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/lit/ - Literature

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3034889 No.3034889[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

okay /lit/,

what's the deal. why don't you discuss poetry.
you're more likely to discuss philosophy than poetry.

my friend over here, Mr. Eliot, thinks you're afraid to engage with literature that is not as easily accessible as standard prose.

What's that Mr. Eliot?—Oh... he dares you to discuss his masterpiece, "The Waste Land"...

This is a "TWL"/poetry thread.

>> No.3034896

I like poetry quite a lot, though I've only really read 20th century poets so far. I didn't get much out of The Waste Land though. I probably need to come back to it in a few years. Some poems are difficult in a very enjoyable/inviting way but not so much The Waste Land.

>> No.3034899

How does one get into poetry? Please forgive the elementary question.

>> No.3034902

20th century poetry is uniformly horseshit.

>> No.3034907

>>3034896
well, i don't think TWL is a poem which reveals itself anymore after coming back to it in time—not without reading a nice amount poetry prior to Eliot. you kinda need an understanding of poetry's traditional archive—at least enough to be cognizant of that which Eliot is manipulating, etc.

>> No.3034919

>>3034899
read the norton anthology of poetry

go to your local independent bookstore, i'm willing to bet local poets publish their stuff and they'll have a few copies

listen to a few readings of famous poems on youtube, some poetry is meant to be listened to rather than read

>> No.3034920

>>3034899
Well you just have to find what you enjoy and what gets you interested. It might be something clear and straightforward like Philip Larkin, or something very tricky like The Waste Land. Just go with what you enjoy at first. Understanding and scholarship can come later.

For me, it was revisiting The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats when I was 17. My teacher read it to us when I was 16 and I was fairly unimpressed, but when I came back to it, it became a kind of thrill. So I looked into more Yeats and then just bought his collected poems.

If you want a broad overview to find what gets you excited, I hear Norton Anthologies are good. I can't vouch for them personally though because I never used one.

>> No.3034929

>>3034920
if you accompany Yeats' prose—his philosophy—with his poetry, you'll see how absolutely curious the guy's mind was.

>> No.3034932

>>3034929
I didn't read A Vision, but I did read about it. And yes, he does seem quite odd. Theories of one age undoing another the came from his wife's ouija board seances... it is odd.

>> No.3034934

>>3034899
The Norton Anthology series is useful as it gives a version of the canon with a large variety to read. however, it's biographical and analytic info can be absolutely stale.

the citations really help though.

if you have a poet in mind, i'd recommend Norton Critical Editions.

>> No.3034937

I've been actually trying to get into it. I bought this phoenix press poetry box set a bit back that I misplaced and just found the other day. It has selected poems from: John Donne, William Blake, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Oscar Wilde, Yeats, Robert Burns, Lord Tennyson, Poe, and Christina Rossetti. I also have the complete poems (and stories) of Poe.


I've read Poe before, and I loved the Poem "Dream within a dream". I originally thought when I found it, that it was like a diamond in the rough. It was like in the middle-end of the book. But I've come to find out it's extremely popular. Oh well, still a great poem.

>> No.3034941

>>3034932
he's one in a line of poet's with absolute belief in their own fabricated theologies.. like William Blake, and to a (much) lesser degree, John Milton.

>> No.3034954

>>3034937
that's a really good list, anon.
Christinal Rossetti's inclusion is great. and Emily Dickinson, she's probably only second to Shakespeare.

John Donne is a poetic figure head for his era. Ever since Northrop Frye reconceptualized Blake, he's become a figurehead in Romanticism. Shakespeare. Wilde is a brilliand playwright, though i can't think of any of his poetry off of my head. Burns is one of only a couple decent poets from the Uk's 18th century. Tennyson is Victorian poetry (poet laureate).

>> No.3034960

>>3034902
um... that's quite a(n inaccurate) statement...
do you have a specific region or segment of the century in mind, or are you going to settle on robbing yourself of great poetry?

>> No.3034973

>>3034907
Yeah that makes sense. I mean, hopefully I will be reading a lot of the stuff that Eliot was referring to in that time. Maybe I'll only enjoy it when I'm very old...

On another note, the next poets I want to get into are:
Gerard Manley Hopkins
John Ashbery (I've already read a some of this guy online and liked it, but I'm interested in his Collected Poems and epic poem Flow Chart)

Also, I want to read more John Berryman. The Dream Songs were just incredible and I'm now waiting for his Collected Poems to arrive.

>> No.3034989

>>3034973
i've tried to like Hopkins, but i really find him difficult. i don't yet know how to parse what he's trying to do.

there's a lot of stuff written about John Ashberry right now. he's very, very popular in academia.

>> No.3035033

>>3034989
I didn't realise Hopkins was so challenging. Often though I enjoy not understanding much, if it's done right.

And yeah Ashbery seems to be the biggest name right now. He's an example of someone I find enjoyably baffling. Perhaps I should try reading some of the scholarship on him too.

>> No.3035358
File: 31 KB, 383x409, 1325738139420.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3035358

>>3034902
>mfw any time I read a Wallace Stevens or E.E. Cummings poem that isn't "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" or "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls."

