

>>5476574
this type of stuff could only possibly be praised on a place like /lit/ where over-reference and multi-level irony are the norm. on one hand I'm happy for him for figuring out how to have an audience, he's not totally untalented. on the other hand I think you're deluded if you think anyone outside of this forum will ever like it. it's decent to good to a micro-audience, incomprehensible and stupid to everyone else.

>>5476936
>He's just repeating the same sentiment
so he's a bad poet

>>5477546
his pandas poem is pretty universal. his emojis/hard to be unique poem is, for millenials, incredibly universal.

>>5477560
restatement in different context for emphasis within the same poem isn't bad poetry. show don't tell minimalism isn't a universal rule of good poetry. plus it's not exactly the same thing. he's extending the idea to a different art form and comparing artists well-liked yet completely different artists and then comparing Schubert to fucking Nickelback. It's not empty repetition.

>>5477567
>pandas poem
link?

>>5477612
http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/94588406825/and-me-im-no-stranger-to-culms-of-bamboo-in

>>5477546
Uh, compared to the obscure Bulgarian folklore most poets reference, Jaden Smith, Thomas Pynchon and Seinfeld are pretty accessible allusions.

>>5477730
oh my god he has been viralling here. i thought he might have been telling the truth that it's all just some people trolling him. though to be honest i don't pay attention to him that much.

i remember this poem, never knew who wrote it but i remember it being not that good and the threads being filled with people praising it to high heaven. i remember thinking then and having other people think that it was the author samefagging because the praise was so unrealistic for the quality of the poem.

>>/lit/thread/S4109631#p4116697

i wonder if he actually thinks he's this talented or if he's just trying to cheat his way to a reputation for being talented

overall, not one of the best poets to come to /lit/, not by a longshot. may be able to cheat his way to a 1 page write up in a major magazine, if he gets lucky. but that doesn't have much to do with talent

>>5477769
You don't pay attention much. He got found because he posted memorable stuff in critique threads, told people he'd make a site, and then got googled. A simple archive search of most of his writing will show that he gives his stuff a test run here before posting it elsewhere. Why do you think for the longest time he was known as Phuc Kid?

>>5477769
>jealousy

Am Fluss im Wald lebt eine wilde Nymphe,
trägt Lindenblätter über ihre Hüfte,
ein Kleid aus Laub, und lange, grüne Strümpfe.
Die Brust hüpft frei durch warme Sommerlüfte.
Ich sah sie mit dem milden Wasser spielen
und zu den Melodien des Waldes tanzen,
und Früchte essen, die ihr wohl gefielen,
und singen hört ich sie von Tier und Pflanzen.
Doch schrak sie auf, sobald sie mich erkannte.
Wie eine Hirschkuh stand sie auf der Stelle.
Sie zwinkerte noch kurz, bevor sie rannte
den Ufersand entlang in großer Schnelle.
Ich lief ihr nach, weil ich sie so begehrte,
und konnte bald den süßen Leib erfassen.
Auch wenn sie spielend meines Griffs sich wehrte,
hab ich sie meine Stärke spüren lassen.
Ich hielt die Nymphe fest in meinen Armen.
Sie wandte sich, um wieder Flucht zu fröhnen,
doch als ich sanft den Busen biss, den warmen,
entkam dem Kichermund ein leichtes Stöhnen.


Unfinished.

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
“I will not kiss your fucking flag”

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation’s blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
“there is some shit I will not eat”

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

> i was so excited to use this in a paper in highschool
> mfw I was excited because it had the word 'fuck' in it

>>5478698
No his stuff really isn't very good. It's like he's afraid to try anything challenging or deep or even arch and sardonic beyond "emperors new clothes" mockery. And he's notorious for samefagging out-of-orbit praise like "genius" and "I find this humbling" and whatnot on the same line. He's never analyzed or discussed in any temrs except the most vague and buzzwordy or laudatory style.

He's trying certainly, and he gets of a good phrase and a memorable line occasionally, but you sort of get the feeling that he's not really capable of getting his shtick to work in a conventional, non-cynical effort. Like it would be hard to rap a lullaby
He could prove me wrong with a sonnet, of course. Or even a very apt and smoothly worded limerick.

The samefagging does get a bit old though..

>>5478843
Someone go ask him if he samefags

>>5478849
I'm sure his response would settle the issue definitively. It's easier to believe that it's him posting those out of range ecstasies than that there are enough random people in the threads he posts in with such abysmal taste.

>>5478812
Nicht schlecht

>>5478854
>abysmal taste

he doesn't deserve that. He's a kid, and he's a bit of a tryhard and maybe affecting a jaded and supercilious contempt for conventional standards, not to mention structure, coherence and "skill" and "cleverness" is how he sees post-postmodernism. You seem to be assuming he's just a tryhard kid who's afraid to try his hand at conventional forms and anything with depth or relevance except in a very superficial way because he's not sure of himself.
maybe he just doesn't want to jump into the deep end of the pool yet. he'll get there if he works hard.

And if he really wanted critiques that were honest and straightforward he could post anonymously, without the samefagging (oh my god is theis kolsti's newest masterpiece?" shit.

>>5478876
It's supposed to be a joke, actually. I wanted to see /lit/ react to a borderline pornographic poem with good meter. But I didn't feel like pulling through with the joke completely. So I posted it unfinished. Meh.

>>5478894
Phuc is pretty deep end though

>>5476574
This is absolute rubbish.

>>5478967
Yeah, which is probably why he struggles so hard with it and finally gives up. This kind of thing can be done right, but there's a terrible danger of trying it before you're ready. Buzzwords, overanalysis and archness is a funny trope, and guys like perelman have used it pretty well in the past, but he's only done half the job there. If I were him, or advising him, I'd point out that what he's doing here was done to a "T" in Spy magazine for over a decade, and the complete run of Spy is available free online. I invite everyone here to take a look. National Lampoon is worth a glance as well.

>>5476767
>but calling yourself better than Shakespeare and Dante and Cervantes takes some balls
No it doesn't, you retard.

>On top of all that, "Turdwig Shittgenstein", "postmetamucil", "Jaden Smith brow", "Costanza batting stance" and "mort de l'auteur motherfucker" are really great turns of phrase.
>great turns of phrase
Not at all, you retard.

Kolsti pls go and stop spamming your shit poetry.

>>5477567
>his pandas poem is pretty universal. his emojis/hard to be unique poem is, for millenials, incredibly universal.
kill yourself

>>5478984
To be honest "Le Mort d'Auteur" would have been a good pun

>>5478967
>Phuc is pretty deep
topkek

>>5476767
You know what his stuff makes me think of? that comic book by the Ultimate Warrior

>>5474076
It is to hard-bend around the attempt to rhyme that it has problems establishing an actual meter. Especially in the first stanza there is always that one syllable that keeps it from flowing perfectly.
In the second stanza it completely gives up on a consistent meter, even on the attempt. It seems to care more about rhyming than on developing a flow of language, this much is apparent. However there are some good lines in it, especially the ending - even though, again, the "dear" just seems to be there for the sake of having it rhyme.

