/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12166454]

Why do people think its okay to write poetry that doesn't rhyme?

[Anonymous No.12166464]

>>12166454
I'm not a big fan of it either, but I can look beyond that. What really bugs me is that people think that poetry is just about creating flowery imagery to describe how they think of a woman. what REALLY bugs me is when they do that and then they also don't have any structure at all. Like I understand as an amateur not everyone is trying to perfect metering but to simply ignore any structure and say 'its a poem' is stupid.

[Anonymous No.12166515]

>>12166454
Because rhyme is an unnecessary constraint. It's just one poetic device of many.

The real problem is that thoughtful transgressors of the past made it okay for any retard to go full "free verse" with whatever crap they wanted, and still call it poetry.

I blame the Modernists... but also the Beats and by extension the Symbolists and Transcendentals.

[Anonymous No.12166518]

>>12166454
It's good if the theme is good like Paradise Lost. But sadly, most of the time is just instaagram tier trash.

[Anonymous No.12166524]

>>12166464
Basically this. Paradise Lost doesn't have rhymes throughout, but I still recognize it as one of the greatest poems of all time.

However,
Writing enjambed
lines just to make
things Look like a
poem doesn't make it


poetry

[Anonymous No.12166527]

>>12166515
If it doesn't rhyme its NOT poetry. Call it something else.

[Anonymous No.12166529]

>>12166524
thats still BETTER than the structure most people try to use though. I get metering can't be perfect but a lot of people don't even try. their structure changes from line to line and has zero flow. I don't expect a LOT, but as far as structure goes I could stomach yours as it at least resembles something simple like 'first fig'.

[Anonymous No.12166532]

>>12166454
Stupid loli poster
will never fuck a roaster
in his mother's basement
he unleashes his defacement
upon the literature board
before he grabs the cord
ties the noose up high
kicks the stool and dies

[Anonymous No.12166537]

My biggest problem with modern poetry is it's just lazy. Good poetry is extremely hard to pull off, and if you decide to break the rules, you should do it willingly and not ignorantly.

I wrote a series of sonnets and took them to an open mic night for poets here locally. I revised and labored over these poems for a very long time. It was mostly a snooze fest for the audience.

Some girl came up behind me and did a bunch of slam shit and the crowd was super into it. I realized then that no one gives a shit anymore about whether or not you have talent.

The way we consume entertainment is just changing. I happen to think it's for the worse.

[Anonymous No.12166538]

>>12166532
you are so bad at this. should have been
>stupid poster of the loli
>he will never fuck a roastie

[Anonymous No.12166546]

>>12166538
it doesn't rhyme
you're out of time
now i will dine
on your mother's behind

[Anonymous No.12166547]

>>12166529
I honestly think most self-proclaimed "poets" just don't fucking know what an iamb or a trochee is. They have no formal training. They just think writing down a bunch of random shit about their ex is worth a poem.

[Anonymous No.12166548]

>>12166537
i dont even mind if it breaks some rules whe npeople are just trying to have fun, but it seems like people don't bother to have any rules at all. they just write incomplete sentences to make them sound old timey and use generic imagery with nothing to support it.

even if its ignorant, i could get past it if people simply did ONE thing right, or were open to the criticism instead of just saying 'im just doing this for fun'. like its fine if you are doing SOMETHING right, but you can't do NOTHING right and then expect people to only praise.

[Anonymous No.12166552]

>>12166537
lol fag

[Anonymous No.12166556]

>>12166547
i dont even mind if they don't adhere to that, god knows i don't do it consistently. I understand in any art form there are people coloring outside of the lines not for the sake of art but for the sake of just doing what they want.

but my problem is those people writing about the ex and thats it. theres nothing, not attempt, like rhyming is supposed to be pretty 'cringy' by a lot of modern standards but at least it shows someone trying to maintain a structure or formula, whereas most people just write inconsistent imagery about a woman and think its art.

[Anonymous No.12166559]

Alright. Lets do this.

What is good?
what is bad?

teach me. I want to learn.

[Anonymous No.12166562]

>>12166548
trust me, I hear you. I was an English major in college and had to sit through two poetry workshops with students who just refused to use any poetic devices that our professor taught us. Some of them would go a step further and just flat out ignore the basic rules of grammar because "it's meant to be spoken, not read."

The amount of times I had to bite my tongue in those workshops? I lost count. My professor actually pulled me aside and told me how much he appreciated the fact that I was virtually the only one in the class who genuinely tried to use what he taught us. We still keep in touch. Nice guy.

[Anonymous No.12166568]

>>12166454
how do you even get into poetry? it's way too cryptic for my taste. At least with prose you don't need to guess what the author is talking about.

