/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14856796]

Your favorite poet is a 10/10. Walt Whitman, for instance. From 0 to 10, where do you rank the best lyricist?

Pic may or may not be related.

[Anonymous No.14856810]

>>14856796
Compared to poets, Bob Dylan is maybe a 6/10 at best.

[Anonymous No.14856819]

>>14856810
What about Kendrick Lamar?

[Anonymous No.14857732]

>>14856819

[Anonymous No.14857743]

Alfred Lord Tennyson
>To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
>Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

[Anonymous No.14858483]

2/10. One point for imagery, another for story-telling.

In order to get a 3, you need to know versification. He doesn't.

[Anonymous No.14858496]

>>14856819
Kendrick is like a 5/10

[Anonymous No.14858608]

All lyricists are very poor poets, though the average person cannot discern that.

In order to judge a poet, you need to have studied quite a bit of classical criticism - from Aristotle to at least Pope - plus read a lot, but truly a lot, in order to form your own taste.

"How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind"

That is very bad poetry. High schoollish or worse. But you won't be able to discern that unless you learn what poetry is about, how it needs to be as concise as possible; how rhetoric must either help with the concision, the music, the idea, or not be there at all; how the imagery has to be rich and nearly constant; how you simply *cannot use* cliches (with few exceptions, as no rules are absolute).

A cliche is not merely a well-known statement such as "Love is the answer" but includes pretty much anything that is a ready-made idea instead of an original one: "white dove" is a terrible cliche; "forever banned" sounds like something out of a political pamphlet, this is not poetic language (in Jakobson's sense), but rather prose; "the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind" is just too much and quite ridiculous.

[Anonymous No.14858757]

10.
If you just sit down & read through Ys without listening to it, it feels like a long-form P.B. Shelley poem.

[Anonymous No.14858851]

>>14858608
How would you rank these Dylan lyrics:

'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved
Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail
Poisoned in the bushes an' blown out on the trail
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Now there's a wall between us, somethin' there's been lost
I took too much for granted, I got my signals crossed
Just to think that it all began on an uneventful morn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

I've heard newborn babies wailin' like a mournin' dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation and she gave me a lethal dose
I offered up my innocence I got repaid with scorn
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

[Anonymous No.14858878]

>>14858608
>Yes, 'n'
i love how they just throw in a "yeah" or a "hey" if they need an extra syllable. like how can you be that lazy, but also so careless with something you're creating? i would be ashamed of myself.

[Anonymous No.14858897]

>>14858608
Also what about Leonard Cohen and Joanna Newsom?

[Anonymous No.14858941]

Wow! Let's compare poetry with song lyrics because they both use words and they rhyme!

Next let's compare blow jobs to 711 Slurpies because noise.

Lyrics SHOULD be missing something when stripped of their music and read.You don't season oranges with orange zest or pour sugar on pancake syrup, and you don't want song lyrics to be poetry because they have to work with the music. If the lyrics were complete poems, adding music would fuck them up. (as evidenced by all the poems set to music that suck.)

The music and the lyrics are greater than the sum of each, and that new whole redefines both the music and the lyrics.

Stripping one from the other is like trying to remove the size from the whale, or the space from the sky. And comparing lyricists to poets is as obnoxious as comparing sculptors to painters.

[Anonymous No.14858955]

>>14858941
holy fucking reddit

[Anonymous No.14858982]

>>14858851
10/10
One of my favorite Dylan songs. He illustrates so perfectly the redemptive power of Love.

[Anonymous No.14858997]

>>14858851
Could perhaps become decent if he polished it. I'd say that, generally, 30% of good poetry is immediate "inspiration" (by which mean that which comes directly to you, such as the imagery, the ideas, the metaphors, the themes/stories, and so on) and 70% polishing - specially because some of the "inspiration" comes from the act of polishing itself (because polishing involves questioning and analyses, which can give rise to newer and better concepts than those previously employed). We must make exception, of course, for those who are so used to the medium of poetry that their inspiration comes to them already in polished form -which seems to at least a couple of times have been the case with Keats. However it may be, there are great poets, like Fiztgerald (both Fitzgeralds actually), whose fame came mostly through translation: they didn't have so many original ideas and weren't so "inspired", but knew the art of poetry so well that they managed to give new authentic value to the works they translated. Even if I knew Farsi I'd still read Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam; even though I can more or less read Virgil in Latin, I still intend to read the other Fitzgerald's translation one day, because I know it's going to be a great experience due to his refined abilities as a craftsman of verse.