>>5475860
The title is fantastic. The poem is almost on the same level, but it kinda drags on in the middle. While reading this, I found myself thinking "Yes, I get it." Still, very strong, even if the meter is lacking in some parts.

>>5476574
Pretty bad. I have no idea why this calls itself a poem, when it is just prose written in an unfitting form.

About Kolsti in general: I remember that one poem of his being posted by him, and while I generally liked it I didn't get much sense out of it. When I asked him about it in that thread, he did an okay explanation. Felt like he really put care and thought into it, so I deemed him talented.

Is this really by him? Because by god, is it bad. And yes, I get that's the point. The point is bad aswell.

>>5479076
He hardly posts here anymore. It's all on his blog and then his autist followers put it on /lit/.

>>5479076
The gomorrah guy is the best poet I've seen on here. He still posts sometimes and somebody made a tumblr of his old stuff. I think all we get of his are first drafts. He sort of uses /lit/ as a testing ground.

>>5479149
Same with Kolsti. I like the idea of /lit/ as a testing ground for writers.

>>5475860

>>5479102
Well, it's been a while that I talked to him on /lit/.

>>5478821
I like some of the lines in here, and the flow of the language is wonderful. But I am afraid I don't get the entire text. Would you mind talking about it a little? I often enjoy reading poets talking about their poetry, and it is usually an indicator how much thought they actually put into their work.

>>5479149
Is he the same guy who wrote "Jesus in Belfast"? Because I like Jesus in Belfast.

Btw, here is a poem of mine.

Translation:

Asking for Gilgamesh

"The high Gilgamesh? He lies at the well
and dreams the paradise's deepest dream:
that Satan has taken his life
and has put him at the abyss' hem.
One cannot brew a life potion:
the snake ate the ever-green foliage.
So the king must build eternal walls,
but city always becomes stone, always becomes dust.
The whole world seems to have fallen into the well.
There is no dream, no green, and is no worm/dragon
and not even sleep, and Babyl's highest tower
is Gilgamesh, who lies at deepest death,
not thrown over, since no overthrowing threatens.
The pit of Babel is dug by everyone."
I turned away.

(The translation is, of course, only of content. Don't think it really gets as much across, but it is atleast readable to non-german speakers.)

>>5479205
Yep. that's him. Jesus in belfast and the travelogue poem and the ninth life.

>>5479205
Travelogue

"Pray What is the news from Babylon?
Does Xerxes ancient town,
Still hold inside the Lion's Pride?
where once the world bowed down?"
"There is no tale of Babylon,
that great long-storied land
The Lion's gates are broken now.
The fields are choked with sand"

"You Tread the Path from Illion
Where gods and men did greet,
Does Priams mighty fortress still,
Show all assault defeat?"
"What gods have sown, the raven reaps,
I offer you no joy
neath broken stones her treasure sleeps
I bear no news of Troy."

"Speak, pilgrim, of Jerusalem,
I know you passed that way.
The palmer's badge adorn's you yet:
does David's line hold sway?"
"Where prophets sowed the seed of love,
the weeds of hate now grow:
the peace that was Jerusalem
was broken long ago."

"well, traveller, What of Camelot?
does Arthur's blood still reign?
Do boldy go the shining knights
across the feudal plain?"
"A trusted friend's betrayal;
a bastard's vaunting greed.
The moon that watches camelot
sees stones upon a mead."


"Good host, I beg you, ask no more
you waken in my mind
the shadows of vain, fallen hopes
I fain would leave behind.
You long for comfort; this i know,
that grandeur might abide,
that strength of stone and arms and hearts
can bear the waxing tide,
And Gilgamesh the strong yet stands
upon his mighty wall.
That works endure the waning sands,
that towers might not fall.
Content yourself that legends live
where men are just or brave,
and deeds of lives may yet survive
their castles in the grave.
I will not comfort you with hopes
that Rome may live again;
don't ask me of Tenoctitlan,
I've no news from Berlin.
In sorrow i depart you now;
regretting lenten cheer.
But the road is long
towards London town,
i cannot linger here."

>>5476574
Ridiculous.

Another Kolsti

It’s hard to be unique with so many niches I guess it means nothing; oh, go to bed NietzscheAt page 12 on Google they never will find yourHalf-decent passages posted to pastebin It’s nice to think all of my talents are wasted Because fear of success is for people who’ve made it
I’m clinging to classicist notions of artistryto justify four years of buying an arts degreeAnd while you were mastering mora-timed prosodyI sold eight blank notebooks of ironic poetry
I thought that making my generation heard Meant laughing at dry folks who said, “hashtag is not a poem word”But I don’t even like Twitter; I just saved some clever screencaps “Dust in the wind,” how about, “We are all but snapchats”?So I set my texts to verse and wove sonnets of emojis“You just must be joking; where are the meadows, where are the feelings?”They said, “If you can’t convince yourself then why the hell should I bother read it?”I replied,“There’s more to what I say than the extent to which I mean it.”
So I ramble like I make things upPeople ask how much I meanI guess, at worst, I’m half sincere If I’m doing it for free

http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/95158983935/its-hard-to-be-unique-with-so-many-niches-i

>>5479469
Oh the formatting is fucked. Just follow the link I guess

>>5479469
Is this supposed to be a poem? I think you fucked it up with the formatting.

Nevertheless, its just a kid trying to be clever and failing to write something worthy of being read.

>>5476574
stop posting and praising your own shit, faggot

>>5479496
Yeah I copy-pasted wrong. Just get it from the link

>>5479469
>I’m doing it for free
le celaning dog face

>>5479339
This very similar in tone to A Rumor in Gomorrah, and in structure aswell. You can see that they are from the same artist. But I think Gomorrah is better.

>>5479469
Definately better than his other poem posted here, but it's not great either. His rhymes barely work out most the time (Niche and Nietzsche? What?), and many of the lines seem to be thrown in to fill space.

When Jesus walks in Belfast
He wears his collar up
he keeps his blessings to himself
and stoops before his cup

when Jesus comes through Belfast
he spends his wisdom dear
And when his name is spoken
he makes as not to hear

He keeps well back in company
and shuts his fuckin mouth
and when he can he does his trade
a measure further south

When Jesus walks in Belfast
He keeps his cap pulled low
his step away he quickens
and those returning slow

He'd have a merry welcome
if he should take the whim
to ask the sods he suffered for
to suffer more of him.

I sing the god carcinoma
devourer of beggar and saint.
across all our tissue
the bulls he gives issue
make every is into an ain't

I sing the mighty sarcoma
Consuming the daft and the wise
In the pallid lymph courses
he marshalls his forces
Decembering all our Julys

Come give us the hymn "melanoma"
the bane of both pauper and prince
when the cool probe insults
and we wait the results,
and the specialist cannot but wince

we sacrifice things on their altars
a lobe or a limb or an eye,
that our doings without
may appease them no doubt
that this bribe might just let us get by.

