/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16857269]

What has happened to English poetry? After being used to the poetry of the Romantics and Shakespeare, reading the likes of Pound, Eliot, Yeats, "the Beats", and so on (not even to mention contemporary "poetry"), has been a horrible experience. These poets completely disregard the form, structure, and clarity that made their predecessors great, opting instead for a chaotic jumble of "personal feelings" and elusive "symbols"/"images". How can anyone consciously choose to read Ginsberg or Pound when Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, Shakespeare, Coleridge, etc. are available to them? Is poetry dying/dead as an art form?

[Anonymous No.16857288]

Pound, Yeats, and Eliot are great. You got filtered. The Beats, however, are shit.

[Anonymous No.16857367]

>>16857288
No, they are all of them trash when compared to their predecessors. A bunch of vague "symbols" and "images" combined with a complete disregard of poetic form. Let us compare two similar poems:
(1) Ezra Pound:
The girl in the tea shop
Is not so beautiful as she was,
The August has worn against her.
She does not get up the stairs so eagerly;
Yes, she also will turn middle-aged,
And the glow of youth that she spread about us
As she brought us our muffins
Will be spread about us no longer.
She also will turn middle-aged.
(2) Wordsworth:
The little hedge-row birds,
That peck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression; every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak
A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought—He is insensibly subdued
To settled quiet: he is one by whom
All effort seems forgotten, one to whom
Long patience has such mild composure given,
That patience now doth seem a thing, of which
He hath no need. He is by nature led
To peace so perfect, that the young behold
With envy, what the old man hardly feels.
—I asked him whither he was bound, and what
The object of his journey; he replied
"Sir! I am going many miles to take
A last leave of my son, a mariner,
Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,
And there is dying in an hospital."

Both of these poems are short portraits of common people, yet how much more life, structuredness, wisdom, and emotional clarity is present in Wordsworth than in Pound!

[Anonymous No.16857393]

>>16857367
>purposely selecting one of Pound's more simple strands of verse and comparing it to a complex stand from Wordsworth
You're retarded.

[Anonymous No.16857408]

>>16857269
>the Beats
Those faggots are already part of the decline. It's comical that you put Ginsberg on the same pedestal as Shakespeare KEK.

[࿇ C Œ M G E N V S ࿇ !KNDYYIIins No.16857462]

>>16857269


IT IS A PROBLEM THAT PERTAINS TO UNIVERSAL LITERATURE, NOT TO ENGLISH POETRY IN PARTICULAR —WHAT HAPPENED? «THE ENLIGHTENMENT» HAPPENED; FROM THE SECOND QUARTER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE HAS BEEN IN GENERAL STEADY DECLINE.

[Anonymous No.16857475]

>>16857462
>FROM THE SECOND QUARTER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE HAS BEEN IN GENERAL STEADY DECLINE.
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.16857480]

>>16857462
>FROM THE SECOND QUARTER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE HAS BEEN IN GENERAL STEADY DECLINE.
You're retarded as well. Poetry and literature generally peaked with Homer. It's been in decline since. That doesn't mean it's not worth studying. The English modernists were very insightful people and the main ones were aware of literary, spiritual and philosophical decline themselves.

[Anonymous No.16857500]

>>16857393
No it's not a complex one you absolute moron. This is one of Wordsworth's simplest and shortest poems, compared to one of Pound's simplest and shortest poems, both tackling a similar theme: a portrait of a common person. We see the stark difference in quality between these men instantly. Whereas Pound, championing "free verse", may as well have written his in prose since there is no poetic form whatsoever -- or, even better, may as well not have written it at all, since there is no value in it whatsoever --, Wordsworth's is actually structured like a poem, with meter, and actually bears some real depth to it. Of course you'd think Wordsworth's was "complex" being a fan of Pound, but this structured way of writing was the STANDARD for poetry before the modern age.

Let us compare some more, why not?

(1) Eliot:
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

(2) Byron:
When, to their airy hall, my father’s voice
Shall call my spirit, joyful in their choice;
When, poised upon the gale, my form shall ride,
Or, dark in mist, descend the mountains side;
Oh! may my shade behold no sculptured urns,
To mark the spot where earth to earth returns!
No lengthen’d scroll, no praise-encumber’d stone;
My epitaph shall be my name alone:
If that with honour fail to crown my clay,
Oh! may no other fame my deeds repay!
That, only that, shall single out the spot;
By that remember’d, or with that forgot.

Again, we clearly see how the 15 year old Lord Byron outshines TS Eliot. So much more clarity, depth, and structure to his poem.

[Anonymous No.16857507]

its the same reason every art form is dying bro, white people basically "won" the game of cultural development and the only thing left for artists to do that was unique and would help them stand out amongst others was to be intentionally bad/unorthodox

[Anonymous No.16857510]

>>16857269
Anon, please read further before you complely dismiss a century worth of work. Dabble in some Stevens, some Crane, some Bishop, some Auden. Quit sucking off the old's dick.