[Anonymous No.12166569]

>>12166562
I'm not so great at it myself and don't know or understand everything about it, but you gotta draw the line somewhere. I just hate the poetry critique threads because its really just 3 people responding to a lot of shitty poems, those people rarely respond and when you ask for criticism back they just say 'yuh i liked it but im not good at advice' its just such a frustrating never ending cycle. maybe im a bit hypocritical because my poetry is certainly far from proffessional but i get so angry when i read something and know that its just another list of random details about a girl, or a moment with that girl.

at least have some sort of story to it, it can't just be some particular moment unchanging without any point.

>BUT THE MOMENT FELT SO GOOD TO ME SO I HAD TO DESCRIBE IT
fuck those people.

[Anonymous No.12166570]

>>12166568
>prose never has metaphor or allegory
oh anon, this is just sad.

[Anonymous No.12166571]

>>12166559
bad. too self congratulatory

[Anonymous No.12166583]

>>12166571
how so?

[Anonymous No.12166593]

>>12166583
name the 20 most noteworthy poets you have read more than 50 poems by

[Anonymous No.12166594]

>>12166454
man you aint ever heard of blank verse you disgusting weeb faggot

[Anonymous No.12166596]

>>12166570
well it's easier to understand as there's more context to the piece than just 5 lines.

[Anonymous No.12166602]

>>12166568
Some prose can be just as "cryptic" as poetry. Poetry gets easier the more you read it. Also, it's pretty much impossible to really dig into poetry without having a ton of foundational knowledge, especially when it comes to history and religion.

[Anonymous No.12166606]

>>12166593
how would not answering that question make it too 'self congratulatory'? I'm not questioning the criticism its self, merely asking for why. I may agree with it when explained why, but I fear you think the poem might be about myself, and its very much not.

[Anonymous No.12166615]

>>12166559
Its too direct and formulaic. Rather than a poem it reads like a direct speech with increasingly desperate rhyme. Do you not see the ugliness of rhyming "smile" and "awhile" or the awkwardness of fat lumbering lines like
>the question remained unanswered as the sun began to set
The imagery is unimpressive. A genius compared to a perfect statue. Passion compared to fire. Lies compared to a web.
And SO. MANY. TRASH. WORDS. You, your, that, this, for, how, the entire senbonzakura of I's makes you sound like an egomaniac

[Anonymous No.12166620]

>>12166594
this whole thread is unlearnèd af

[Anonymous No.12166624]

>>12166559
Some things to consider:
1) the rhyme scheme doesn't have to be all couplets.
2) show don't tell
3) the scansion is a bit wonky. some lines have 15 syllables, some have 12. think about tightening that up and getting your lines to all scan something similar. (I'm a fan of the 10 syllable line.)

[Anonymous No.12166628]

>>12166606
you aren't able to identify what is wrong with your poem. this is most likely due to not having read enough poetry yourself, as is the case with 99.99% of people who post bad poetry on here and elsewhere online. this applies to every artform that exists. if you tell me the poets you have read, i will be able to see where the biggest holes in your understanding of poetry as a whole lie and point you towards the movements you should focus on to broaden your knowledge. if you can't easily name 20 poets, you have not read enough.

>just tell me what exactly is wrong
no, because you won't even be able to fix it, because if you could, you would not have this situation

[Anonymous No.12166648]

>>12166615
> Do you not see the ugliness of rhyming "smile" and "awhile"
I don't, but that isn't to say I disagree either. I try to play within my league, and I think its more important to sound like myself than to try and sound smart and fail, as it were. This sort of advice I take as true, but part of that natural progression of working on any given thing. It is not something I can necessarily force my first go around, but is something I hope I can improve going forward.

>A genius compared to a perfect statue
This is where I do disagree to some degree. He is definitely not a genius, but the idea of a perfect statue (which generally reminds people of greek art) is directly tied to the idea of a 'Renaissance Man'. To choose it as a random subject would be generic I suppose (though not unforgivable for someone learning) but the point behind the poem was to write something for someone who describes himself as an Aspiring Renaissance Man. It would be rather foolish to ignore these things in an attempt to be unique in my first try at something I think.

>lies compared to a web
There was nothing about lies, though I can see why you interpret that, but a tangled web doesn't have to be of lies, it is simply that the ways I got him to stay in my life were very complex. I'll spare you the backstory.

> You, your, that, this, for, how, the
like above I do try to keep things simple in my early attempts because one thing that puts me off is people who ultimately sound pretentious in their poetry. I'm not saying people who find ways to drop those words are pretentious themselves, but a lot of people try too hard to sound sophisticated or refined or work around these basic words end up writing nonsense as a result, they think they are talking like old timey people and it doesn't work. I imagine as I move forward i will get better as it, and especially with the more I read.

my real concerns were of the structure and such, not just rhymes but in general the rules of poetic story telling not the level of creativity (though that doens't make your criticism invalid) based on what OP talked about and we all continued to discuss after.