But the comfort of friends is not cheering
and the struggle does not give release
and the glance of an eye
and the tremor and sigh
and the long dismal wait for decease

Oh drink you the health of Lymphoma:
requiter of dread and despair
and the step on the scale
as it tells a new tale
of a soon to be vacanted chair

But we had some good laughs with him didn't we?
and he made a good run of it though;
have another small round,
he won't wake at the sound.
take the bottle back home as you go.

Masquerade

Remember how we used to dance?
when every night was for romance
I'd put on makeup, you'd wear black,
we never thought of looking back
we'd meet in dark exotic places,
where no one knew our names or faces
you'd scowl and mutter, I'd just smile
we'd share the mystery for awhile
the others never understood
it wasn't about the bad and good,
we only had to be together
my crumpled velvet to your leather
my tousled locks, your dark good looks
Like something from the comic books
You'd brood and I would play the clown
I'd laugh, and you would always frown
my silly giddy point of view
could never win a grin from you.
But now I stare out through the glass
and watch the empty evenings pass
I smile above my cup of tea
and wonder if you think of me
and nights, as strong and rich as wine
when I was yours and you were mine.
I dont expect to win your trust
but there's no law that says I must
just sit here waiting for the grave!
and you, live like you're in a cave,
away from life and cool night air
and all the things we used to share
someday I may walk out of here
my cries may find some friendly ear
I'll repent of every rule I broke
and tell them it was all a joke.
and some night find you on some street
just like the ones where we would meet
we'll walk together through the night
and all the wrongs will be put right
we'll do all the things we never did
when we kept our names and faces hid.
and in one of those dim smoky bars
I'll tell you how I got these scars.

>>5479469
his lines that rhyme are sooo awkward fuck

>>5479076
>even if the meter is lacking in some parts.
what do you even mean by this

not to be a dick but 95% of the time when someone says this on /lit/ they're wrong or they just like to talk about meter because they have an obsession with it

http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/95050561255/if-sincerity-is-lowercase-letters-what-if-i-type

This is probably his best because it doesn't try to rhyme at all.

>>5476574
go to bed Kolsti

>>5480444
I'm not sure if I'm entirely comfortable with this level of referencing

>>5480290
That the meter is not as perfectly fluent as it could be. There sometimes are some syllables that just break up the flow due to them being stressed/unstressed, and while Rumor in Gomorrha is actually rather consistent with its meter, it still has some hick-ups here or there.

See the first stanza: "and pursue our own accord" has one syllable too much in the beginning, "and" and "pur-" are both unstressed, which is just a bad way to start a line with.

"and will not our prayers reject" is another line where the meter is wonky. In itself, it is a clean dactyl with an unstressed syllable at the start, but that clashes with the iambic rest of the poem. If you try to read it iambic however there is, again, a syllable too much.

This might seem nit-picky to someone who does not write or read poetry all that much, but it's just a thing I noticed with the irishman. Not a big complaint, certainly not a deal-breaker, but it's still a thing.

>>5480592
But maybe that enhances the poem and a "perfect meter" would actually be worse. Like microtonal music or Duchamp.

>>5480804
Go to bed, Irishman

>>5480804
Your "maybe" is not an argument. Those lines could easily be rewritten with a consistent iambus, what does the inconsistency add to this?

>>5480815
It gives it a casual disjoint. The message from Gomorrah is delivered by commoners and criminals and shady motherfuckers and illiterates. It's folk wisdom. It isn't a message from the learned men who would write in perfect iambs.

>>5480831
Eh. That's really reaching, but okay. Then what about the inconsistent meter in the other stanzas?

>>5476574
awful
die

>>5480844
What I said applies to the whole poem. "But you didn't come from me" really seals the deal here.

>>5476574
There's something to this that nobody's mentioning and it really bugs me. If he's 17 in 2014 and he was paid to write in 2009, he must've been 12 at the time. He was paid to write at age 12?

>>5480852
But that would imply that irishdude is perfect at meter and only does mistakes when he plans to, which is not the case - as Travelogue has some hickups aswell.
Yeah, it's a great poem, it just has some dents in its meter.

>>5480878
Or maybe folk wisdom casual poet is part of his ethos and

I'm starved,
running and starved.
The treadmill is set too high
and inclined too steeply.
The charred leg of lamb
dangles a millimeter too far.
It taunts me like alabaster goop
to a heroin addict.
My mind races ahead,
surpassing my lactic laced legs,
and cramps cripplingly.
The meat on my bones withers,
like a turkey on Thanksgiving,
while a ventilated breeze wafts
Mary's succulent little pet's aroma
into my lusting lungs.
Then, the stationary marathon
splinters my core
and I collapse.
I fly off the rushing ground
in an unfit bout of exhaustion
slapping me dead.

But, it doesn't make sense,
to write this as dead.
No it doesn't make sense
to write this at all.

>>5480884
Eh, then he is not consistent with it, because sometimes his meter flows perfectly well and sometimes it doesn't.

The pockmarked, melanistic beret
fixed his thousand-yard stare across the lazy susan
towards the mayor of Thurber Mingus, Texas
where the term blitzkrieg is reserved for silence.
Then, some troubadour's gray words percolated
onto the dim sum and into the gizzards
giving guttural bursts echoing "Semper fi."
And for some yottasecond, Bismuth burps
in the range of that thousand yards
and the children run to scatter the doves
under the stretched shadows of pump-jacks
that penetrate the KT-Bound crust
where Stegosauruses saw their last instance
of the noblest thing given up by any man:
the due diligence of death, a lenticular miracle.

Scary sounds come out
when we bathe in the silence
of being alone.

Baseballs stick to the walls
of an atrium in the middle of March
a spherical space with no halls
where famished roots lose reservoir starch.
A pastime falls past Fall, the claps continue,
a lyre bird mocks a bloodcurdling scream,
the sourced sounds hang within you
where the lighthouse eyes are poised to beam.
You're as real as the hand in my head
blending together gray matter with glitter,
tires screech sanguine on the sheets of my bed
and community service teams pick up the litter.
Eventually, pensive glances hold no justice
and I scream: "I've had enough of this,"
you bat away falling lashes so illustrious
and say: "Okay Mr. Snuffleupagus."

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Kipling
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

>>5480592
just like i thought, you don't know what you're talking about

>There sometimes are some syllables that just break up the flow due to them being stressed/unstressed
i don't know what you mean here. is this just a statement where you are saying that some things are stressed wrong or are you talking about trochaic substitutions, a.k.a. something pretty much everyone who has written in an iambic form has used.

>See the first stanza: "and pursue our own accord" has one syllable too much in the beginning, "and" and "pur-" are both unstressed, which is just a bad way to start a line with.

it's a substitution of an anapest for the initial iamb, perfectly normal. done by many poets, particularly since the romantics.