All Dylan lyrics demand serious polishing. I can listen to them, but find them unreadable because of the lack of rhythm, the redundancies, the complete and naive misunderstanding of the function of rhyme, the slangs and contractions whose only function is to mask the poet's inability at handling meter, and so on.

Comparing Dylan to a good poet is the same as comparing an amateur pianist playing Hollywood soundtracks on YouTube to someone who performs Beethoven's "Emperor" concerto with an orchestra.

>>14858878
Dylan does that all the time. He has no patience, no rigour. It's not his fault: the man didn't wish to be a poet, but merely a music star, yet somehow Americans tried to label him as a poet and the Swedish Academy went along with the joke so as to show just how little respect they have for the big American four (Pynchon, McCarthy, DeLillo, Roth).

>>14858897
Leonard Cohen has some good poems, though his verse is often too conventional. He at least knew something about rhythm. But I bought one of his poetry books and found it very mediocre, with the exception of a few good moments. I very much enjoy his music, however, and have listened to nearly all of it. I'd say that his verse is *solid*, in the sense that it rarely brings the music down, never spoils it, but always either elevates it or lets it stay in place; unlike Dylan, with whom the music can sometimes be good while the "poetry" makes you feel nauseous.

No idea about Newsom.

[Anonymous No.14859043]

>>14858997
An excerpt from the climax of "Only Skin":

I have got some business out at the edge of town,
candy weighing both of my pockets down
till I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them
(and knowing how the commonfolk condemn
what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm:
Being a woman. Being a woman.)

But always up the mountainside you’re clambering,
groping blindly, hungry for anything;
picking through your pocket linings —
well, what is this?
Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?

I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain.
Little sister, he will be back again.
I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain.
Spiders’ ghosts hang, soaked and
dangling silently, from all the blooming cherry trees,
in tiny nooses, safe from everyone —
nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done —
Be a woman. Be a woman.

Though we felt the spray of the waves,
we decided to stay, 'till the tide rose too far.
We weren’t afraid, cause we know what you are;
and you know that we know what you are.

Awful atoll —
O, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow!
Bawl bellow:
Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow.
Toddle and roll;
teethe an impalpable bit of leather,
while yarrow, heather and hollyhock
awkwardly molt along the shore.

[Anonymous No.14859072]

>>14858496
kendrick is a word salad nonsense scribbling rhyme machine piece of shit like the industry shill that he is and everyone on here thinking they have the fucking chops to question bob dylan on a poetic basis is digging their own grave
>>14858608
and its this ignorant shit im talking about. because poetry is fucking bullshit when it comes to modern standards. to rate him in terms of "classical criticism" which you seem to hold your own perception of which in high regard because you read "classical poetry" and formed opinions obviously because you felt obligated to, you fucking faggot, is to completely misunderstand the form that dylan was working with and what he accomplished within that form. becuase what he was doing was not merely poetry nor merely folk music but a sublime synthesis of both wherein any true appreciation of both the simple musical poetry of the troubador is crossed with the literary sentiment of the poet to combine literally a new artistic expression which no one to date has been able to match, and nearly everyone remotely close to both fields has tried. i wish i could berate you in real life you dumb fucking piece of shit. bob dylan may have deserved that nobel, but it did not deserve him.

[Anonymous No.14859082]

>>14858997
i hate you so much. how can you write so much and say so little? i want to insult you personally. give me personal details so i can insult you personally. better yet, give me any sample of your writing besides this garbage diarrhea vomit that you typed here. give me something youre proud of. lets see it big boiy.

[Anonymous No.14859087]

>>14859043
Overall, these stanzas are better than the previous ones, but I don't see the point in selecting hand-picked examples. Anyone who writes thousands of poems throughout the period of 60+ years will eventually come up with some good stanzas.

A good poet needs regularity. Dylan lacks it, and seems not to notice it at all (or maybe he doesn't care because he knows he's not a poet). Even his best lyrics will always contain four or five verses that should have been eliminated. For instance:

>candy weighing both of my pockets down
>till I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them

Horrible.

Sorry, but Dylan is not a good poet.