[Anonymous No.12166649]

>>12166628
you can read 20 poets and never understand the moves they are making in their poetry to truly unlock the genius. in my opinion, basic instruction and formal training is step one, followed by several close readings of the best poets.

[Anonymous No.12166661]

>>12166624
>1) the rhyme scheme doesn't have to be all couplets.
I'm nervous about switching up a rhyming structure too much because I know some people consider there to be rules for it. I'm trying my best to color inside the lines first before I do anything too daring.

>2) show don't tell
could you tell me what you mean by this?

>3) the scansion is a bit wonky.
this is something I want to work more on in general with my poems, but im very happy with the strides I've made so far. I am amazed that people are bale to be so amazingly consistent and hope to get there as well, but am pretty happy when I can get them to just be close in length even if not perfectly.

[Anonymous No.12166667]

>>12166628
well you didn't ask what poets I've read, you set a benchmark minimum that I can admit to not having hit, and it seems from there you intent is to say 'you can't learn if you dont hit this minimum' which i find silly. you can learn by doing and you can learn by observing. a combination is best, but when someone is open to criticism you saying 'YOU WOULDNT UNDERSTAND MY CRITICISM' is just a bit silly.

The way you said 'self congratulatory' sounded a lot more like an issue with the story told in the poem than of issues with structure and formula and the like.

but if you don't want to tell me whats wrong thats fine, just you know, don't tell people whats wrong then. you help no one but your own ego.

[Anonymous No.12166675]

>>12166649
good fucking luck getting formal training in poetry
oh, unless you mean university level classes. i went there, guess what happened:

>lecturers assign readings. surprise: it's all poetry.
>students do not read said poetry, because like you they are too cool to read said poetry, and too busy being the rockstars of the poetic world, despite already being older than rimbaud who read more books before he was 15 than they will in their entire life, and wrote better poetry by the time he was 18 than they ever will in their entire life
>students write poetry, which i have to peer review and read
>said poetry is about being a snowflake and sucks dog shit
>realize i am among good company
>lose all interest in writing poetry forever

[Anonymous No.12166677]

>>12166649
I think my issue is im not disregarding one or the other (im the guy who wrote the poem not the guy you were responding to). I read poetry, not as much as he's listed off, and I work at writing my own, and im open to criticism and asked for more details on his before he answered. I don't think hes wrong per se about reading more, but to insist i cant understand criticism until i hit the arbitrary benchmark is silly. I think both reading and creating are step one, and they work well together.

[Anonymous No.12166683]

>>12166675
>like you they are too cool to read said poetry
I love reading poetry and have several books and of course look up more when I find an author that hits the good spot across multiple poems (or sometimes even just one surprisingly good one). you didn't ask what poets i read, you set a very specific yet arbitrary benchmark and insisted if i dont hit it then i wont understand your criticism.

>lose all interest in writing poetry because some people in class took it for an easy A
im starting to feel really glad you didn't share your criticism, it sounds like you just want to be pretentious anon. I was really open to it too, but I can't imagine you even knew what you meant by self congratulatory at this point.

[Anonymous No.12166695]

>>12166661
>I'm nervous about switching up a rhyming structure too much because I know some people consider there to be rules for it. I'm trying my best to color inside the lines first before I do anything too daring.
I'm not saying don't use rhyme, I'm saying that you can use different rhyme schemes. Your rhymes feel forced, and that's probably because of the aa bb cc dd etc.

>could you tell me what you mean by this?
basically just think about how you can shorten your lines. as someone stated before, you have a ton of throw away words in here. I can't write your poem for you, but this line starts off with a mouthful of words you just don't need.
"If I dare you to touch that fire, will I only feel cold?"

>this is something I want to work more on in general with my poems, but im very happy with the strides I've made so far. I am amazed that people are bale to be so amazingly consistent and hope to get there as well, but am pretty happy when I can get them to just be close in length even if not perfectly.
at least you're working on it. keep in mind that a nice tool is enjambment. don't overuse it because it starts to feel very lazy when you overuse it. if you think a line is running out of room, just shift it down to keep a more even structure.

my advice to you would be write a sonnet. don't cheat. follow every single rule to the letter for a classical Shakespearean sonnet. when you master that, do it again and again. you'll be surprised how when you sit down to write another poem, that muscle memory will click on. you'll be hyper aware of your syllables and stresses.

[Anonymous No.12166700]

>>12166667
>you set a benchmark minimum that I can admit to not having hit, and it seems from there you intent is to say 'you can't learn if you dont hit this minimum' which i find silly.
no, your primary vector for improving at an artistic skill is developing a discerning taste for what is (conventionally) considered well-crafted and worthwhile within that artistic sphere, which you do by - shock - reading or otherwise digesting whatever artistic medium it is you are operating in.

if you do not read poetry, you can write it, but you will stumble around like a blind retard asking 'DID I MAKE IT GUUUD' because you have no clue yourself, because you didn't read enough poetry yet.