>"and will not our prayers reject" is another line where the meter is wonky. In itself, it is a clean dactyl with an unstressed syllable at the start, but that clashes with the iambic rest of the poem. If you try to read it iambic however there is, again, a syllable too much.

it's another substitution of an anapest for the original iamb. do you think "will" is stressed here? do you also think it's stressed in "and all will be put right" (btw "and all will be put right" would be a much better candidate for a line with semi-clumsy meter, though i think it still works.) there are many more of these substitutions throughout the poem btw, "i have heard a stranger say," "and avert all waiting dooms."

also, you say "a syllable too much", which shows you do not understand english prosody at all. english poetry is accentual-syllabic, or accentual, surely not purely syllabic. an extra unstressed syllable is perfectly acceptable and incredibly common outside of maybe 18th century verse or something. the amount of stresses per line is much more important. count the amount of syllables in every line of a shakespeare soliloquy.

"To be, or not to be- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles..."

do you really think those are all 10 syllables?

also the last line features an opening anapest sub or a pyrrhic substitution depending on your reading (second is more radical) (i personally emphasize take, but the natural reading is probably a pyrrhic sub). but certainly "to" is not emphasized here.

this is why /lit/ shouldn't talk about meter. people don't understand the concept of substitutions. i don't know how many times i've seen people criticize poems for things as simple and common as an initial trochaic substitution. it's not supposed to just be unstressed-stressed for every foot. this poem reads decently. one wishes the substitutions were used to better effect perhaps, and also perhaps that there were more of them, but that's a different argument. it scans.

>>5481279
oh and you could argue that substitutions like these are less appropriate in iambic trimeter than iambic pentameter, and you'd be right, but they're still perfectly acceptable unless you insist on forcing the poem to the exact specified meter while you read it. and there are plenty of precedents for the substitutions, even in trimeter poems

I’ve been adrift in raging waters
With no hope of respite
As a Captain, I’d often stare at the plank
But no! Not to watch some scoundrel’s last dive

But because the Sirens below called to me!

I’ve never caught some tropical fever
I know not the pang of hunger and the misery of squalor
I have but unending thirst
This cannot be satiated by those Waters of death

Even now they want to drag me down to the depths!

The Sea’s wide and green
My poor sight often deems it an emerald field
From which dull-colored fairies impossibly spring
And gather for laughter and pleasantries

Oh, to be with them – this must be in my epitaph:
“Wicked destiny has made this decorated old man
Relinquish his helm and shattered soul
For God’s eternal abode

May he finally rest in peace”

>>5481279
>>5481300

#rekt

Now I sorta want to post some of my poetry to see if someone can technically analyse it for me. When I write and read it, it sounds naturally good, like it flows. Is it possible I'm disregarding a bunch of necessary behind-the-scenes mechanics which makes poetry good, or is it sort of like composing music, where you can have an ear for it and not need to be formally educated in music theory?

A Venn Diagram

A map would be nice
From my words to gods ears
If I said I could move anytime I feel?
Would it be frightening?
Reciprocate what can never be equal
Not a square
A fourth fold lets out
Eight and ten slip through the missing rib
With a reluctance
No hand me down names and violence
Juniors with raised defenses
Mitigate the misplaced kindness
Your vague advice
Free associating to curb the edge
All I really need
If you read me
Because I want you to
It's only here for you
I only like the things I make
That started in the middle with you
My right hand to the left foot
Letting a leap of a test
A fish in the ocean or nubile on the cross
Vesica piscis, I see you all the time
Overlapping the sixth
All my sad things
Most of the old things
To take it seriously
To get results use reason
The first fold to make a point
You think I don't realize?
Spitting out health food
Last of them the thirteenth and trailing second
Still jealous of your England
To make my thoughts bearable
Swept away like a small one
Placing your tone somewhere distinctly unromantic
Dissolved in your guts like wild rice
I know you are cruel to yourself
And I know you could be kind
It wouldn't kill me to let you have it all back
I am crude, paranoid, what a wonder
Some flag folding sycophant
Avoid making sense or credibility
To articulate a screaming feeling
Rambling words set to a pair of loops
This won't be the last of me
Stopping to sense the doom
It just happens, every so often

>>5480927

This is a really powerful haiku.

Four great gates has the city of Damascus
And four Great Wardens, on their spears reclining,
All day long stand like tall stone men
And sleep on the towers when the moon is shining.

This is the song of the East Gate Warden
When he locks the great gate and smokes in his garden.

Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster's Cavern, Fort of Fear,
The Portal of Baghdad am I, and Doorway of Diarbekir.
The Persian Dawn with new desires may net the flushing mountain spires:
But my gaunt buttress still rejects the suppliance of those mellow fires.
Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard
That silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird?
Pass not beneath! Men say there blows in stony deserts still a rose
But with no scarlet to her leaf--and from whose heart no perfume flows.
Wilt thou bloom red where she buds pale, thy sister rose? Wilt thou not fail
When noonday flashes like a flail? Leave nightingale the caravan!
Pass then, pass all! "Baghdad!" ye cry, and down the billows of blue sky
Ye beat the bell that beats to hell, and who shall thrust you back? Not I.
The Sun who flashes through the head and paints the shadows green and red,
The Sun shall eat thy fleshless dead, O Caravan, O Caravan!
And one who licks his lips for thirst with fevered eyes shall face in fear
The palms that wave, the streams that burst, his last mirage, O Caravan!
And one--the bird-voiced Singing-man--shall fall behind thee, Caravan!
And God shall meet him in the night, and he shall sing as best he can.
And one the Bedouin shall slay, and one, sand-stricken on the way
Go dark and blind; and one shall say--"How lonely is the Caravan!"
Pass out beneath, O Caravan, Doom's Caravan, Death's Caravan!
I had not told ye, fools, so much, save that I heard your Singing-man.

This was sung by the West Gate's keeper
When heaven's hollow dome grew deeper.

I am the gate toward the sea: O sailor men, pass out from me!
I hear you high in Lebanon, singing the marvels of the sea.
The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea,
The snow-besprinkled wine of earth, the white-and-blue-flower foaming sea.
Beyond the sea are towns with towers, carved with lions and lily flowers,
And not a soul in all those lonely streets to while away the hours.
Beyond the towns, an isle where, bound, a naked giant bites the ground:
The shadow of a monstrous wing looms on his back: and still no sound.
Beyond the isle a rock that screams like madmen shouting in their dreams,
From whose dark issues night and day blood crashes in a thousand streams.
Beyond the rock is Restful Bay, where no wind breathes or ripple stirs,
And there on Roman ships, they say, stand rows of metal mariners.
Beyond the bay in utmost West old Solomon the Jewish King
Sits with his beard upon his breast, and grips and guards his magic ring:
And when that ring is stolen, he will rise in outraged majesty,
And take the World upon his back, and fling the World beyond the sea.

>>5482107
This is the song of the North Gate's master,
Who singeth fast, but drinketh faster.