[Anonymous No.14859092]

>>14859087
how much do you weigh? what is your ethinic composition? religious background? i feel like these answers would inform your retarded anonymous posting existence

[Anonymous No.14859098]

>>14859072
>>14859082
Such is the level of /lit/, 2020. Embarrassing.

Stop trashing the troubadours. They studied form very carefully and were extremely rigorous with it.

Can you even read provençal? Galician-Portuguese? Imbecile.

[Anonymous No.14859103]

>>14859087
So far in this thread, you've provided very surface-level reasons for everything. And, by the way, the lyrics I posted were from Joanna Newsom, not Bob Dylan. I was responding to your "No idea about Newsom." That you couldn't even recognize that the style of lyricism was nothing like Dylan indicates that you're kinda a charlatan.
>Horrible.
Man, I wish they gave out Pulitzers for lyrical criticism, because you'd deserve one.

[Anonymous No.14859141]

>>14859098
>haha i can reference foreign language
you are a faggot, and no troubador would ever want tot be associated with you>>14859098

[Anonymous No.14859147]

>>14859103
She's a better poet than Dylan, then. At least in that particular poem.

It is impossible to recognize, with certainty, a poet from a single, isolated poem. Try recognizing the same poet in "Mar Português" and "Ode Triunfal". You can't. You need someone to tell you it was written by the same person. Although some poets, like Petrarch or Hopkins, might specialize in a very personal style, others might produce extremely variable output. And even in these last cases you might always run into the typical pastiche. You are fully aware that every critical edition of any famous poet from more than, say, two centuries ago will usually come with a small section of "doubtful attributions", are you not? Well then.

Now I find it quite incredible that you seem to be so personally offended over someone who showed that your idol does not know how to write poetry.

[Anonymous No.14859170]

>>14859141
>foreign languages

Foreign to you, natural to me. My native language had some of the most talented troubadours. It was you who cited them first, so you should have known what you're talking about.

The troubadours were great poets *and* decent composers (one of them, Machaut, was also a great composer, although he doesn't really belong to the old tradition as he came a bit later), but Dylan, although he is a good composer, is no decent poet.

[Anonymous No.14859177]

>>14859147
>That entire post
lol, duuuuuude... you're trying way too hard, my man.

[Anonymous No.14859190]

>>14859147
>It is impossible to recognize, with certainty, a poet from a single, isolated poem.
555-come-on-now

[Anonymous No.14859196]

>>14858941
>pour sugar on pancake syrup,
You clearly have never been to America

[Anonymous No.14859264]

>>14859177
>>14859190
Show me one Dylan lyric which doesn't contain any cliches, or any redundancies, or any forced rhyming, or any unoriginal metaphors, or any weak meter (free verse "trying" to be meter and not achieving it, i.e., "broken feet"), or anything of the sort, and I will say: "This is a decent poem" (though written by an usually bad poet).

I never found such lyric, but Dylan isn't my idol and I haven't listened/read everything by him. So maybe you can show it to me.

And it is impossible to determine a poet's identity by simply reading a poem. You clearly are not acquainted with the history of poetry if you think it is possible. Even a critical edition of Dante comes full of "possible authorship" poems, and scholars debate to this day if Shakespeare did or didn't have contributors on play X, and if he did, then what parts are his and what parts are the contributor's (sometimes they will resort to computer analysis in order to solve these issues).

[Anonymous No.14859278]

>>14859264
>And it is impossible to determine a poet's identity by simply reading a poem. You clearly are not acquainted with the history of poetry if you think it is possible. Even a critical edition of Dante comes full of "possible authorship" poems, and scholars debate to this day if Shakespeare did or didn't have contributors on play X, and if he did, then what parts are his and what parts are the contributor's (sometimes they will resort to computer analysis in order to solve these issues).
m8, the fact that poets have recognizable styles is what makes those authorship debates possible. you're just some undergrad pissing in the wind here

[Anonymous No.14859310]

>>14859264
Where the fuck is this Dylan thing coming from? I *never* said anything about Bob Dylan. I'm >>14858757 and was trying to use Joanna Newsom as an example of a musician who reaches the level of poetry. You just seem to hate anything to do with calling musicians 'poets' because of some arbitrary standard you've set. It's unreasonable.

[Anonymous No.14859356]

>>14859278
There's a difference between suspecting and determining. Determination is precisely what I am talking about.

Furthermore, some authors can have very different styles throughout their lives.