>> No.3035367

>>3035033
>>3034989
I don't think Hopkins is that challenging, definitely not in a content way at least - it's clear what he's saying most of the time. Very much working in the English-rural-Catholic-cavalier tradition. Technically he can be pretty challenging, though. Great fucking poet.

>> No.3035387

`` Do my homework, please."

— Anonymous, 2012

>> No.3035400

I like Larkin and Pound.

>> No.3035410

>look into Hopkins
>start reading The Wreck of the Deutschland
>http://www.bartleby.com/122/4.html
>see this:

The frown of his face
Before me, the hurtle of hell
Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?
I whirled out wings that spell
And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.
My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,
Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,
To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.

>dat linguistic verve

Wow, I've got to buy a book of Hopkins

>> No.3035414

let us go then, you and i
when the evening is spread out against the sky
like a patient etherized upon a table
let us go through certain half deserted streets
the muttering retreats
of restless nights in one night cheap hotels
and sawdust restaurants with oyster shells
to lead you to an overwhelming question
oh, do not ask, "what is it?"
let us go, and make our visit

>> No.3035433

>>3035410
this is an example of his difficult verse.
sure, you can follow some sort of narrative in this.

but why is his meter like that?
and how does that correspond to what he's doing sonically. he's good. i'm just not sure why.

>> No.3035440

>>3035387
in other words, "i have nothing to contribute."

>> No.3035442

>>3035433
all connected, i think, to his political / aesthetic sensibilities - taste for the anglo-saxon and old. his rhythm for instance is drawn from what he saw as the natural rhythmic pattern of english, especially old folk english - the anglo-saxon heritage of english. similarly his word choices are an attempt to get that old-english sound, and in so doing create a language that can respond to England and that can be used to capture the historical nature of England and the beauty thereof. Hopkins wants to understand the beauty of all created things (in a Catholic sense) but thinks this beauty can only be understood in an historical light, by understanding things as linked to their pasts.

really can't overstate the extent to which Hopkins ws a poet working in a tradition - note Dickens, the Oxford movement, Chesterton, Tolkien.

>> No.3035487

I had a prof whose grandfather worked alongside Eliot. According to his grandfather, "Tom was rather stuck up. He wasn't friendly with the other clerks."

>> No.3035617

TWL is much better, more accessible and, IMHO far more modern in it's original format, before Pound got his greasy cock all up in it.

>> No.3035628

I can't into poetry very well. It's just something I've never fully "gotten the hang of." I've tried, though, and there is some poetry I've enjoyed, but, for the most part, I just can't do it. I'm okay with that, though.

>> No.3035651
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3035651

I'm in 3rd yr, studying poetry, and the prof says that we have to analyze a contemporary poem written in the last decade. So I spent a couple hours trying to find something that is relevant to my interests but I got too stoned and couldn't find anything. So, anyway, the prof gives me a link and I got home just now and read it and fuck me if it didn't hurt my brain reading it, all seven times. Can anyone pls help me a tell me wtf you think this poem is about?

http://brentley.com/2012/03/a-cacophony-of-grey/

>> No.3035873

>>3034889
>not as easily accessible as standard prose.

Ah no.

Proof: little kids enjoy poetry _long_ before they're capable of enjoying prose.

The reason you're not discussing poetry is because, frankly, anglophone poetry sucks balls and always has.

>> No.3035893

>>3035873
are really really equating something like "The Waste Land" with children's poetry?

>> No.3035908

>>3035651
this poem is horrible.

this one is interesting for the 4chan shoutout:
http://brentley.com/2010/07/freddy-benson-in-amsterdam/

>> No.3035956

>>3035893

No, idiot, I'm saying that poetry (in general) is vastly more accessible than prose.

>> No.3035988

>>3035908
>>>3035651

Really, horrible? Why? I think that it's a very good poem. I just spent 2 hours reading that guy's site, so it must be ok...I didn't get bored. This sentence is genius;

But suddenly center stage a new player, jaw set with malice, shoulder
coiled for a straight arm punch, produces a blade and murders her
(the audience sprayed with blood). He guts her like a beast, practiced,
precise, with lust. —Beauty. Skin. Deep, he murmurs, untouched.

>> No.3036012

>>3034954
>Wilde is a brilliand playwright, though i can't think of any of his poetry off of my head
Not even if I reminded you that every man kills the thing he loves? But yeah, I don't think Wilde's poetry is generally all that good or highly-valued. His prose was much better.

>> No.3036033

>>3035956
seconding.

Poetry does not require analysis any more than prose does. It's 'meaning' is not hidden somewhere that must be fished out. It simply is what it is, and somehow it seems these days we're raising kids coming up through the schools who have read poetry in schools, who have analyzed it, have broken down its meter and rhyme scheme. But have never just taken it in for being what it simply is.

>> No.3036300

>>3035873

>The reason you're not discussing poetry is because, frankly, anglophone poetry sucks balls and always has.

I'm laughing so hard.

>> No.3036408

>>3036300
This is kind of true.

>> No.3036417
File: 54 KB, 889x886, ELIOT LOVECRAFT MOORCOCK.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3036417

I CONCUR WITH HOWARD PHILLIPS LOVECRAFT.