I am the gay Aleppo Gate: a dawn, a dawn and thou art there:
Eat not thy heart with fear and care, O brother of the beast we hate!
Thou hast not many miles to tread, nor other foes than fleas to dread;
Home shall behold thy morning meal and Hama see thee safe in bed.
Take to Aleppo filigrane, and take them paste of apricots,
And coffee tables botched with pearl, and little beaten brassware pots:
And thou shalt sell thy wares for thrice the Damascene retailers' price,
And buy a fat Armenian slave who smelleth odorous and nice.
Some men of noble stock were made: some glory in the murder-blade;
Some praise a Science or an Art, but I like honorable Trade!
Sell them the rotten, buy the ripe! Their heads are weak; their pockets burn.
Aleppo men are mighty fools. Salaam Aleikum! Safe return!

This is the song of the South Gate Holder,
A silver man, but his song is older.
I am the Gate that fears no fall: the Mihrab of Damascus wall,
The bridge of booming Sinai: the Arch of Allah all in all.
O spiritual pilgrim rise: the night has grown her single horn:
The voices of the souls unborn are half adream with Paradise.
To Mecca thou hast turned in prayer with aching heart and eyes that burn:
Ah Hajji, wither wilt thou turn when thou art there, when thou art there?
God be thy guide from camp to camp: God be thy shade from well to well;
God grant beneath the desert stars thou hear the Prophet's camel bell.
And God shall make thy body pure, and give thee knowlede to endure
This ghost-life's piercing phantom-pain, and bring thee out to Life again.
And God shall make thy soul a Glass where eighteen thousand aeons pass.
And thou shalt see the gleaming Worlds as men see dew upon the grass.
And sons of Islam, it may be that thou shalt learn at journey's end
Who walks thy garden eve on eve, and bows his head, and calls thee Friend.

-James Elroy Flecker

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

damn

>>5481279
>>5481300
Fantastic posts. Will respond to them later as I now lack the time to do so.

>>5481279
You know, we almost never see this sort of in depth and knowledgeable critiques on here. We either gut the liked it/didn't like it, guys who think free verse has something to do with line lengths or sticklers for metrical rules and rhymr schemes who don't like it when any license is taken with them at all, and get their teeth on edge when Shakespearean actors don't hit the stressed syllables hard enough and ignore the cadences. I must say it's refreshing.

>>5483086
Pretty sure it's just the Irish anon samefagging

>>5483094
I wish. I think he comes on here about once a month anymore.

The gods
hate Kansas
shrugging their
iron thunderbolts
into the prairie loam
fathoms deep
and dipping cyclone fingers
to trace their venom
across the flat map
but close and compact
within their four right angles
the farmers nod
and smile at the rain
and the white wrath
of Apollo
on their parasoled tractors
ignoring the gods.

>>5483094
Don't you know, every time a writer gets praise on /lit/ it's viral marketing. Tao, Kolsti, Will Self

>>5483094
it's not. i could criticize the poem (i don't like it very much) but i was really just interested in pointing out that i don't like when people criticize people for their meter without being right.

if you criticize a new writer for meter, and you're wrong, and that new writer believes you, it can be really bad. they'll look at their meter and not realize why it's wrong (because it's not wrong), and then they'll be confused and think that they just don't get meter at all, and might give up on writing with it.

>>5481580

It is sort of like composing music, but like composing music it's much easier to develop your intuitions if you study it as well as practice it. The greatest musicians usually have both a strong understanding of the technical fundamentals and an ear trained by nature and by lots and lots and lots of practice and listening. The problem is the people on lit usually have neither the practice nor the technical fundamentals. They're poetasters.

>>5483086
Very few writers on lit are even worth the critique because it's clear they've barely read any poetry, let along anything about poetry. It's like a grad student in science coming to a high-school science fair to deliver a paper on why one of the projects is limited, mistaken, already done, etc.

>>5483094
I hope Irish anon has abandoned this shithole and is honing a first book, if he doesn't already have a book out in print on a small press somewhere in the U.K

>>5484848
This is true.

bad poetry the thread.

>>5483168
good, in my opinion

When the wind turns cold and it smells like rain
and the windlass rattles like a gibbet chain
and the dead leaves pile up by the wall

When the old elms creak and the willows shiver
and the mist hangs white and still by the river
and the overcoats hang in the hall

Then its hard to believe that the tales aren't true
and no hags huddle over bubbling brew
and speak some childs name---someone like you
and theres no such thing as witches

When the old cat curls up near the fire
and the raven roosts in the stable spire
and the stalls are made fast in barn and byre
Does noone put off their mortal attire
and walk out under the sky alone,
a sylph legged maiden, a crooked crone
go barefoot over the shivering stone
all naked before the blazing eye
of Ephesian Diana awake in the sky
and pick up a black broom stick and fly?
I s there really any good reason why

this should not be, and should not be I?

In the old orchard
we wandered beneath the branches,
heavy with dew, and age,
and we, young in years and spirit
saw the future ripening,
in fragrant blossom
and mellow fruit,
in warm light and grass as green
as our thought.
now in the early winter
the leaves cannot hide
the shadows of the clouds
and the wayward moon
like the face of old death
so small we can hide it
behind a thumbnail
if we can only
raise our hand.

>>5485288
the scansion is all over the place

>>5485288
i like this a lot but it's very rough

>>5487415
i changed my mind

>>5485288 is the best poem i've seen on /lit/ in a while. i might go into my few problems with it tomorrow if this thread is still here, but it's vey good

>>5487295
explain

i was fisted once
~fin~

The Mountain Ash

Mark how it leans toward the sun
a hundred winters,
and one more spring
found the moth-pale green flutterring
of the single samara.
burdened with life and strength
and the future,
a place between these two great stones

A century unchallenged
the great roots grasped the hill,
the wide arches of the great gray limbs
reached upward, and drank the light,
breathed the wind,
and through a hundred winters,
bore the frost.

now upon the hillside,
myriad children, flying out and rising,
raising their own pale butresses
towards the sky. by axe undaunted.
and down beneath the hollows
of the roots of the one great ancestor,
trapping the vernal mysteries
of spring and air, sun and water
the memory of the seed.

The wind sings a song in the chimney
and carpets the yard with bright leaves

and night, a fat kitten, rubs the curtains
and scratches her back on the eaves

let us take the blue book from the mantel
and read the old stories again

tales of gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire
and the deeds and destructions of men

we have journeyed too much in bright highways
we have lingered to long with our toys

In the idyll of safety and reason
and the doldrums of civilized joys.

Have we run far ahead of our childhood
Have we come to senescence at last

may we not lay down maps and directions
and seek the lost road to the past?

the wind's song bears its burden of sorrow
the night sharpens its claws on our hearts

in the shadows the ancient gods whisper
the ghosts speak their lines and depart

Let them rise once again from the pages
and put on their immortal attire

can we not see the clash of bronze legions
in the shades that are cast by the fire?

Now, while the strength is still in us
and the voices of heroes still stir

we shall drink down the black draught of Lethe
and remember the men that we were.