>YOU WOULDNT UNDERSTAND MY CRITICISM' is just a bit silly
no, you will understand it, as you would criticism of any other artist's work, but you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO IMPLEMENT IT, in any meaningful way, because you SIMPLY do not have the ability to, as someone who has not memorized a map of london cannot be expected to drive a taxi in london (where using a gps is futile), or someone who has not practiced mountain climbing for years cannot be expected to free climb a cliff face, without falling off and killing themselves.

>you help no one but your own ego.
the only help i can offer you is the advice to read more, because that's the way it is. criticism is only useful to people who are far enough along in their artistic development that their issues will not be rectified simply by observation alone

[Anonymous No.12166703]

>>12166675
I had a very similar experience in college-level poetry classes, but I somehow managed to handle it like an adult. It sounds like you just don't give a shit about poetry, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I actually enjoyed picking apart bad poetry in the workshops.

[Anonymous No.12166705]

>>12166454
meter>rhyme

[Anonymous No.12166712]

>>12166695
>"If I dare you to touch that fire, will I only feel cold?"
while I understand you can't write the poem for me and wans't suggesting that, isn't giving an example of improvement a way to open up my mind? most people I talk about allegory to could not recognize it for the life of them no matter how much you define it or tell them to. but once you point out exact ideas in movies or TV shows they watch they become experts rather fast. Its hard to really wrap your mind around something without example. how would you rewrite
>"If I dare you to touch that fire, will I only feel cold?"
I often do feel like I have really long verses but often you gotta add extra words to balance them out with other ones. its a bit of a hard line for me personally to walk between keeping things succinct but also making them match other lines in length, but obviously the great poets do it so its something I need to work on.

>if you think a line is running out of room, just shift it down to keep a more even structure.
could you explain what you mean by this? I'm sorry if I seem dumb, I do think I am, but I don't want it to hold me back. if people are willing to explain things like I'm 5 I can learn.


>my advice to you would be write a sonnet.
I will try this. I avoided it before not just because of the syllables but the way words are stressed was something I legitimately struggle to wrap my mind around. My experience is in writing screenplays which are almost the exact opposite of poems in my opinion. They are as clinical as can be, where as poetry is like prose squared. any art in a screenplay is implied by the cohesion and execution whereas Poetry is so much more about every little moment on its own. I will try to understand the stresses again and give this a try.

[Anonymous No.12166713]

>>12166703
your assumption is mostly correct, but as for handling it like an adult - i didn't break into an hysterical fit in the workshops or anything. that's just my perspective of what that kind of environment is like, with all niceties stripped away because this is 4chan and also because they won't do the person i am responding to any good

[Anonymous No.12166732]

>>12166700
>no
then you are contradicting yourself anon. I DO read poetry. I just haven't read the exact numbers by specific poets. most of my books, with the exception of a Frost book tend to be compilations.

> you will stumble around like a blind retard asking 'DID I MAKE IT GUUUD'
i didn't remotely ask that. when you presented a criticism i asked for more details on that. I didn't come hejre to jerk off, and if you read anyone of the other reply chains you'll know that i take peoples advice to heart and simply seek more information so I can apply it.

While I do see issues with it, that doesn't mean i see all issues in it. If you think that you are talented enough that you would always see any flaw you put into a work (particularly a work of art) then you are objectively wrong. Seeing poetry done right doesn't guarantee i will see what is done wrong in my own, and having people explain what is wrong only helps.

you don't want to help. you want to throw out a two word criticism then insist im not going to understand it.

>you will not be able to implement it
sure i will. by telling me what it is, and combining it with your other advice of reading more poetry, I will be able to do it, but to insist on just reading and then never getting that advice I need to work on is silly. for all you know i CAN implement it as well, you are just insisting I can't because I didn't read a specific number of poems by a specific number of authors.

>the only advice I can offer you is the advice to read more
...and to be less self congratulatory... but you won't define it or explain remotely what you mean.

[Anonymous No.12166737]

>>12166713
>but as for handling it like an adult - i didn't break into an hysterical fit in the workshops or anything
>i simply blamed everyone who took a simple entry level course as an elective for stopping me from pursuing it
So mature.

[Anonymous No.12166739]

>>12166713
He didn't ask for niceties, he legitimately asked for you to explain what your criticism was. He's not complaining about how rude it was, he simply asked for you to elaborate. you find it easier to just rant and rave for 7 posts and no one else chimed in so clearly no one knows what you meant.

assume someone in this thread is experienced enough to know what it would mean. explain it.

