Abandoned Forum

[Chazoa]

If a moderator or admin sees fit to put this in a different section, be my guest.

This topic is about poetic speaking, and all of that hullabuloo. What is your opinion on speaking your mind through poems, do you think that some of the "deep, metaphorical things" are really just cleverly worded lies that rhyme, or the truths about our very existence? Just because I can rhyme the word pie and lie, does that mean pie is a lie? And just because it's worded "beautiful skies in the fall", does that mean it can not be interprated as "The sky is falling beautifully"?

Tell me oh great ones.

[Astarte]

I like your cat.

[TheCountess]

Ahhh, poetry... I speak my mind through poems fairly often... And later on, I read them again and wonder what the hell was I thinking! It's therapeutic and gets thoughts outta my head... And then they never bother me again (mostly). Most of my poetry rhymes, thats the style most natural to me. But I won't rhyme pie with lie just because they DO rhyme, that is too contrived. However, if I was talking about my pre-dinner snack, I would say:

I swear I did not eat a pie!
Oh I confess, I told a lie...

I too like your cat

[Chazoa]

My cat looms ominously over a city. What shall it do? WHAT SHALL YOU DO!?

Tell me if I spelled anything wrong. Including these last two sentances.

[Pimienta]

how about sentences

I don't want to worry about it but that one actually caught me

[Astarte]

You have been lured with misspelled words......







I admire your cat from afar.

[TheCountess]

I siltl lkie the teorhy taht you can raed msspeilled wrdos as long as the frsit and lsat ltteers are in the crorcet palces.

[Astarte]

It's acutally ture!

[Chazoa]

it is? So if I say "toehtrieclaly meony wlil olibtrteae us all" you can understand what it means?

[Pimienta]

of course

money will obliterate us all

see

anyhow what happened to the whole poetry thing?

[Astarte]

Yep!

Os waht od yuo htikn fo taht?

[The Black Count]

Wouldn't that be, "Theoretically, money will obliterate us all?"

Feh, it's all details...

[The Black Count]

Poems seem to be a good way to disguise true intent by shielding it in prety words, so only the educated and the mad will understand just what you really mean. Althought this is not true for all poems, it's what I made up on the spot just then and sounded pretty good to me....

Unfortunately, unless you can get the author of each poem to fully describe to you each line of their work, with a full personal analysis of underlying definition, then all poems fall prey to that pesky human trait they named... ummm... interpretation! That's the one... So while one may view

"In the fall,
I ate a pie,
I like to lie,
Beneath the sky"

as a sad persons attempt to show the world their suffering in a simple four-line dirge, another may decide that it is a scathing political dissertion, and worthy of global recognition, when all I really did was take things you were talking about before, and change the order...

Ummm... I think this paragraph was my closing statement, which sums up the main points and brings about a conclusion, so here it is:
Under fallen stars we paint our children in red despair, and reaching lands end take no white craven hatred in our coffee. Because we like it black. With one sugar. Oh, and one of those mini-muffins...

[Insanity test]

lol, indeed.

(Actually that should really be infact, as it is a fact and not an action - or deed - that what he said I agree with, but there's the english language for you!)

Aaaanyway. I mentioned a long time ago in a different thread the author Ian (M) Banks. On eof his books has certain chapters written by a character who never learned to write properly and spelled things phonetically.

4 instanc it wud bee ritten as if it wer by a yung person, yet with adult gramer. sumtimes it is hrd to understand, espeshaly with thu mor complikatid werds.

But about poetry, I often go in just to write a nice poem but get tangented off on a purposeful course. Although I did try to write a series of poems on specific emotions, like love, hate, remorse etc. and one was a barely disguised jab at general world politics and the feeling of the need for retaliation.

[Math_nerd]

I must say that most poetry is crap.

Now that I have that out of the way, I can say that I enjoy some poetry. I really like Dante Alighieri, Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, and of course Edgar Allen Poe. I guess I will go into why.

I call The Inferno "Man Poetry." That is a great way to describe it.
The Inferno is an epic poem divided into "Cantos" or songs that describe Dante's trip through Hell. Here are a few stanzas for your reading pleasure. This is the fate of The Opportunists in the Vestibule of Hell according to Dante.


These wretches never born and never dead
ran naked in a swarm of wasps and hornets
that goaded them the more the more they fled

and made their faces stream with bloody gouts
of pus and tears that dribbled to their feet
to be swallowed up by loathsome worms and maggots.


Like I said, this is strong stuff. It was originally written in Italian and in triple rhyme. Some of this is lost in translation, but I really like the translators notes in my copy. The translator is John Ciardi. I highly recommend it.

As it is getting late and I have a saxophone lesson tomorrow, I had better get going. I will review Masters and Poe if anyone expresses interest. But not unless you do!