You call THAT Poetry?

Somebody somewhere should discern whether the entry is actually a "poem" and not simply an essay,

I have read many talented works here, and also MANY works that in no immaginable way should be considered poetry.

Some of the "winners" are not even original works by registered writers, instead being song lyrics form mainstream media...



Definition of POEM:writing that uses rhythm, vivid language, and often rhyme to provoke an emotional response.



This is not intended as a popularity contest people....

Ed

RE: You call THAT Poetry?

I for one would love to know which winners were song lyrics form mainstream media.

AM I ALONE HERE?

RE: You call THAT Poetry?

I'm with Jezz... if yer gonna accuse winners of using song lyrics then ya need to be specific & not juz make blanket accusations... ~Mal

RE: You call THAT Poetry?

I've yet to read anything good on this crummy website.

RE: You call THAT Poetry?

enough with the negative BS, really... who are you or me infact to define poetry? what text or book did you take your definition? And what does it matter? For as many books and authors have come up with a definition is how many different definitions there are, seriously. We each have our own unique perspective to what poetry is, our developed definition, and who is to say one is right over another? There are so many different forms of poetry, some with rhyme some, some not, free verse does not use rhyme yet it is considered by most to be poetic. No this site is not just a popularity contest but that being said if you want to be read and people to know who you are, how can this occur without having some level of popularity/ visibility? If you film and produce a new blockbuster movie it is highly unlikely that you will sell many tickets if you don't advertise and gain some level of popularity. If you create a new product to sell it is highly unlikely anyone will buy it if you don't advertise and gain some popularity. If you write book it is highly unlikely you are going to read or sell many copies if you don't advertise and build some level of popularity. This is just life and fact, why would this site be any different? If you want to have your poetry read than you have to gain some level of popularity as you call it so you are visible and people know who you are and will be interested in reading your poetry. I have long said that the poetry conest is a little bit of a popularity contest because the contest is not judged by a pannel of judges but rather the members of OP and our friends. If you were Egar Allen Poe re-incarnated and posted a new mater piece it would be highly unlikely your poem will be well read and certainly near impossible to win the contest till people knew who you are and you have gained some level of popularity/ visibility in the OP community. That being said I have noticed that most if not all of the winners are very deserving poets and very good poets at that. To be popular and visible in the community you need to have some level of skill and talent for people to want to read your poetry, to gain a fan base, and a group of loyal readers. It doesn't happen by pure accident. It is easy to be egocentric and say that our own poetry is the best ever and at the level of Poe, or frost, or whitman, or who ever you want to compare yourself to. But just because you belive it doesn't make it true. There is the concept of the looking glass self. Being able to see ourselves through the eyes of society, our family, friends, peers, etc. Our own self image is often distorted from that of reality, to be able to see ourselves through the eyes of others gives us a clearer picture and more realistic one. There are those people on American idol that are very egocentric and come on the show thinking they are going to win and are the world's best singers only to find out thier own perspective was not reality. American Idol is a good contrast to this poetry contest on OP, while it is a bit of a popularity conest the winners of the contest are always very good singers are they not and as such the winners of this contest are almost always very good poets. Now it is ironic that often the poem they win with is not thier best, but they are still very deserving in the win. Maddi is a great example, she won two weeks ago with her poem "patience" which was a great poem but her best in my opinion is called "Farwell to the weeping rose", for me it is one of my fav poems I have ever read by anyone, it is that good! But it didn't win the contest and doesn't have the most reviews, mostly because it is a very long poem. Just one of many examples. Just because her best poem didn't win does that make her win not worthy??? As for the plagerism claim I would tell you to contact papa about that, it is not tolerated here and is illegal. I truely hope that is not true but if it is, it is a very small percentage of the poems posted here and even smaller percentage of the poems that won the contest. I seriosly doubt OP will publish a poem that is plagerism, they could be sued themselves, not very likely. Just my rambling thoughts for the day, take them for what they are worth. I am just getting sick and tried of all the whinning and complaining around here, all negative BS. Aren't there more postive subjects to be talking about??? What purpose does negative slander serve to our OP comunity? I am all for free speach and all that, but what are you trying to accomplish with all the negativity??? I see it as trying to validate perhaps your own idealistic thoughts and preceptions. I am not trying to start any verbal war, trust me that is not my intention at all. Just voicing my own freedom of speach and questioning what is the purpose of your post??? Purity of the soul, Journey well!!! with grace and humility ANGEL

RE: RE: You call THAT Poetry?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hiporlacking

I've yet to read anything good on this crummy website.