[Anonymous No.12166761]

>>12166712
I only said I can't write it for you because writing a good line doesn't just happen. However, I can try to offer some advice.

Think about the line. What is it about? It's about fire and cold. How can you talk about those things without simply saying the words fire and cold? Consider the color, the sound, the smell of a burning fire. Show me that fire instead of just telling me a fire exists.

Ex: Will frigid winds extinguish burning blaze?
(I know this isn't what you're trying to say, but it's an example of an iambic line with more show."

Enjambment is just when your line continues onto the next line.

Ex: The dreamless dread of night weighed heavier
than sorrows of blah blah blah

I avoided sonnets, but it's such a good payoff when you do it and it finally works. And when you go back and read your poem with tight meter and good rhyme, you realize why the rules exist. It reads so nicely.

[Anonymous No.12166773]

>>12166761
see this just opened my mind a lot, whe nyou first started off i was like 'its already a metaphor' but i see what you mean here, obviously I gotta get the wording right as 'touching' the fire is really important to the story, but even just playing with more synonyms would be really helpful for my future work even when I'm already using a metaphor.

thank you, seriously and truly.

[Anonymous No.12166779]

>>12166761
and thanks for the info on enhambment. I tend to do that a lot within a couplet, but i feel uncomfortable when it moves beyond that, as I generally find it uncomfortable in other poems when you're trying to get that poetic sound but it forcibly breaks up sentences to me.

[Anonymous No.12166797]

>>12166732
>i just haven't read the exact numbers by specific poets
then read more. do you think if I asked Frost to name 20 poets, he would say 'well gee anon, to be honest i haven't read all that many poets myself'


>i didn't remotely ask that.
Your post literally says 'what is good? what is bad?'

>If you think that you are talented enough that you would always see any flaw you put into a work (particularly a work of art) then you are objectively wrong.
not what i implied or mean. the depth of your ability to write quality poetry (or create whatever art, or hell do anything) is directly correlated to your understanding of what works and what does not, which is directly correlated to how much of that artform you consume (actively consume, i might add, because obviously some moron who listens to some [arbitrarily large number x] of classical suites while he shitposts on 4chan and plays vidya will not be any closer to composing something good himself)

>you don't want to help. you want to throw out a two word criticism then insist im not going to understand it.
this is you covering all bases by dismissing my intentions, and therefore being able to dismiss what i'm saying in the process, because it being true is disadvantageous to you.

>sure i will
[snip, next post]

[Anonymous No.12166804]

>>12166773
Metaphor is just one tool in our box. It's about using all of the tools we have and blending them together. That's when meh poetry becomes good poetry.

You're on the right path. And if you ever find yourself stuck and thinking "this is too fucking hard to make work" then you know you're finally writing poetry. It's not easy.

Good luck on your journey. Be prepared for no one to give a shit about your work. It's a totally thankless endeavor.

[Anonymous No.12166812]

>>12166797
listen,i can tell you are young, probably early to mid teens, because if i posted something on 4chan at around that age and people shat on it i would probably have reacted in the same way. i will give you a very important piece of advice in this world, for people who want to pursue artistic endeavors.

no matter where you go and what you do, you will mostly be surrounded by yesmen. if you show your poem to your friends or family, they will all nod their heads and say it's great, because they are your friends and family. if you go to a college level and show them this poem, they will nod their heads and say it needs a bit of work but is acceptable, because you are paying to be there, they have a job to worry about keeping, and they are trained to coddle you when you absolutely least need it lest they offend some snowflake and cause a scene. if you go to a live poetry performance and perform your poem, at the very least people will sit through it, and give a forced clap at the end. nobody on this planet besides a very slim margin of people will tell you the harsh truth about the absolute lack of skill your poem displays when compared to that of even a veteran amateur poet, and nobody will do these things because the majority of people who take up an artform do so because they want to be congratulated on a small scale for simply mindlessly doing things, and don't care to improve in any significant way. if you are not one of those people you should be able to earnestly look at your own work, see that no matter how good you think it is, it can be potentially 2000x better at all times, even if you are at the very top of the world, and as such you should be desperately, with all energy in your body, clawing your way to the next level, and ready at all moments to mobilize and implement any possible kind of method which might help you to improve, which includes my not so daunting task of reading 20 x 50 1000 poems, which you could probably do in about 6 months if you're going at the pace i envision is healthy for the purposes we intend, and your drive is at the level it needs to be to meaningfully improve and not just waste peoples time online giving you very specific feedback for poems that you could completely outdo in a few months by leagues if you did what i advised. now i have to leave 4chan and do some work to justify my existence. this is stuff you will figure out for yourself anyway if you seriously pursue getting good - which i hope you will, because it doesn't do me any good to put you down and shit on your work, contrary to what you said. goodbye and good luck

[Anonymous No.12166819]

>>12166797
No, but I think he would say 'it doesn't matter how many I've read at this exact moment if you got some fucking criticism give it to me you pretentious faggot'.

don't you?