>>5488025
not bad. seen it here before though

>>5488110
first draft I hope?

>>5474076
>Get his by some heaviest and most unique feels felt in whole live
>Clever verses are the only thing that are on my mind
>Cannot actually put anything on a paper because I am an illiterate hack, never written anything beforehand and only started to read not too long ago
What the fuck do I do now?

>>5489374
Start.

>>5489412
I followed your advice and it seems like I completely lack rhyme no matter what I do, despite everything being pure and perfect in my head(Pic related).
Do /lit/erates usually format their writings after they are finished or does rhyme come naturally to you?

>>5489614
rhyming is not mandatory, nor is metric

>>5489644
Yeah, prose is pretty accepted in literature these days.

For poetry though, there should be atleast some aspect of form. Rhyming is not as necessary as meter is, if you ask me.

>>5476574
what?

The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
-Li Po

agamemnon fades
I can smell his beating heart
carried further and

>>5483168
"Isaac Asimov wrote an article, “Why do the Gods Hate Kansas?” because Kansas has far more than its fair share of meteorites."

>shrugging their
iron thunderbolts
into the prairie loam
fathoms deep


googled to see if this was original.poem found the asimov quote.

>>5492522
dorothy's house was blown away by a tornado from kansas too
truly the land of perils

>>5492541
yeah i guess i was impressed that an anon would write a poem here that actually had some inspiration in fact. We usually get whiny adolescent stuff and tryhard pseudopomo

The Trespassers

When the dry leaves scratch
on the window sills
and the thunder haunts
the slouching hills
the killdeer sings in the twilit grass
and along the lanes
the dead folk pass

"Here stood the tree
where you carved our names
and there lay the fields
of our pride and shame
can you recall my skirttail
wet with dew?"

A smile, a slight slow nod.

"I do."

" And down below
where the school house rose
and you stood in wrath
with your broken nose
over one who dared to call me sweet?"
" I laid a rosebud by your feet."

"A daisy surely?"
"A red Queen Anne,
plucked by my mother's
own sweet hand. And shyly borne
underneath my shirt."

"I wonder was the other hurt?"
"He died in France,
he lies there still.
Beneath a white stone spotted hill."

"A sad thing. Well, it comes to all."

Now far and shrill the killdeers call.
And back they wend
through the darkening wood
and the two small mounds
where their home once stood.

and the wind wakes up,
as the thunder laughs
and brushes the dead
leaves over the path.

Eating ecstasy from a Jesus Christ Pez dispenser
Acid on my breath as I look out over Germany as an ethnic cleanser

They're cheering and screaming and shouting my name
Docile masses reversed and untamed

Dragons and drakes are breathing down flame
They're cheering and screaming and shouting my name

The crowd is changing and I'm riding topdown
Thunder is heard and I'm staring dead at a cloud

The end is flying straight at my skull
And suddenly in the backseat presidency is null

But I open my eyes finally more
To find myself vomiting core

Lying in bed covered in sweat
Shivering in fear of
humanity's debt

Action is a dry rain.
Ooh, Liberty!
Why does the Storm stop?


Why does the light stop?
The citys eat like cold windows.
Old, old sights quickly grab an Abhorrent , faceless Height.

Exhaustion is like a misty rain.
Liberty is a noisy door.
Oh, life!
Where is the dry Fire?
Liberty is the noisy of The city.

The old shore roughly fights the cloud.
The rusted chains of prison moons are shattered by the sun!

Divine yet eldritch is the life in light

everything dies but those who sleep.

>>5492996
>>5493039
not sure i get these.

pretty sure I dont like them

>>5476574
you know, with a little style, humor flair an espet for the audience, this could be made into something worthwhile.

"I'm better that Wallace, better than Joyce
Pound Stein and Homer would quail at my voice!
Cervantes is a hack in contrast
even Dante's been run far past

roll out your canon and rally around it
I'll show you that i easily soundly confound it

what is art? what is nature? what is what? what is is? what is metapostpomo and who gives a whiz?"

>>5494241
>weird forced rhymes make great free verse better

>>5494278
>48:46 No.5494278▶
>>>5494241 (You)
that's not free verse, let alone great free verse. it's barely even prose. ANY rhyme would improve it. that's the point its clumsy sophomoric and embarrassing in execution, but the kid who wrote it has a good heart and some good ideas. he's just being given hideous models for his work.

>>5494295
He's so willfully anti-form that he's immune to criticism. The whole point of the poem is that he's already as good as any writer ever, and writing it in an extremely lazy form probably enforces the point more than anything.

>>5494314
immunity to criticism is wishful thinking. and asserting that since "good" is relative, your stuff is as good as anybody's is a cop out. if he used an artlessly lazy form, or a snide grace or calculated crudity, that might be a good way to make his point. but eschewing subtlety and embracing a punk aesthetic requires some sort of visible talent or discernment, and theres none evident here. He seems to be trying to appear clever but also trying to make himself immune to analysis. And if yo' re going to heckle the emperor for having no clothes by going naked yourself, you really ought to demonstrate that he IS in fact, naked.

>>5494342
I think he's sincerely a subjectivist. He said "50 Shades is arguably equal to Lolita." He doesn't just think good is relative, he's saying it doesn't exist. I mean, I think part of the point of the poem there is that it's easy to be theoretically postmodern and spout edgy opinions about why Duchamp is as good as Picasso but it's harder to go and earnestly say that you're better than Shakespeare.

>>5494295
>>5494278
He has a point. While the rhyming version is terrible, it's not worse than the original. At least it's distracting and awful, as opposed to bland and awful.

>>5474076
wasn't that guy in the Star Wars prequels?

>>5494396
what I was thinking of.

>>5494361
that's not subjectivism though, not in an asthetic sense. a subjectivist would be maintaining not that the emperor has no clothes, but that he can't see the clothes, and not that he's as good as Joyce or homer, but that he cannot tell his stuff from theirs. he's claiming a lack of taste and discrimination, not their non existence.

the guy here is clearly claiming that there exists a standard, and if the standard is defined and the definition made clear there would be standards upon which his work would be judged superior. Otherwise why ask for definitions? he's not asserting that definitions don't exist.

as to your last point, you can be better than shakespeare a a lot of things (spelling, continuity, breathing) without being better than Shakespeare. and the opinion that Duchamp is better than Picasso is an opinion, which can be explained and defended. and is bt definition subjective.

and saying good doesn't exist is at best defining it out of existence. at worst its just moronic. tantamount to saying "everybody likes everything equally and judges it all to be equal, even me." . which sorta obviates the "better" statements.

>>5494442
maybe it's all ironic

What does /lit/ think of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3unTt67nxg

As an amateur poet Jimmy Stewart seems very evocative, pretty much every time I hear it I tear up at least a little. Perhaps it's more the delivery than the actual poem (which is rather simplistic), but god dam I love it.