[Anonymous No.16857555]

>>16857500
Keep selectively choosing random passages that fit your retarded argument, you absolute fucking pseud. If you're acting like Pound, Yeats and Eliot are somehow oversimplified then you're retarded. There is unanimous agreement that at least Pound and Eliot are some of the most complex poets of all time. Most people find Pound impossible to read just for purely linguistic reasons, i.e. not knowing all the languages he uses, of which there is probably around a dozen.

[Anonymous No.16857568]

>>16857510
>Dabble in some Stevens, some Crane, some Bishop, some Auden
He literally named Pound and Eliot. He's talking about our century.

[Anonymous No.16857618]

>>16857500
If you think just using old language makes a poem good, you're genuinely retarded. Anyways, here is a poem from Pound in Middle English and with form to show you how versatile he was:

Thu Ides Til

O thou of Maydes all most wonder sweet
That art my comfort eke and my solace
Whan thee I find in any wolde or place
I doon thee reverence as is most meet
To cry thy prayse I nill nat be discreet
Thou hast swich debonairite and grace
Swich gentyl smile thy alderfayrest face
To run thy prayse I ne hold not my feet.
My Lady, tho I ne me hold thee fro
Nor streyve with thee by any game to play
But offer only thee myn own herte reede
I prey by love that thou wilt kindness do
And that thou keep my song by night and day
As shadow blood from myn own herte y-blede.

The modernists were masters of form and masters of several dialects of English and sometimes other languages. Just because they have some simplified passages here and there doesn't mean shit. You just got fucking filtered hard by the modernists because you're a miniature-brained retard. Pound is widely considered one of the most complex poets of the English language. And he filters pseuds like you bad.

[Anonymous No.16857629]

>>16857618
>The modernists were masters
No, only Pound and Eliot, when it comes to poetry.

[Anonymous No.16857636]

>>16857555
Are you retarded? That is not my argument at all. My argument is that Pound is a degenerate in the fullest sense of the word: he champions "free verse" and "symbolism", both of which are degenerations from poetic form and clarity present in the earlier poets. The effects of this "free verse" are clear in the poem I quoted from him: the line-breaks are utterly pointless; he may as well have written it in prose.
>There is unanimous agreement that at least Pound and Eliot are some of the most complex poets of all time.
They are "symbolists", ie. they draw up vague, elusive images which they use as substitutes for depth. This lack of clarity is precisely what makes them inferior to the earlier poets. For example, another shitty poem by Pound:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
I don't even need to compare this to a poem by Byron or Shakespeare or Keats or Wordsworth or Coleridge because you can pick literally any you want and it is guaranteed to be superior.>>16857555
Are you retarded? That is not my argument at all. My argument is that Pound is a degenerate in the fullest sense of the word: he champions "free verse" and "symbolism", both of which are degenerations from poetic form and clarity present in the earlier poets. The effects of this "free verse" are clear in the poem I quoted from him: the line-breaks are utterly pointless; he may as well have written it in prose.
>There is unanimous agreement that at least Pound and Eliot are some of the most complex poets of all time.
They are "symbolists", ie. they draw up vague, elusive images which they use as substitutes for depth. This lack of clarity is precisely what makes them inferior to the earlier poets. For example, another shitty poem by Pound:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
I don't even need to compare this to a poem by Byron or Shakespeare or Keats or Wordsworth or Coleridge because you can pick literally any you want and it is guaranteed to be superior.

[Anonymous No.16857641]

The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Wordsworth sucks balls compared to Yeats

[Anonymous No.16857643]

>>16857629
I consider Yeats a master of form as well. You can find the history of Irish poetry in his verses.

[Anonymous No.16857648]

>>16857636
Filtered. And I'm not reading this long cope post. You've already shown you have nothing to say, retard.

[Anonymous No.16857651]

>>16857269
You are hands down the biggest fucking retard I have ever seen on /lit/.

[Anonymous No.16857653]

>>16857643
Yeats was a symbolist, not a modernist.

[Anonymous No.16857655]

>>16857636
>degenerate
/pol/tard spotted.

[Anonymous No.16857659]

>>16857618
>If you think just using old language makes a poem good, you're genuinely retarded.
Did I ever even make a hint in that direction? I said that the modernists are woefully inferior because of two factors: 1) their lack of clarity and 2) their lack of structure.
1) is obvious by their use of mere "symbolism", which is totally unheard of in the earlier poets. When Byron, for example, wishes to use symbolism, it will always be expressing some poetic or philosophical point which is clear from the text. When these "symbolist" modern poets use symbolism, they expect it to stand on its own, because they are shallow thinkers.
2) This is obvious by their disregard for poetic form.

[Anonymous No.16857666]

>>16857655
You can't insult Pound and be a /pol/tard.

[Anonymous No.16857670]

>>16857659
>Lack of structure
>States Yeats is in this camp
Dude, you are SUCH a fucking retard, it hurts.