>your post says something different than I claimed
yes, thats what I said.

>all that other nonsense
at the end of the day you threw out criticism then ranted for an hour about how I wouldn't understand or implement it if you explained it. no one had anything to lose by you explaining it so that, even if it was down the road, i could implement it. you just assumed I'm too dumb for you to explain something to.

thats pretty stupid. if you don't want to share thats fine, but you know, go be an ass elsewhere. im done. other people are helpful.

[Anonymous No.12166830]

>>12166804
absolutely, I don't disagree at all, I just thought you were taking it literally for a second when you suggested a change to it, but i can definitely see thats not remotely where you were going with it.

>be prepared for no one to give a shit about your work. its a totally thankless endeavor
I have a pretty nice following that enjoys my work even outside of what i normally produce so that isn't really the case but i udnerstand what you mean as a sentiment. I made these poems so far just as gifts to show people what I think about them and our relationship, and they were very grateful, and some others who have read have done other things like design cards for them like in that picture, and another one is even turning that one into a song (which is why i posted that more than others for notes). but I do understand what you mean as a whole.

[Anonymous No.12166841]

>>12166812
>ecause if i posted something on 4chan at around that age and people shat on it i would probably have reacted in the same way.
see, this is how I Can tell you are young. no one shat on it. you didn't even shit on it. you offered criticism and I just asked for more information. look at everyone else who responded adn you'll see its respectful people giving opinions, and me agreeing with them for the most part, and not being upset when I don't for whatever particular reason.

i cant imagine you have anything else of value to add so im not going to bother reading beyond the 'yessmen' because I have been very clear that I'm open to criticism. my problem is that you refuse to give any.

[Anonymous No.12166995]

>>12166524
Enjambment has a good effect in the right context, like in Paradise Lost. It's like the great truth of Creation and Man cannot be contained within the lines.

[Anonymous No.12166999]

>>12166527
What about Ozymandias and Paradise Lost then? My personal distinction is whether or not it has a structured meter. I prefer rhyme tho

[Anonymous No.12167011]

>>12166568
Depends on the poet. A lot of poets nowadays are either cryptic for its own sake or blatantly obvious. Many of the greats weren't cryptic, but used extensive metaphors in a style that we don't use today, so it can be hard to keep track. Sometimes it helps to read an analysis and come back to it.

[Anonymous No.12167691]

>>12166732
>you will not be able to implement [that anon's advice]
>sure i will. by telling me what it is
Look, I understand your frustration, but the other anon is right. As a poet (etymologically, a "maker," "crafter," or "do-er"), you are supposed to develop standards of criticism on your own. If that anon was less kind, he would tell you exactly what he thought was wrong with the poem, and you would treat it as gospel. That attitude would be in the wrong direction: rather than trying to make something that can satisfy your own (developed, well cultivated) tastes, you would instead be obsessed with the audience's reaction. Do you want to be a whore, anon?

You need to read more poetry, and from all different time periods. Contrary to your belief, this is good advice because we are not telling you what you absolutely should and should not do in any circumstance, but rather setting you on the path to becoming a poet who can recognize your own flaws and strengths. Reading poetry is not hard, so I don't understand your resistance to it.

[Anonymous No.12167715]

>>12166999
>Ozymandias
>no rhyme
Wat

[Anonymous No.12167737]

>>12166515
>I blame the Modernists
You should blame Whitman right after blaming yourself for being a retard.

[Anonymous No.12167751]

>>12166547
every damn high schooler knows what that is you pleb

[Anonymous No.12167773]

>>12166547
>projecting this hard
Not everybody is as much of a pleb as you are.

[Anonymous No.12167789]

>>12166454
The vast majority of poetry ever written or spoken, in cultures who had no notion of prose/poetry, didn't include rhyming. It's like saying why do people think it's okay to write music that doesn't use the same limited set of chords...oh wait.

[Anonymous No.12167799]

>>12167789
Vast majority of all things are shit.

[Anonymous No.12167820]

>>12167799
My point was that poetry isn't a few short lines of uninspired jerky rhymes. You can't write a poetic epic in solely rhyme, nor a philosophical discourse. Homer wrote poetry, and Beowulf is a poem. All oral tradition is poetry, some fractions of which handed down to us, transliterated, number in hundreds of thousands of words.

[Anonymous No.12167828]

>>12167820
>You can't write a poetic epic in solely rhyme
*blocks your path*
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Metamorphoses_(tr._Golding)/Book_1

[Anonymous No.12168191]

>>12167820
>You can't write a poetic epic in solely rhyme
Divine Comedy?
Speaking of, I know nothing about poetry but am I right in thinking that The Waste Land was the last significant epic poem? What happened to epic poems?