The man was posting Dylan, so I simply assumed the other poem was also Dylan's. I only know Dylan's early albums and have no idea what his later poetry (post-80's) is like. He might have completely changed his style, or he might not. I do not know. I do not spend too much of my time listening to your idol.

If you think that it's impossible for a writer to have widely different styles, voices, even languages, then, well... You have read very little poetry. For one, you haven't read Pessoa (perhaps the best poet of the last century).

I am not an undergraduate. I do have a degree, though it's not in Literature.

[Anonymous No.14859383]

>>14859356
>I am not an undergraduate. I do have a degree, though it's not in Literature
Yeah, no shit. You are posting in generalities about something you clearly don't know that much about, and no one should buy it. Any retard could tell if only from context that that wasn't a Bob Dylan song. You just weren't paying attention, or are just trying to rile people. I don't particularly like Dylan, by the way.
>you haven't read Pessoa (perhaps the best poet of the last century)
excellent feint, I cannot wait to see what you post next

[Anonymous No.14859442]

>>14859310
Then I mistook you for another, as you did not specify who you are.

Newsom's poem contains *almost precisely* the same faults as Dylan's poems do, with the only notable difference being that she seems to be concerned with other themes (at least in that particular poem, compared to those of Dylan that I know of).

To her advantage, she doesn't employ random contractions and unjustified slangs so as to cover the gaps (at least in that particular poem, compared to those of Dylan that I know of). However, she does use: embarrassing verses, like the ones about candy; empty rhetoric (O, incalculable indiscreteness and sorrow); empty (and worse: obvious, nearly pop) references to Greek mythology; irregular meter, as is typical in lyrics. All of this is similar to Dylan and makes me wonder if she has not been influenced by him. However, as I suggested, it seems to me that these faults occur in her poems less frequently them they do in Dylan's poems.

I have nothing against calling a popular musician a poet. In fact, I suspect there *must* be good poems written by popular musicians, if only because the number of poems ("lyrics") they write is so large. There are also competent lyricists in France (Serge Gainsbourg), Italy (Fabrizio de André), Brazil (Chico Buarque de Holanda). One of them must at least once have written at leas one good poem, I assume. Though I must say I don't think I am familiar with it, or if I am then I have forgotten it.

You compared her to Shelley. Now, I will not say bad things about an old, drowned person, but I'll let you know that many people, such as T.S. Eliot, consider Shelley a rather unaccomplished poet, more appropriate for readers who are still in their youth. This does not mean, of course, the he (Shelley) didn't have great moments. It means other things. Anyway. Romanticism really is the easiest style to imitate for people who wish to be poets, so it doesn't surprise me that it's what pop music poets would be associated with (except in form, as they don't know meter and form as well as the romantics did, so they mix the easiest matter - romantic - with the easiest structure - free verse).

Anyway, I have wasted too much time talking to you. Time to go.

[Anonymous No.14859476]

>>14859383
Judging from you posts, I probably know more about literature than you do. One does not need to go to college to study literature (and specially poetry, which you only truly learn by memorization, practice, and language-learning) in order to be able to talk about it.

I don't know more about Dylan, nor about Newsom, than you do. I can't judge who-wrote-what. Doesn't interest me. You post me a poem, I'll judge it on its own merits.

What I know of Dylan: Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, Desire (lyrics half not his, from what I remember), Blood on the Tracks, a few other hits from the 60's. He might have become Geoffrey Hill in the last decade, and I won't know it because I haven seen what he wrote, except for his ridiculous and shallow Nobel lecture.

What I know of Newsom: that which you posted and nothing else. Don't know her age, nationality (I assume either American or Canadian), eduction, if she wrote any books. Had never heard of.