[Anonymous No.16857678]

>>16857636
So are there no poets in the 20th century you like? Or the 21st century? Surely someone has carried the torch

[Anonymous No.16857682]

>>16857636
>>16857653
Symbolism was a 19th century literary movement that occurred primarily in France. Yeats, Pound and Eliot were modernists, not symbolists, you fucking dunces. They may have been influenced by the symbolists, namely Baudelaire's spawn, but that's not enough to make you a symbolist yourself; that's fundamentally a historical question. All three poets in question went above and beyond mere symbolism. Modernism is far more rich than symbolism in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.16857691]

>>16857666
You actually can if your insult is that he was a degenerate. lmao

[Anonymous No.16857695]

>>16857678
as a follow up, I just remembered Richard Wilbur. his style seems more traditional. do you like his poetry?

[Anonymous No.16857697]

>>16857659
>poem has a symbol in it
>therefore poem bad!!
>shits bed
Holy shit, you're incredibly fucking dense and retarded.

[Anonymous No.16857704]

>>16857678
I have only read the ones I talked about in OP who were supposed to be some of the best, before returning back to my Byron et al. There are probably some good modern poets I've just never seen a good one.

[Anonymous No.16857715]

This whole thread is sad.
The progression and history of successful poetry is marked by innovation and movement towards new understandings of how to understand and describe our world/human life.
Poetry is not an intergenerational competition.
Please be more open minded

[Anonymous No.16857727]

>>16857697
>>16857682
The point isn't that symbols are universally bad, it's that the way the modern poets like Pound write lacks any clarity or depth. Another example:
And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass.
This is shit. It's just terrible and if you can't see it you have no sense for poetry. Please, just read something like Byron's "The Prisoner of Chillon", and reject this modern degeneracy.

[Anonymous No.16857729]

>>16857682
>Yeats
>modernist
Maybe some of his older stuff but the thick of it is symbolist. Even Britannica calls him a symbolist.

[Anonymous No.16857738]

>>16857269
>"the Beats"
>he likes the beats
OH NO NO NO, OP IS A FAG CONFIRMED ONCE AGAIN

[Anonymous No.16857742]

>>16857659
Ignoring your retarded take on "symbolism," why do you say they disregard poetic form? Do you mean they should rhyme and stick to a single meter? Do you think the biblical psalms "disregard poetic form?"

[Anonymous No.16857745]

>>16857729
He's a modernist. Do you know what that word means? lmao

[Anonymous No.16857753]

>>16857659
>confusing symbolism with imagism
NGMI, lmao. You're so ignorant it's amusing. Continue on though, I'm having a laugh!

[Anonymous No.16857762]

>>16857682
Yeats was a late romantic then a symbolist then a modernist.

[Anonymous No.16857764]

>>16857762
A romantosymbolomodernist, rather.

[Anonymous No.16857767]

>>16857742
Obviously there's flexibility in poetic structure, but the free verse of degenerates like Pound and Eliot (see all of the examples I posted in this thread), where there's scarcely even a need for line-breaks, is a rape of poesy.

[Anonymous No.16857777]

>>16857753
It really doesn't matter what name you'd like to give it, mate. You can call it whatever you want, but it's utter trash.

[Anonymous No.16857788]

>>16857764
indeed anon, very astute. Symbologigolo

[Anonymous No.16857807]

>>16857745
>Throughout his last years, Yeats’s creative imagination remained very much his own, isolated to a remarkable degree from the successive fashions of modern poetry despite his extensive contacts with other poets. Literary modernism held no inherent attraction for him except perhaps in its general association with youthful vigor. He admired a wide range of traditional English poetry and drama, and he simply was unconcerned that, during the last two decades of his life, his preference for using rhyme and strict stanza forms would set him apart from the vogue of modern poetry. Yeats’s allegiance to poetic tradition did not extend, however, to what he considered an often obscure, overly learned use of literary and cultural traditions by T.S. Eliot and Pound. Yeats deplored the tremendous enthusiasm among younger poets for Eliot’s The Waste Land, published in 1922. Disdaining Eliot’s flat rhythms and cold, dry mood, Yeats wanted all art to be full of energy. He felt that the literary traditions furnishing Eliot with so many allusions and quotations should only be included in a poem if those traditions had so excited the individual poet’s imagination that they could become poetic ingredients of the sort Yeats described in “The Tower”: “Poet’s imaginings / And memories of love, / Memories of the words of women, / All those things whereof / Man makes a superhuman / Mirror-resembling dream.”
He hanged out with them but he wasn't one himself.

[Anonymous No.16857815]

>>16857767
The line breaks in the examples you gave feel natural to me. What makes the free verse of Pound and Eliot worse than the structure of the psalms?

[Anonymous No.16857817]

>>16857753
I think I know what he's getting at. He means some sort of shallow use of symbolism to replace everything else. Sort of like a namedropping collage or reference wankfest rather than something pure and poetic.