>>5494463
a little irony would be nice. and the clumsy off the cuff verse version i did shows up irony, since it claims to be superior to great poets in blocky doggerel.

in the onions poem there's no verse, really, no cadence, no rhythm, and no clear avoidance of them either .

this>>5483168
is free verse. there is cadence, metaphor and imagery, humor and power.

and there's no reason those things couldn't be put into the onions poem without diluting its message, and they would certainly ad to the ironic ambiguity.

>>5494506
He's not ironic or post-ironic. He's metamodern. Well, he calls himself postmetamodern. Existing in an awkward state between ironic and sincere is the name of the game when it comes to this stuff. Just look at his Yeezus essay and see what he values. http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/96049276725/300-words-i-wrote-about-yeezus

>>5494241
this is terrible, you suck at rhyming

A Vietnamese DFW wannabe singlehandedly managed to ruin every poetry thread on /lit/

I'm done with this board

>>5494649
>singlehandedly
idk about that

>>5494633
thats kinda the point. saying im better than dante in doggerel verse is at least ironic.

>>5494661
>missing the point this bad
irony is so played out. being weirdly between irony and earnestness is a lot more interesting from a meta point of view.

>>5494649
there's tons of good poems in this thread and in most others. No importunate troll-by tyro can do anything more than show them up better by contrast And he's nothing like DFW. He has a decent instinct for topic and theme, just no skill or visible talent, but skill comes with time, and talent can only emerge once skill is acquired. Give the kid time.

>>5494649
>DFW wannabe
This. Read http://postmetakolsti.tumblr.com/post/95687154114/postmetapainbrush-episode-2-tub-girl and replace all the parentheses with footnotes and you have a DFW piece.

>>5494684
I think >>5477730 is at least proof that he's aesthetically pretty gifted and just chooses to eschew it.

>>5494676
i grant you he's interesting. he seems to have something which even the godawful embarrassing tryhard crap he posts here can't entirely hide. And "irony is played out" has got to b the dumbest thing I've heard since "The hat is back".

>>5494526
>that Yeezus essay
He should quit literature and just become the young scaruffi

>>5494690
that's cartoonishly overdone. And not in a good way. He's developing taste and learning an aesthetic but his strength is in his gut instincts. he should be trusting them and going for the viscera. This overelaborate archness requires a perelman or a coward and that's not what he is.

>>5494711
kek he actually used the word viscera in the poem

This is what I mean. Every poetry thread these days devolves into Kolsti circlejerking. Obviously I'm not helping but it would've happened whether I contributed or not.

>>5494714
that's not a poem. i hesitate to call it a verse. He's closer to punk than anything. why not go for that?

>>5494717
To be fair, the OP explicitly says "post Kolsti" in it. Just make a regular critique thread and if Kolsti gets posted there it'll at least be new stuff.

>>5494717
i get what you mean. But I'm not going to call for him to post more of his stuff. Dos he really have a following? I mean I kind of get the Irishman having fans because he's accessible and skillful though a bit sloppy, but are there people who actually see something in the kid or is he just samefagging?

>>5494734
Most of the talk on here doesn't really do much productive promotion. I'm 99% sure he's the one who posted his blog here the first time, but I doubt he's doing all this.

>>5494734
It started off as Kolsti and one other guy samefagging all the time and praising him to high heaven. Mob mentality kicked in eventually and now I'm guessing it's a combination of samefagging and a few new people that show genuine interest in the kid.

>>5494736
well, at least he's getting constructive critique, if that's what he wants. There aren't too many people just posting he sucks, they're actually trying to help him. His praisers seem to have a hard time saying why he's got their approval without rsorting to vague comparisons and superlatives or buzzwords.

>>5494750
Does he even read this? /lit/ is really niche

>>5494743
you know this would be a good opportunity to post something really, broadly excellent and shut up the naysayers. Reilly show he knows his chops and has some skill and insight. It can't be that hard if he's actually even somewhat good. Just hit us with a double dactyl or a Petrarchian sonnet or even a ballad. Put his ideas into a concrete traditional form where the picture can shine out from the frame. It's hat I'd do.

>>5494777
he's really niche.It wold fit

The lone droplet fell from the clouds above,
slicing the border between Earth and Sky.
Spurred not by purpose but a lack thereof,
separated from a dark plume up high.

Its sudden plunge backdropped by darkness,
illuminated by distant stars.
Its size dwarfed further by the vastness
of the black canvas it dared to scar.

Pieces of it separated;
the rapid descent took its toll.
Then the pieces dissipated
leaving their host no longer whole.

It crashed among sand and dirt
where it's now for Earth to keep.
And although lonely its birth,
sad its end, Sky did not weep.

Posted this on another thread. I'm new to this and I really need suggestions/criticism.

>>5494781
But isn't the idea that you have to be traditionally good to be untraditional really, well, traditionalist? Every Picasso discussion eventually turns into "Well, he did really good conventional stuff first" and every Joyce discussion includes a sentiment along the lines of "Finnegans Wake isn't shit because look at Dubliners!" The truly avant-garde should be able to exist as more than a changeup pitch to the fastball that is traditional brilliance.

>>5475860
>>5479339
>>5479888
>>5479896
>>5480097
>>5481670
>>5482107
>>5482112
>>5482493
>>5483168
>>5485288
>>5485322
>>5488025
>>5488110
>>5491707
>>5492986


All good stuff, and stuff I would read again. Not sure which ones are original but with my limited taste I'd say they're all professionally done.

>>5494781
The Yeezus piece is unironically pretty great. It's funny, already a pretty major copypasta on /mu/, and characteristically "does he mean it or doesn't he."

An Ode To Cancer

Late at night, lurking on /lit/
reading the same old pretentious crap
I don't like it, not one bit
it's almost enough to make me snap.

But I endure and scroll down
only to find silly kolsti posts.
At first glance it made me frown
thinking about the "greatness" he boasts.

Already a few replies
lauding the "genius" he brandishes.
Thinking they are merely lies
my will to read them diminishes.

Then, giving in to boredom,
I decide to finally read them.
What I regarded as dumb
now strangely seems like a sparkling gem.

Where has he been all my life
this mysterious godly talent?
Long gone my internal strife,
now his genius seems so apparent.

Now that I've witnessed the best
nothing else will ever do the trick.
I know my soul will not rest
'til I've sucked kolsti's small asian dick.

>>5494851
Has he posted dick yet?

>>5494807
but there the talent shouldn't be hidden by awkward clumsy sophomoric form. If the brilliance is hidden by the mud and sludge of amateurishness an cliche it's asking too much of the reader to dig it out. True, if he wrote a couple hundred of these things so we could get a handle on his aesthetic it would work. But so far I've seen less than a dozen and they're all SOOOOO arch and pretentious. He needs to write some lullaby, some jingles some limericks or at last show us some flair for words and some insight into the ideas behind them. Yes traditional forms may be the easy way to do that, but it is a way, and his way isn't getting it yet.

>>5494864
but what if this feeling, this "god he's sophomoric but there's definitely something there" is the point. maybe standing confoundingly between irony and sincerity is his goal.

