/lit/ - Literature

>>7151690
I like pic related.

He's not awful and occasionally the unorthodox style does play into his poems and to them, but not always and when they don't that's when it feels gimmicky.

Personally I prefer his more traditional poetry. He had a wonderful diction.

>>7151701
Holy moly that's great.

>>7151701
>tfw

>>7151701
>>7151708
This is crap and holds no merit. Stop being a retarded hipster.

>>7151690
I quite liked Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town, even if it is basically the [r9k] shit poets like to go in for (Fucking normies, they ruin everything, I like being alone, reeeeeee and the like). The rough pattern of having four stressed beats in every line and a differing number of unstressed syllables helps to give it a nice pulse that you don't normally get from that sort of free verse poetry.

>>7151708
>>7151713
He has some interesting stuff, for whatever reason I get the feeling /lit/ would be quick to dismiss him on account of his structural styling.
I do have to say though, I believe he left a rather bad legacy anymore. It worked sometimes when cummings did it, but everyone after him that tries to ape what he did just doesn't do anything interesting or does it well. I think it's a one-off type of thing; it's hard to innovate something like that, I'd say.

>>7151724
Why don't you explain why.
Shortness does not always = hipster shit.
See Station at the metro.

What do you guys think about the form in this one, one of his classics.

I think the form in line 6 really creates an urgency which hurries you into line 7 with "Jesus"

Then the space between line 7 and 8 acts almost like taking a breath. "Jesus.... he was a handsome man". For me this takes the narrative from a memoire to almost a personal account of buffalo bill, who frankly, I couldn't give a shit about otherwise.

For me personally, the reverence in this piece couldn't be obtained if it wasn't for the form. What do you guys think?

>>7151701
I don't get this. It is solipsistic to the point of unintelligibility.

>>7151752
This, on the other hand, is fantastic.

>>7151762
>solipsistic
Elaborate?

>>7151724
One thing too about cummings poetry. Does it need to have a deeper meaning than other poetry? I tend to think that his poetry doesn't have much deeper meaning, and instead seeks to impart the reader with a happy feeling. Is a poem that leaves a person happy, even without identifiable meaning, objectively bad? What do you guys think?

>>7151769
In the sense that it can only be understood by the one who wrote it. Of course, I shouldn't need to say that that is my opinion of that particular poem. Perhaps it is because it's one of his most experimental ones.

>>7151771
No, if it were treated like that. The annoying things about this type of poetry is that if you try and express any form of dissatisfaction with it, there'll be some hipster twit who'll sigh and tell you that you just don't get it.

I hate it where inelligability is mistaken for depth, and I hate the type of people who deliberatly obfuscate to try and gain that faux depth. ee.cummings occasionally comes across like that -- the people who ape him manage to do it without fail.

>>7151771
To elaborate further,
this poem by cummings doesn't have an apparent meaning.

For me though, I still find the poem beautiful and the sensations and images it provokes to be marvelous.

Is poetry without meaning objectively bad? Or can poetry be successful merely on it's own emotional/imagist worth.

>>7151690
my girlfriend literally get frisky every time she reads pic related

>>7151773
L(a leaf falls)onliness

It's the word loneliness with the phrase "a leaf falls" inside of it, written vertically to simulate the falling of the leaf.
It's reminiscent of a haiku. It's supposed to capture a moment of feeling and it uses the structure to enunciate and emphasise it. A single leaf, falling (which, falling is often used in an idiomatic sense, eg "I've fell far, hit rock bottom, the fall of the roman empire" etc), and leaves usually fall on Autumn, the season in America where the beautiful plants die and the warm weather leaves. Autumn is another common trope in a lot of poetry, for that reason.

It's just an experimental haiku, really.

>>7151785
DAMN. That made me feel some type a way. Any similar recommendations.

>>7151762
>solipsistic
Nah, come on. I'm not into that kinda stuff and can still put the characters together (a leaf falls) and see how the shape of it visually relates to the movement

>>7151773
it says, l(a leaf falls)oneliness
it's definitely not solipsistic or incomprehensible, it's just (obviously) poetic, meant to invoke some sort of feeling

>>7151778
I agree with you, but it's one of the most accessible esoteric writers so of course hipsters are going to latch onto it.

Personally I think for people that wish to write in his style, the best advice that can be given is to focus on writing an imagist piece, and to leave it at that. Otherwise it tends to become simply written slam poetry and who the hell wants that.

>>7151795

>>7151789
Well, that changes everything.

>>7151796
>>7151797

I think it is because I'm not used to that kind of experimentation with poetry. Also, because I've been reading Spenser, Milton, and Emerson, which are "traditional" poets regarding form.

Any edition of Cummings' poems that you can recommend to me, or should I just go with the Collected/Complete Poems?

>>7151795
here's another; some guy insulted this poem last time I linked pic related but this one also made my girlfriend frisky so fuck him

>>7151806
This book is a great starting point for cummings poetry. It has great little biographical segments and its paperback so it should be pretty cheap.

>>7151806
Harold Bloom has his "Complete Poems" on his western canon, if you give a shit, so probably just get that, yeah.

>>7151806
I used to be a big fan of cummings as a pre-teen. I grabbed a book of poetry at random from my library one day, it ended up being cummings' 95 poems collection. The poem I posted, the leaf one, is actually the first one on that book. You could check it out if you want, elsewise I'd recommend just grabbing his complete works. If you do do that you can read his early, more traditional poetry that I personally tend to enjoy more than his later stuff.

>>7151817
>>7151810
>>7151815

Thanks for the recommendations. I think I will go for this one >>7151810

>>7151752
felt to me more like Louie CKs whiney Jeeeeeeesuss *wipes sweat from forehead*

>>7151783
>>7151785
Never read this guy before. I'm really liking it tbh

>>7151859
another favorite.

this one is silly but it makes me happy.

Put's miss Ke$ha to shame.

>>7151868
puts*

>>7151868

>>7151988
thanks

>>7151868
love it

>>7151785
>>7151809

ok, ok, you have a girlfriend, we get it

>>7151809
>>7151785
>lol gf caught be taking a pic
>stil love her tho

>>7151690
They make me feel so. I think there is a great human bravery in a voice that is so relentlessly open, to the point of feeling childish sometimes. A pre-selfconsciousness kinda honesty.

>For God loves girls and tomorrow and the earth

Can't argue with that.

I love him, so chill. I forget the verbatim entirety of my fav poem by him, about a dingy town in the morning over which looms
an eggyellow smear
of wintry sunrise

>>7152345
Nice criticism, I agree that there's a profundity in his unerring pleasantness without pretense. It's like Walt Whitman but less blurghhl

Did you knowww for his entire life they say he wrote one poem a day. After he could write, of course, and had the desire to be a poet. After I heard this I started taking his poems with a grain of salt. Some are brilliant, many are shit; I think they're about the "small things" cos he wrote so fucking many.

>>7151809
Shel Silversteen: Rated R

>>7152599
He really had great unorthodox descriptors. When the world is mud-luscious when the world is puddle-wonderful, eggyellow smear. There's so many good ones that you can't help but smile.

>>7152615
Poetry is what you make of it. Poetry can be looked at as a sort of build a bear scenario. One can pick and select what they want to make out of it- and in some cases their might not be anything to build from at all. Prose is the opposite, tantamount to buying a finished doll. One can say oh her eyes remind me of _____ but that would be mere conjecture, in most cases prose holds its meanings within itself and can be looked at and dissected objectively. In short: Poetry is legos, Prose are toys.