[Anonymous No.16857820]

To be fair to Pound, he's not meant to be read, he's meant to be listened to. Go listen to him reciting his stuff.

[Anonymous No.16857835]

>>16857820
I love his now-extinct accent. Makes him sound a bit English.

[Anonymous No.16857836]

>>16857817
None of the examples he posted feature namedropping

[Anonymous No.16857837]

>>16857715
no, nigger

[Anonymous No.16857844]

>>16857820
All poetry is meant to be listened to / read aloud

[Anonymous No.16857854]

>>16857836
I guess he means stuff like The Waste Land, which is 99% about references. Relevant: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52df0176e4b08a4ce7a8b79c/t/533d029ae4b0233162120b3c/1396507290636/Waste+Land+Infographic+%5BPrint%5D.pdf

[Anonymous No.16857864]

>>16857815
I don't read Biblical Hebrew so I have no idea about the poetic structure of the Psalms. My understanding is that the Psalms were written to be sung, which means they had some poetic structure to them. Moreover, the Psalms possess clarity and meaning, whereas the "symbolism"/"imagism"/"modernism"/whatever-ism of the modern poets does not. Eg.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

verses (Pound):
All the while they were talking the new morality
Her eyes explored me.
And when I rose to go
Her fingers were like the tissue
Of a Japanese paper napkin.

But I didn't make this thread to defend the Psalms; I am saying the modern poets are inferior to their predecessors.

[Anonymous No.16857867]

>>16857837
thanks for refuting my post brainlet :^)

[Anonymous No.16857881]

>>16857636
This guy's insistence on clarity and form sounds like someone reviewing products.
Pound's In a Station of the Metro isn't amazing, but it does paint an interesting picture in your mind's eye: somber mood, busy commuters, earthy tones, a genealogy of purpose, deadness, stagnation. It's effective.

Here's a poem I like a lot:
Confessions
BY ROBERT BROWNING
What is he buzzing in my ears?
"Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"
Ah, reverend sir, not I!

What I viewed there once, what I view again
Where the physic bottles stand
On the table's edge,—is a suburb lane,
With a wall to my bedside hand.

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,
From a house you could descry
O'er the garden-wall; is the curtain blue
Or green to a healthy eye?

To mine, it serves for the old June weather
Blue above lane and wall;
And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"
Is the house o'ertopping all.

At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,
There watched for me, one June,
A girl: I know, sir, it's improper,
My poor mind's out of tune.

Only, there was a way... you crept
Close by the side, to dodge
Eyes in the house, two eyes except:
They styled their house "The Lodge."

What right had a lounger up their lane?
But, by creeping very close,
With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain
And stretch themselves to Oes,

Yet never catch her and me together,
As she left the attic, there,
By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"
And stole from stair to stair,

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,
We loved, sir—used to meet:
How sad and bad and mad it was—
But then, how it was sweet!

[Anonymous No.16857882]

>>16857854
The Waste Land is a single poem, an important poem, but not one representative of modern poetry. In fact many modern poets have made the point of rejecting Eliot in favor of Blake, who OP would probably like.

[Anonymous No.16857884]

>>16857807
He was a modernist, retard. Stop being dense.
>>16857777
Filtered.
>>16857817
Only problem is that none of those poets abused the symbols they used. The three main modernist poets were all highly spiritual men, and their symbols often had a spiritual significance. If OP is a spiritual devoid toad and dense pseud, then of course he isn't going to get it. The modernists were poets of the apocalypse; they foreshadowed the impending doom of the west and offer us a path out- a poetic path involving the enhancement of life via spirituality, poetry, a rich study of history and beauty. OP wouldn't get it- his shallow reading of a few modernist poets proves this. He should go back and read Baudelaire to see why and how romanticism died. Baudelaire already foresaw the death of romanticism, he then reacted against the latter with the decadent literary movement, thereby saving poetry from its death rattles. The symbolists took the torch. Then the imagists and modernists. Of these three the modernists were the most spiritually and poetically advanced, excepting perhaps Mallarmé.

Le Coucher du Soleil Romantique

Que le soleil est beau quand tout frais il se lève,
Comme une explosion nous lançant son bonjour!
— Bienheureux celui-là qui peut avec amour
Saluer son coucher plus glorieux qu'un rêve!

Je me souviens!... J'ai vu tout, fleur, source, sillon,
Se pâmer sous son oeil comme un coeur qui palpite...
— Courons vers l'horizon, il est tard, courons vite,
Pour attraper au moins un oblique rayon!

Mais je poursuis en vain le Dieu qui se retire;
L'irrésistible Nuit établit son empire,
Noire, humide, funeste et pleine de frissons;

Une odeur de tombeau dans les ténèbres nage,
Et mon pied peureux froisse, au bord du marécage,
Des crapauds imprévus et de froids limaçons.

In other words, OP doesn't know shit about poetry. He's read a handful of English romantics and dismissed everything else. Very cringe and gay maneuver.