[Anonymous No.14859520]

>>14859442
Since you provided such a thorough response, I feel obligated to respond to a couple things.
>embarrassing verses, like the ones about candy
What makes it embarrassing? Is it just because she mentions candy and that's not a "poetic" topic? A big message of Only Skin is the sudden rupture that societal pressures cause on the idyllic state of childhood (in the style of, say, Wordsworth).
>empty rhetoric (O, incalculable indiscreteness and sorrow)
That entire section is used for its assonance and aesthetic sound. I suggest actually listening to it https://youtu.be/1iSpddh1U6E?t=471 in order to hear how it sounds. Sound is a huge effect of good poetry, isn't it?
>All of this is similar to Dylan and makes me wonder if she has not been influenced by him
lol... I can tell you for sure she's not. You're making very facile connections here based on the fact that your hollow judgements of both Dylan & Newsom overlap, not their works.
>I'll let you know that many people, such as T.S. Eliot, consider Shelley a rather unaccomplished poet,
Shut the fuck up with your attitude, dude. You don't need to talk down to people on a Croatian origami-folding imageboard. Of course I know how T. S. Eliot's criticisms. I've also ready Harold Bloom's powerful defense of Shelley against Eliot's ornery rhetoric. I'm not surprised at all that a self-indulgent, critical young man like yourself would take inspiration from someone like Eliot.

[Anonymous No.14859531]

>>14859442
>but I'll let you know that many people, such as T.S. Eliot, consider Shelley a rather unaccomplished poet, more appropriate for readers who are still in their youth. This does not mean, of course, the he (Shelley) didn't have great moments. It means other things

hilarious.

[Anonymous No.14859551]

>>14859442
HA. I love how you actually use TS Elliot's literary criticism as a way to shoot down Shelley. TS Eliot, as a literary critic, was absolutely horrendous, dude.

>>14859520
You are doing God's work, my man. By the way, Bloom's book "Shelley's Mythmaking" is fantastic.

[Anonymous No.14859589]

>>14859551
>By the way, Bloom's book "Shelley's Mythmaking" is fantastic.
I haven't read it, but his essay "The Unpastured Sea: An Introduction to Shelley" is one of my favorite literary essays of all time. He so simple & direct in his writing and his adoration of great literature.
>TS Eliot, as a literary critic, was absolutely horrendous, dude.
Everyone who I've met in my English Lit grad program says the same thing. It's wonderful how grad students can't agree on anything, but they all agree that Eliot's nonfiction prose is trash. In a survey on British Modernism we read "Hamlet and His Problems" and everyone agreed that he was nauseatingly contrarian to the point where he couldn't be taken seriously. It takes a serious sort of asshole (>>14859442) to willingly bring up Eliot to try & make his point.

[Anonymous No.14859610]

>>14859520
>What makes it embarrassing?

Maybe it's a question of taste. For me, the idea of ''candy weighing your pockets down'' seems to suggest a very ridiculous image.

>That entire section is used for its assonance and aesthetic sound

Then read Karawane, if that's what you want. That stanza seems to me awfully rhetorical, like someone trying to sound ''poetical'' and not being able to due to a lack of what to say and what to think.

>I can tell you for sure she's not.

Yet she has similar faults. Maybe it's typical of lyricists overall, or maybe just of American lyricists, or maybe just a coincidence. No idea.

>Shut the fuck up with your attitude, dude. You don't need to talk down to people

Impressive.

>I've also ready Harold Bloom's powerful defense of Shelley against Eliot's ornery rhetoric

I haven't, but nearly everything that I've read of Bloom seemed empty to me, although I do admire the man's attempts at writing general works and his overall aesthetic outlook on literature. Maybe if I read his writings on Shelley they will change my views of it (maybe not).

But I don't consider Newsom's excerpt similar to Shelley.

>>14859551
>to shoot down Shelley

Shoot down Shelley? I like Shelley and have, indeed, translated one of his poems into my language. But I don't consider him an equal of Hopkins, Dickinson, Whitman. I think most of his verse is rather bad, with some sublime moments here and there. At least he knew quite well what he was doing, which doesn't seem to be the case with lyricists, who often lack training.

It's been 43 minutes since my intended last post on this thread and I am still writing here. So I'll get out. Feel free to write more about why you think Shelley was a 'genius' (if Bloom be your guide) and why Newsom and Bob Dylan are good poets.

[Anonymous No.14859614]

>>14859589
>Everyone who I've met in my English Lit grad program

Bloom will soon be as hated as Eliot, and for more or less similar reasons.

[Anonymous No.14860401]

>there are people who herald Bloom as a great critic
I don't really care about the core of this debate, but if Eliot is a contrarian, Bloom is a lazy nigger who does almost next to no close reading, justifies throwing words like sublime at romantics by freudognostic hogwash, and lest we forget
>I hate politically motivated criticism, that is School of Resentment. Celine, Pound, Lewis? Oy vey, j-j-ust not f-first rate, is all!