RE: RE: You call THAT Poetry?

RE: You call THAT Poetry? WHAT IS POETRY? OREN COUSINS ASKS

My friend asks , "You call that poetry?"

But what is Poetry? It is like asking , who or what is God! I have read hundreds of poems from the Odyssey written by the Greek poet, Homer, The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, and the Latin poets- Ovid, Virgil and Plautus before them, poetry through all ages up to the proliferations and literary deluge of modern times, and I have come to the conclusion that there is no definition for poetry, escept " it's saying what you have to say in the best way you can" , and that whatever we accept or do not accept cannot be categorized satisfactorily nor be arbitrarily judged as good or bad poetry. There is no yardstick nor standard measure with which we can declare a piece of poetry to be good or bad. The only measure is the reader's or audience's reaction. And such reaction is essentially dependent on the personal beliefs, likes and dislikes, culture, education, temperament, philosophy and emotional experiences of the individual. We all should read Angel's response to this thread , "You call that Poetry?"

I conclude by emphasizing that all persons have their right to say what they think about a literary creation, even with indignation, as long as they do not go overboard to be offensive to all people..


Poetry
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)


The Deluge tablet, carved in stone, of the Gilgamesh epic in Akkadian, circa 2nd millennium BC.
Poetry as an art form predates literacy. Some of the earliest poetry is believed to have been orally recited or sung. Following the development of writing, poetry has since developed into increasingly structured forms, though much poetry since the late 20th century has moved away from traditional forms towards the more vaguely defined free verse and prose poem formats.
Poetry was employed as a way of remembering oral history, story (epic poetry), genealogy, and law. Poetry is often closely related to musical traditions, and much of it can be attributed to religious movements. Many of the poems surviving from the ancient world are a form of recorded cultural information about the people of the past, and their poems are prayers or stories about religious subject matter, histories about their politics and wars, and the important organizing myths of their societies.
Poetry as an art form may predate literacy[1] Thus many ancient works, from the Vedas (1700 - 1200 BC) to the Odyssey (800 - 675 BC), appear to have been composed in poetic form to aid memorization and oral transmission, in prehistoric and ancient societies[2]. Poetry appears among the earliest records of most literate cultures, with poetic fragments found on early monoliths, runestones and stelae.
The oldest surviving poem is the Epic of Gilgamesh, from the 4th millennium BC in Sumer (in Iraq/Mesopotamia), which was written in cuneiform script on clay tablets and, later, papyrus.[3] The Epic of Gilgamesh is based on the historical king Gilgamesh. The oldest love poem, found on a clay tablet now known as Istanbul #2461, was also a Sumerian poem. It was recited by a bride of the Sumerian king Shu-Sin, who ruled from 2037–2029 BC.[4] The oldest epic poetry besides the Epic of Gilgamesh are the Greek epics Iliad and Odyssey and the Indian Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. The longest epic poems ever written were the Mahabharata and the Tibetan Epic of King Gesar.
Ancient thinkers sought to determine what makes poetry distinctive as a form and what distinguishes good poetry from bad, resulting in the development of "poetics", or the study of the aesthetics of poetry. Some ancient societies, such as the Chinese through the Shi Jing, one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, developed canons of poetic works that had ritual as well as aesthetic importance. More recently, thinkers struggled to find a definition that could encompass formal differences as great as those between Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and Matsuo Bashō's Oku no Hosomichi, as well as differences in context that span from the religious poetry of the Tanakh to love poetry to rap.
Context can be critical to poetics and to the development of poetic genres and forms. For example, poetry employed to record historical events in epics, such as Gilgamesh or Ferdowsi's Shahnameh,[5] will necessarily be lengthy and narrative, while poetry used for liturgical purposes in hymns, psalms, suras and hadiths is likely to have an inspirational tone, whereas elegies and tragedy are intended to invoke deep internal emotional responses. Other contexts include music such as Gregorian chants, formal or diplomatic speech,[6] political rhetoric and invective,[7] light-hearted nursery and nonsense rhymes, and even medical texts.[8]
The Polish historian of aesthetics, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, in a paper on "The Concept of Poetry," traces the evolution of what is in fact two concepts of poetry. Tatarkiewicz points out that the term is applied to two distinct things that, as the poet Paul Valéry observes, "at a certain point find union. Poetry [...] is an art based on language. But poetry also has a more general meaning [...] that is difficult to define because it is less determinate: poetry expresses a certain state of mind.

Last edited by cousinsoren 09-20-2010 at 07:52:56 AM