[Anonymous No.16857892]

>>16857881
Browning, a romantic poet, was a HUGE influence on Pound. OP wouldn't know that or be perceptive enough to pick up on that because he's a retarded pleb and brainlet.

[Anonymous No.16857894]

>>16857864
How are those lines from Pound unclear?

[Anonymous No.16857910]

>>16857894
OP's retarded and gets filtered by Pound's latinate syntax.

[Anonymous No.16857920]

>>16857882
>but not one representative of modern poetry.
I disagree. It IS a representaive poem of modernism.
>In fact many modern poets have made the point of rejecting Eliot in favor of Blake, who OP would probably like.
For example?

[Anonymous No.16857930]

>>16857884
>He was a modernist, retard. Stop being dense.
He wasn't. He lived in the same age and hanged out with them sometimes but he was pretty much his own thing. Not fully traditional, nor fully modernist.

[Anonymous No.16857931]

>>16857920
>I disagree. It IS a representaive poem of modernism.
Even if it is, OP's talking about modern poetry in general.
>For example?
From OP's selection: Ginsberg

[Anonymous No.16857937]

>>16857884
Yes, your high-sounding prattle really makes this (Pound):
Three spirits came to me
And drew me apart
To where the olive boughs
Lay stripped upon the ground:
Pale carnage beneath bright mist.

On equal terms with this (Shakespeare):
I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world:
And for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
My soul the father; and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world,
In humours like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented. The better sort,
As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd
With scruples and do set the word itself
Against the word:
As thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,
'It is as hard to come as for a camel
To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls,
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars
Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,
That many have and others must sit there;
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
Of such as have before endured the like.
Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented: sometimes am I king;
Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king'd again: and by and by
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,
Nor I nor any man that but man is
With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
With being nothing.

[Anonymous No.16857938]

>>16857910
It's not Latinate at all. There's like two or three Latin-based words, I think. Nevertheless, I wouldn't call it good or even releveant. Pound can be better.

[Anonymous No.16857943]

>>16857937
>comparing Shxpeare to a modernist
Shut the fuck up, pseud. lmao

[Anonymous No.16857949]

>>16857931
>Ginsberg
>modernist
Maybe in influence or spirit, but he was way too late for it. Essentially a larp.

[Anonymous No.16857952]

>>16857938
>doesn't know what syntax means
Oh my gosh, you keep getting funnier. Keep going. I'm having a deep belly-laugh.

[Anonymous No.16857955]

>>16857938
syntax != vocabulary

[Anonymous No.16857962]

>>16857894
I said clarity and meaning. That "poem" of Pound's is utterly meaningless, possessing 0 depth. The poems where he tries to deal with deep subjects (I quoted this one before, and presumably Pound-defenders were too embarrassed to respond:
And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass.)
are purposefully "symbolic"/"imagistic" and lack any sort of clear poetic or philosophical meaning. This is why I say modern poets have no depth or clarity.

[Anonymous No.16857963]

>>16857949
Can you not read? No one called Ginsberg a modernist.

[Anonymous No.16857967]

>>16857952
If that's Latinate syntax, then I guess Rupi Kaur is our Virgil, for her stuff is pretty similar.

[Anonymous No.16857972]

>>16857962
>And the days are not full enough
>And the nights are not full enough
>And life slips by like a field mouse
>Not shaking the grass.
This is meaningful. It's about the quickness of life and life not being long enough for someone as intellectually curious and life-affirming as Pound. I think you're just retarded and got filtered bad.

[Anonymous No.16857977]

>>16857963
>The 60s, that is, 60 years ago or more than half a century
>modern
You have a weird conception of time.

[Anonymous No.16857979]

>>16857967
>Rupi Kaur
I'm somehow not surprised you've read her. lmfao

[Anonymous No.16857980]

>>16857962
ARE YOU RETARDED? Even a 5th grader could grasp the meaning of that poem. Please tell me why you think it's meaningless or unclear.

[Anonymous No.16857981]

>>16857967
HA. Jesus Christ, dude. Even after you've proven you're a fucking mouthing breathing retard and you've outed yourself as an illiterate fuck, you keep upping your stupidity!

[Anonymous No.16857987]

>>16857972
That's precisely the problem. It's like contemporary art. Any interpretation is valid because the work in question is an empty vessel. You faggots are jerking off to a mirror.

[Anonymous No.16857991]

ITT: /lit/ gang rapes OP in all his little twink holes.

[Anonymous No.16857993]

>>16857977
You're conflating modern with contemporary

[Anonymous No.16857994]

>>16857979
She gets posted all the time here.
>>16857981
Prove me wrong: You can't.

[Anonymous No.16857995]

>>16857987
It's pretty obvious what he means. I think you're just retarded and got filtered by even Pound's simpler poems. You stand no change reading the Cantos. I think you'd just shit the bed and kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.16857997]

>>16857987
Buddy, stick to prose.