[Anonymous No.12168205]

>>12168191
The average attention span has been shortened significantly by technology, even among the intelligentsia.

[Anonymous No.12168223]

I saw a thread where a frogposter said 'Poetry without rhyme is just segmented prose' and some anon replied with pic related, what does /lit/ think of it? I'm personally quite impressed considering he had to have come up with it on the spot.

[Anonymous No.12168232]

Is this prose poetry?

[Anonymous No.12168458]

>>12168232
amazing

[Anonymous No.12168482]

>>12166518
>>12166524
Paradise Lost is written in blank verse. It's not rhymed but it's still written in meter.

[Anonymous No.12168493]

>>12166515
Except the modernists didn’t use free verse??
Can you even name a single modernist? Or a symbolist for that matter?

[Anonymous No.12168500]

"Poetry" that isn't written in meter is just prose spaced out over multiple lines. It isn't poetry.

[Anonymous No.12168788]

>>12168493
>Except the modernists didn’t use free verse??

[Anonymous No.12168800]

>conflating poetry with verse
philistines

[Anonymous No.12169236]

>>12167715
It's a nonce structure tho

[Anonymous No.12170188]

>>12166454
because they started with the greeks

[Anonymous No.12171476]

I N V E N T I O N
O F
A
B A R B A R I O U S
A G E

[Anonymous No.12171504]

I wrote this probably 3 months ago

Dead leaves make me happy
On the ground or in my tea
Thanks for your gifts kind old trees

am i a 14 year old girl, how gay is this
who the fuck even am i

[Anonymous No.12171553]

>He doesn't alternate between iambic pentameter and trochaic tetrameter

[Anonymous No.12171572]

>>12166454
Rhyming poetry is for plebeian entertainment and always has been

Take your rap lyrics elsewhere and happy Hannukah

[Anonymous No.12171599]

>>12167737
>Whitman
I said Transcedentalists you retard
>>12168493
Fucking embarrassing. Please read more, or do a web search before posting. Modernism is based on questioning tradition and experimenting, and there is a shitload of modernist free verse.

Are you people even conscious?

[Anonymous No.12171602]

>>12168500
>William Carlos Williams wasn't a poet
whatever you say, pseud

[Anonymous No.12171627]

IN cabin'd ships at sea,
The boundless blue on every side expanding,
With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious
waves,
Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,
Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails,
She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or
under many a star at night,
By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land,
be read,
In full rapport at last.

Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts,
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be
said,
The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our
feet,
We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the
briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy
rhythm,
The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,
And this is ocean's poem.

Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny,
You not a reminiscence of the land alone,
You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not
whither, yet ever full of faith,
Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!
Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold
it here in every leaf;)
Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart
the imperious waves,
Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every
sea,
This song for mariners and all their ships.

[Anonymous No.12171977]

>>12166454
I've always been on the other side

why do people bother with poetry that does rhyme

I always figured the point of poetry was expression. Why impose arbitrary constraints on expression and make it a fucking word game

[Anonymous No.12172061]

>>12166454
Blank verse is fine, but follow a meter.

[Anonymous No.12172084]

>>12171977
because structures have effect. the point of poetry isnt expression. the point is whatever the inverse of empathy is-forcing others to empathize.

saying "im sad about my ex gf" is expression
The Raven turns that idea into something the reader connects with & is affected by. The rhyme provides entertainment. (also supports the central theme, but thats a happy accident). Entertainment makes the piece more memorable, makes the reader more connected, more likely to internalize the material. Rhymes provide structure & also help internalization & memorization of ideas.

[Anonymous No.12172120]

>>12171977
Because poetry is meant to spoken and heard. The structure, rhythm and sound of it produces beauty and meaning the way music does. Also, keeps brainlets out.

[Anonymous No.12172170]

>>12171977
a poem is music made with spoken words, rhyming is a tool for imparting musicality. not the only one of course, but a particularly effective one.

also, I'd like to remind all the illiterates in this thread that rhyming is not a core feature of english poetry that the modernists stripped away in a fit of depravity, if anything it was a fad that stuck around for a long time because some of the GOAT poets wrote in a time when rhyme was in

[Anonymous No.12172378]

>>12172120
>the point is whatever the inverse of empathy is-forcing others to empathize.
Okay that's fine, this is more of an elaboration than a negation and we can let that be the standing premise here.

>saying "im sad about my ex gf" is expression
Yes, it is a more shallow expression. When expression is more creative, it's more aesthetically pleasing.

>The rhyme provides entertainment
I ask then what makes it so significant. Doodles in the margin would provide entertainment as well.