>>5494893
let him, if he doesn't like formal constraints, write a Christmas poem or a love poem then. you can do that between irony and sincerity. and he's so clumsy that its hard to say hes between anything. his understanding of interpretive dance is being obscured by his two club feet,

I emailed him back before he had a blog and I agree with the guys saying he has great ideas but not great form. I asked about his novel and dude sent me equations.

>>5494998
what's his email?

>>5479896
>Decembering all our Julys
very nice

>>5495013
>>/lit/thread/S5027223#p5032594
nguyen.cole32@yahoo.com
back when he was into the idea of anonymity

>>5480097
Is it a poem by the Gomorrah guy?

I'm the Anon who did a Tumblr with all his poems, and I never saw this one before.

>>5497939
question: who all is following you?

>>5497939
i think it is. I think he has put few more on here since the tumblr went up. I'm also curious as to what sort of response you get to that page. I've directed a fe people there myself

>>5497939

This:
>>5488110

reads like him too

>>5485288
Just in time for Halloween. This is going on my Facebook.

>>5498116
I have absolutely zero feedback from the Tumblr page. Just some unknown people reblogging one poem from time to time, and that is all.
I'll add this new poem someday. If you have other stuff by him, or maybe a link from the archive, please post it here!

>>5497950
Huh? I "have" 13 followers on Tumblr, don't know who they are.

>>5498564
Do you think >>5485288 is from the Irishman too? Looks convincing.

>>5499539
no I mean what blogs are following you? can you give us a list?

>>5500777

http://flarehunter76.tumblr.com/
http://fuckschoolwritebadpomoetry.tumblr.com/
http://see-it-glow.tumblr.com/
http://pisseddorf.tumblr.com/
http://sholz.tumblr.com/
http://dererlkoening.tumblr.com/
http://shamuslove.tumblr.com/
http://lynchalot.tumblr.com/
http://ohegesias.tumblr.com/
http://macktittyrash.tumblr.com/
http://kusuriuriri.tumblr.com/
http://hatzon.tumblr.com/
http://thegreatmeursault.tumblr.com/

I haven't read what they post though.

>>5503042
Oh, hmm. Kolsti not following you kills my theory that he is Gomorrah Man.

>>5503150
He obviously isn't, Gomorrah guy is actually a good poet.

>>5503476
>implying gomorrah's not a tier lower
innovators>technicians

I've recently been buying up old (trying to get 1800-1900, but some like Robert Frost have very little from that span) poetry books/collections. Have only been reading 2-3 poems a day, so its going to take awhile to get through them all. I think so far I have Whittier, Longfellow, Frost, Poe and Dickinson.

What would you guys suggest I pick up next? I prefer older stuff, I cant think of any poem written in the last 50 years that I enjoyed.


Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

-last stanza; psalm of life; longfellow

>>5504116
>innovative shit > great technique
Kolsti pls go and stay go

>innovative shit > great technique
yeah, and then people like >>5504267 anon cannot recall a single poem written in the last 50 years which they enjoyed

>>5503150
He doesn't follow, but he reblogged one or two poems from my blog!

Anyway he cannot be the Irishman. Kolsti is way below that, and has a completely different style anyway.

>>5504267

Get The Norton Anthology of Poetry. If you read it cover to cover, you'll be able to quickly identify a lot of poets, and maybe some periods, you can dive into.
You could, if you want to expand your critical ability, pick a great critic like Jarrell or Johnson and read whatever or whomever they review.

>>5504116
"And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living."

>>5504310
>The Norton Anthology of Poetry
Should be here on the first.

>>5492986
I like this too. It has a very Autumny feel. Has it been on here before or is it new?

>>5504388
One thing to keep in mind is that it has all of the old English stuff more or less presented for people taking a scholarly approach. I suggest you skip the old English stuff, or save it for later, because it'll bog you down. If you really want to read it, which I did, I found recordings of the poems helped my understanding immensely. >

>>5505115
noted

>>5494241
>no meter
>rhymes
ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING ARSE DRIBBLE

>>5504388
>pleb tier anthology

>>5505203
the point is, while you're certainly correct, it's quite a bit better than the original, which is one of those mid-sixties "emperor's new clothes" things that everybody in freshman English thinks are so daring and innovative. The guy who wrote the original seems to have some talent and insight, but no skill, experience or understanding. He's one of those guys that might actually be capable of something good if her weren't terrified of being caught trying.

I wrote a poem.


Cross-hatched iron, held fast in hand
my littlest finger, aligned to the band

feet planted firmly, side-by-side on the floor
Back on the bench, I firmly tighten my core

i push away my friend, ready for his spite
he collapses on me, and I muster my might

slowly, he rises, the small victory is sublime!
but his anger is magnified, coming down a second time

The discs at my sides are clawing at the floor
Goodness, this is so much harder than before

With stupendous effort, my arms gradually extend
i catch a hint of worry in the eyes of my friend

Twice more he falls, his fear steadily growing
but the pace I return him is quickly slowing

"don't be a faggot, there's only one more to go!"
my voice sounds feeble, the strain starting to show

as he nears my chest, I call on my power
but the well has run dry, and i start to cower

A resounding clang signals failure to my ears
my friend rests on safety pins, i fight back tears

His laughter rings loud, your narrator feels to blame
Then a strongly accented voice says "Do not get ashame."

"You try for more you can do today, but tomorrow, you lift more."
It takes some miracle of willpower to peel my eyes off the floor

Behold, there is no one! I don't recall hitting a bong
"Everyone beginning somewhere, soon you will be strong."

i take to heart the sage words from my head
and feel a harsh calling to return to my bed

though for today I leave as a mere clod
I'll be back tomorrow to conquer this iron god

>>5505264
it's not an emperor's new clothes thing. it's the literary embodiment of the mystery box.

Here's mine. Be gentle please:

Walking through a screen,
Wire bends and break,
Into the forest I go,
A nasty and necessary creek,
Two days later I vomited,
Thoughts dissipated,
Headaches grew,
White lights shined from above,
AYYYYYYYYY LMAO

Rate and subscribe?

>>5505210
>m-maybe if i say it's pleb, people will believe me

no

The Regular

Lime and tonic hide the smell, as
the gin is easing down, quelling
thoughts of work, and thoughts of – thoughts of
something, something once fought for, worth
the fight. His words return, a neck
curves, a –, and, "you –." He tilts his drink.
One more two more he won't have to think,
how to begin another week.

>>5506246
but its SOOO clumsy and amateurish. Maybe that's deliberate, but if so not many people will be willing to look past that. Something can abe occult and subtle without that patchwork cobbled-together feel. I mean there's a primitive idea, and there's the elaboration of boorish, pedestrian perceptions, and there might be a point to that, but making it so kludgy really takes away from it i think.

>>5506316
I don't mean to suggest that everything has to be subtle and hypesophisticated to be good, but you can go too far towards imitating the mediocre.