[Anonymous No.16858006]

>>16857967
>I guess Rupi Kaur is our Virgil
You're not gonna any pussy by saying this stuff, you absolute pseud. Holy shit how dumb are you.
>admitting to reading Rupi Kaur
>thinking she is our Virgil
OH NO NO NO hahahahahahahahah

[Anonymous No.16858010]

>>16857972
I honestly feel bad for you if this is the peak of your poetic horizon as a reader, that you can imagine no way a poet could express such an important concept as the quickness of life better than that pathetic, Rupi-Kaur-esque, disgusting imitation of a poem I quoted. Please stop reading these "modernists" and "symbolists" and "imagists" and READ THE ROMANTICS OR SHAKESPEARE, because you clearly haven't seen real poetry if this impresses you.

[Anonymous No.16858012]

>>16857967
>Rupi Kaur is our Virgil

[Anonymous No.16858013]

>>16857993
>he's not a modernist
>he's also not modern
Read again what you said about modern poets liking Blake over Eliot.

>modern: relating to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past.
60 years ago, that is, more than half a century ago, is not recent times, nor is it the present.
>modernist: related to the Modernism movemnt
Ginsberg wasn't part of Modernism.

Explain what you meant or admit your mistake.

[Anonymous No.16858018]

>>16858010
>Rupi-Kaur-esque

[Anonymous No.16858021]

>>16858006
>what is sarcasm
>what is hyperbole

[Anonymous No.16858022]

>>16858010
>READ THE ROMANTICS OR SHAKESPEARE
That's what literally every newcomer to poetry reads. You don't have to sell us on them because we already know.

[Anonymous No.16858028]

>>16858021
You read Rupi Kaur. Shut the fuck up pussy lmfao

[Anonymous No.16858031]

>>16858028
You've read her here too, otherwise, you wouldn't know she's bad. Checkmate, atheists.

[Anonymous No.16858036]

>>16857967
>I guess Rupi Kaur is our Virgil
OP confirmed the faggot who made this fucking thread >>16845582

[Anonymous No.16858043]

>>16858013
60 years ago is not the remote past. It is relatively recent. "Modern poetry" would usually mean any poetry written in the last hundred or so years, maybe even more depending on the context.

[Anonymous No.16858047]

>>16857995
> life not being long enough for someone as intellectually curious and life-affirming as Pound
That's your own interpretation, not what he meant.

[Anonymous No.16858049]

>>16858031
>Checkmate, atheists.
Okay, back to r*ddit kid.
>otherwise, you wouldn't know she's bad
She's a middle class female poo from leafland. I don't need to read her to know she is shit.

[Anonymous No.16858056]

>>16858047
That's quite obviously what he meant, fucking brainlet.

[Anonymous No.16858057]

>>16858047
What did he mean?

[Anonymous No.16858059]

>>16858036
Pound is as deep as Kaur. If Pound is our Homer, Kaur is our Virgil. Both modernfags are equally as shitty.

[Anonymous No.16858067]

>>16858059
>If Pound is our Homer, Kaur is our Virgil

[Anonymous No.16858072]

>>16858056
>someone as intellectually curious and life-affirming as Pound
Point out where does he say that. I'll wait.
>>16858057
You tell me, faggot. You cunts are the experts. I would simply rule it out as a basic bitch sentiment expressed in the Modernist pretentious way.

[Anonymous No.16858074]

>>16858059
Pound is only as deep as Kaur to you because you use your dick as a barge pole.

[Anonymous No.16858077]

>>16857269
Welcome to the Modern World!

Would you like to know more?

[Anonymous No.16858078]

>>16858072
We already told you

[Anonymous No.16858080]

>>16858059
Pound
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us out onward with bellying canvas,
Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.


Kaur:
i do not need the kind of love
that is draining
i want someone
who energizes me
OP, you are a fucking retard. Just accept it and move on. Faggot

[Anonymous No.16858087]

>>16858077
If he were alive today he would be an unironic kekistani

[Anonymous No.16858091]

>>16858078
Not really. You contaminated it with your own interpretation about Pound.

[Anonymous No.16858097]

HOES MAD LMAO

[Anonymous No.16858099]

>>16858091
I was quoting a secret voice memo from Pound

[Anonymous No.16858112]

>>16858080
Equally as deep, ngl.

[Anonymous No.16858113]

This is now a thread about your favourite poems. This one's very accessible and might turn some newcomers to poetry:

Do not gentle into that good night
By Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[Anonymous No.16858123]

we have some jannies here ohononono

[Anonymous No.16858125]

>>16858113
reddit the diction

[Anonymous No.16858137]

>>16857269
>What has happened to English poetry?
This question says a lot about the breadth of your cultural horizons.
>These poets completely disregard the form, structure, and clarity that made their predecessors great,
Form and structure are without a doubt not disregarded by the modernists, in fact they're more conscious of it than 95% of the preceeding generations of mindless soneteers and such. Clarity as an ideal was not relevant to many centuries of poetry, and the examples you post here (especially Pound) actually attest to greater clarity of the moderns than of the older poets.