>Rhymes provide structure & also help internalization & memorization of ideas.
Accounting for the cognitive weaknesses of the audience doesn't translate to something artistically valuable, in my mind.

>>12172120
>Because poetry is meant to spoken and heard.
It's meant to have value spoken aloud, but if this is actually a dominant quality of poetry then it's become a really bizarre art form, distinct from the rest of literature. Also inaccessible to the deaf.

>The structure, rhythm and sound of it produces beauty and meaning the way music does
Music being a different medium from literature. A marriage of the two is neat and cute, but I don't see why such a thing should be a priority where literature is concerned. In essence, literature is about the communication of ideas. If it's not meant to retain its essential value as silent words on a page then it's no longer significant as writing.

I say let music be music, let literature be literature. It would follow from your claims that the deaf can't appreciate poetry, wouldn't it? I don't like that. I care about what the artist is trying to express. If the goal was only to express, what is there to call for rhyme constraints? There's the most powerful and appropriate words to describe something, and then there's the ones that fucking rhyme. Come on

[Anonymous No.12172394]

>>12171602
Correct. He wrote spaced prose.

[Anonymous No.12172443]

>>12172394
wow, so non-rhyming poetry really is the pleb filter

[Anonymous No.12172508]

>>12172443
Who said anything about rhyme? I'm talking about meter. Any other aspects, rhythm, etc. are things not exclusive to poetry. It's just prose spaced out. Nothing more. There's nothing about it that makes it poetry.

[Anonymous No.12172534]

>>12166454
>tfw want to be a poet (among other things)
>tfw can't write in rhyme
I'm able to write pretty good free verse poems, but I can't call myself a poet if I can't rhyme.

[Anonymous No.12172538]

>>12172508
lmao

[Anonymous No.12172543]

>>12172538
Feel free to explain why it's poetry.

[Anonymous No.12172570]

>>12172538
You have no argument.

[Anonymous No.12172576]

>>12172543
because it uses the subliminal qualities of language to evoke. you're the one who, out of contrarianism, has attempted to redefine poetry in such a hilariously ineffective way that you've excluded the great 20th century poets

[Anonymous No.12172577]

>>12172576
>because it uses the subliminal qualities of language to evoke
How is that exclusive to poetry?
>that you've excluded the great 20th century poets
Wow, I care deeply.

[Anonymous No.12172579]

>>12172534
use a thesaurus like Sylvia Plath.

[Anonymous No.12172581]

>>12172576
>Muh 20th century!
Every time.

[Anonymous No.12172606]

>>12172581
Truly the worst century.

[Anonymous No.12172627]

>free verse retards think that line spacing is an aspect of poetry rather than an orthographic convention for making meter easier to read
lol

[Anonymous No.12172771]

>>12172579
Sylvia Plath was not a thesaurus, she was a 20th century writer and poet.

[Anonymous No.12172946]

>>12172534
By that standard rap is poetry.

[Anonymous No.12172999]

>It's meant to have value spoken aloud, but if this is actually a dominant quality of poetry then it's become a really bizarre art form, distinct from the rest of literature. Also inaccessible to the deaf.
The deaf are compromised listening to music, no one said that poetry was meant for the deaf. Poetry is a distinct form of literature! It's distinct from prose.
>Music being a different medium from literature. A marriage of the two is neat and cute, but I don't see why such a thing should be a priority where literature is concerned. In essence, literature is about the communication of ideas. If it's not meant to retain its essential value as silent words on a page then it's no longer significant as writing.

I say let music be music, let literature be literature. It would follow from your claims that the deaf can't appreciate poetry, wouldn't it? I don't like that. I care about what the artist is trying to express. If the goal was only to express, what is there to call for rhyme constraints? There's the most powerful and appropriate words to describe something, and then there's the ones that fucking rhyme. Come on
I never conflated the two to suggest that they are the same. What I am a saying is that music is just sounds, but they are sounds in a specific order and pattern that evokes some sort of response from the listener. Similarly, poetry has patterns that evoke a response from the listener for a reason that is not purely intellectually.

[Anonymous No.12173038]

>>12166454
I know a Theravadin monk who asks the sane question...

[Anonymous No.12173040]

>biblical poetry isn't poetry
enjoy hell

[Anonymous No.12173069]

>>12166537
lmao, slam girl sounds shitty but i 100% guarantee your precious sonnets are also trash by any metric but your own

[Anonymous No.12173084]

>making strong statements about the correct meaning of a word without committing to a theory of meaning
brainlets

[Anonymous No.12173088]

>>12168223
trash. reads like that faggot /u/poemforyoursprog

[Anonymous No.12173093]

>>12168232
the first 10 words is pretty promising but then it devolves into nonsense

[Anonymous No.12173100]

>>12173084
literal womanlet