>>16857636
>They are "symbolists"
They're literally not.

>>16857962
One thing that should be also kept in mind is the strong influence of Far Eastern poetry on Pound. The lines you post here could pass for an Issa haiku.

Anyway, my opinion on the matter as a whole: no, you don't have to give a single fuck about modern and contemporary poetry. The only thing I would oppose is your disparaging and pretentious approach to the whole theme.
I personally needed quite some time to find something worthwhile in contemporary poetry, likely because most of my initial focus was on my own nation's small output. Like all poetry, modern poetry has its rules (including the rule of inventing new rules) for writing and reading it - if you're not willing to commit to that "contest" against the poem, most of the characteristic 20th century poets will remain foreign to you. Many have stuck to the more traditional forms, but it appears that most of the poets don't find it fitting for this moment, especially when taken uncritically and unconsciously.
I also recommend reading studies on free verse of specific poets and verse theory in general, it helps to demystify the whole thing.

>>16858077
>new thing bad
>t. futurist painter (pic rel)

[Anonymous No.16858152]

>>16858043
The beats are not modern at all, nor they are recent. The people who read them in their 20s are already in their 80s and about to die. That doesn't scream recent.

[Anonymous No.16858158]

>>16858152
Recent is a relative term

[Anonymous No.16858172]

>>16857655
>>16857666
>>16857691
/pol/ doesn't read you complete failures.

[Anonymous No.16858180]

>>16858172
And apparently /lit/ doesn't write, you complete faggots.

[Anonymous No.16858190]

I really don't get your love for the Romantics, but then you're hatred towards William Butler Yeats. Yeats definitely followed in line with the Romantics, and though he was influenced a little bit by the other Modernist poets, he definitely did not write in a similar poetic.

When You Are Old
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

[Anonymous No.16858200]

>>16858190
No one here has spoken ill of Yeats.

[Anonymous No.16858214]

>>16858200
>reading the likes of Pound, Eliot, Yeats, "the Beats", and so on (not even to mention contemporary "poetry"), has been a horrible experience. These poets completely disregard the form, structure, and clarity that made their predecessors great, opting instead for a chaotic jumble of "personal feelings" and elusive "symbols"/"images"

[Anonymous No.16858220]

>>16858214
sorry, I'm retarded.

[Anonymous No.16858235]

>>16858049
>Okay, back to r*ddit kid.
That's very r*ddit of you, newfag.
>She's a middle class female poo from leafland.
Pound is a burgerfaggot who looked like a kike with frizzy hair, had a kike first name yet he hated kikes. I don't need to read him to know he is shit.

[Anonymous No.16858268]

There are jannies in this thread xD and they are MAD

[Anonymous No.16858276]

>>16857269
Yeats is great, you pleb.

[Anonymous No.16858313]

"i'm gonna spew my guts
when i touch male butts
they call me wordsworth
but what is my words worth?
i shart my pants and coom
and thereby bring my doom"
- wordsworth

wow, this is what you call good OP? LMFAO

[Anonymous No.16858847]

>>16857636
damn imagine not liking my man Whitman

[Anonymous No.16858858]

>>16858313
One of the worst posts I've ever read.

[Anonymous No.16858928]

Can't stop Ezra.

[Anonymous No.16858932]

>>16858928
>Jew first name
>Jew hair
>Jew face
>hates Jews
kek

[Anonymous No.16858934]

>>16858858
Don't be mad because you're too low IQ to get it.

[Anonymous No.16859076]

>>16858932
isn't a jew
>jew face
has red hair that's straight
>jew first name
WASP's mostly all have biblical names are you retarded? he's named after a book in the bible
>jew face
has a refined physiognomy with a lack of swarthy features and a straight nose
>hates jew
Yes. Keep coping anti ezra fag.

[Anonymous No.16859085]

>>16858858
the worst post is op's

[Anonymous No.16859089]

>>16857269
this post is Trad Fag Apotheosis, christcucks should all kill themselves. Wordsworth is terrible and so is Coleridge kys retard

[Anonymous No.16859169]

>>16857269
Bait

[Anonymous No.16859197]

>>16857269
>What has happened to English poetry?

The obvious answer that nobody seems to have said is that you have to read the weaker, less-known works by the Romantics and then the Victorians, and the Georgian poets, the latter of whom were the conservative contemporaries of the modernists and imagists. People tried to write like Keats and Shelley for as long as they possibly could until that style was exhausted. It's clear that you could not have done this reading yet or there would be no mystery about "what has happened".

[Anonymous No.16859545]

>>16857480
>Poetry and literature generally peaked with Homer.
t. illiterate retard who actually lists iliad and odyssey as his favorite books.

[Anonymous No.16859557]

>>16859545
In the original Greek, they're the peak of literature. Learn Greek.

[Anonymous No.16859568]

>>16857704
>>16857727
>Byron
This is the same OP talking about modern poetry being a degenerate mockery of the greatest works.

[Anonymous No.16859573]

>>16859557
I don't mindlessly worship the Greeks and treat them as the pinnacle of civilization and intellectualism like you do.

[Anonymous No.16859599]

ITT: OP believes ambiguity in poetry is bad and wonders why his opinion on the form isn't respected

[Anonymous No.16859610]

>>16859573
t. translation reader
t. hasn't read the greeks

[Anonymous No.16859621]

>>16859610
t. gr*ekoid

[Anonymous No.16859626]

>>16859621
Yes.

[Anonymous No.16859628]

>>16859568
Byron was quite stylistically Conservative, he considered Alexander Pope the last good poet. Maybe try reading?

[Anonymous No.16859661]

unironically i only like premodern poetry

[Anonymous No.16859666]

>>16859628
Byron is lowbrow garbage.

Any value you attribute to Byron is due to his persona rather than poetry. KYS OP.

[Anonymous No.16859744]

>>16857269
It survives in music brainlet

[Anonymous No.16859761]

>>16857269
incel painting

[Anonymous No.16859783]

>>16857269
Write good poetry, based off the greats. Be the Renaissance.

[Anonymous No.16859792]

>>16859666
>Byron is lowbrow garbage.
>Any value you attribute to Byron is due to his persona rather than poetry. KYS OP.

[Anonymous No.16859793]

>>16859666
that's not OP you retard

[Anonymous No.16859807]

>>16859197
/thread

[Anonymous No.16859863]

>>16859666
Byron is literally a late Augustan, you ONLY know his persona.

[Anonymous No.16859957]

>>16857269
Geoffrey Hill passed away only recently.

[Anonymous No.16859969]

>>16857269
Everytime you begin to think "what happened to x" just know it's always post modernism

[Anonymous No.16860192]

>>16857269
It's posts like these that reveal to me the flaws of allowing children to use the internet unfettered. Attire related and anhero strongly implied.

[Anonymous No.16860203]

Elliot's the only poet I've ever read that I gave a shit about, including Shakespeare. Prufrock hit me like a brick falling out of a windowsill.

[Anonymous No.16860214]

>>16859761
this

>>16859744
not this

[Anonymous No.16860240]

>>16857641
Only the first Stanza of The Second Coming does anything. "The falcon cannout hear the falconer" is a stronger line than the rest of the poem.

[Anonymous No.16860253]

>english poetry
Not really possible

[Anonymous No.16860355]

>>16859197
>People tried to write like Keats and Shelley for as long as they possibly could until that style was exhausted.
I didn't advocate for "writing like Keats and Shelley". I advocated for writing with clarity and not disregarding poetic form. The vague, elusive, and "imagistic" way of writing that the modernists/symbolists/imagists/etc.ists have is shit and carries no emotional or aesthetic power. Their disregard of poetic form is degenerate and makes one wonder why they are not writing in prose.
Now if somebody came along writing in a modern linguistic style who nevertheless had clarity and depth and poetic structure to his poetry then I wouldn't make any fuss. It's not about using "old words" or anything like that.

[Anonymous No.16860361]

Read this chapter

http://gwynneteaching.com/poetry/

[Anonymous No.16860602]

OP I am so embarrassed for you

[Anonymous No.16860698]

>>16857636
>muh free verse
my man have you read anything but iambic anglo Romantics?

Nah ist
Und schwer zu fassen der Gott.
Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst
Das Rettende auch.
Im Finstern wohnen
Die Adler und furchtlos gehn
Die Söhne der Alpen über den Abgrund weg
Auf leichtgebaueten Brücken.
Drum, da gehäuft sind rings
Die Gipfel der Zeit, und die Liebsten
Nah wohnen, ermattend auf
Getrenntesten Bergen,
So gib unschuldig Wasser,
O Fittige gib uns, treuesten Sinns
Hinüberzugehn und wiederzukehren.

[Anonymous No.16860913]

>>16860355
You will live to soften your views. Know why? You'll read all the Shakespeare plays, all the best bits of Byron and Shelley and Tennyson, and then you'll read them again, and you'll read Paradise Lost a third or fifth time, and as the years go on your favorite poems just won't hit the way they used to and you'll have to explore other stuff to get something fresh. How luxurious to turn up your nose at Yeats as a degenerate innovator, one of few who ever wrote good blank-verse drama.

[Anonymous No.16861173]

I dont why Byron is being heralded as a prime example of anything itt, he was philosophically infantile when serious and still deliberately sloppy when aesthetically interesting (Don Juan is better understood as a novel with all the redundancy it implies).

[Anonymous No.16862287]

>>16861173
Byron is a master of poetic structure, very proficient in various rhyme schemes and meters, and besides that an excellent satirist and tragedian. The Prisoners of Chillon, eg, is Shakespearean in its emotional intensity, and Beppo: A Venetian Story is pretty much a model example of satiric digression in poetry, after the Italian style. I’ll admit Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and certain parts of The Corsair made me a bit weary though.