re: Good Poetry

I would have to disagree.
whether or not True/False is a good poem is a matter of opinion, so i won’t try to defend it. but it needs to exist and does because it is unlike other poems; the poet took a chance.

Why does no one anymore write like Shakespeare or Dickinson or Poe? Because they already did. those poems have been read and their style written to death. I hope i never read another poet like Shakespeare or Ginsberg or Dean Young. how terribly boring would that be.

to wish for old trends to reemerge is like praying against progress. yes, the poems already written should be studies and learned from. but then, after a writer has salvaged what they deem worthy from those words, they should throw the rest away. forget it. sometimes, they should even forget those rules that they hold dear. cause if anything worthwhile is going to be written the poet needs to look at all those who came before them and say ‘this is what you did wrong, this is why your words are not mine.’

in closing:
any sort of ‘standards’ that require a writer to possess a degree, or statement of credibility or any previous knowledge of literature whatsoever in order to be published (i think recognition is really what is being discussed here actually) is something i hope is never seen. for someone to be a writer, they must do one thing only: write.

(on a related note:
(i heard once that Prince only listens to his own music. On one hand this is kind of commendable: If he is truly writing exactly what he wants to hear, what he thinks needs to be written, then it should follow that he wouldn’t find any more enjoyment from anyone else’s music then he would his own. However, Prince hasn’t really been topping the charts as of late.) living in a world were only work that is deemed to be ‘worthwhile’ is paid any attention leaves little room for something worthwhile to come about. )

-wes edmond

"Good Poetry"

After reading the poem “True/False” by Dean Young, I can’t help but feel worried about future literature and the advancing poetry of the modern day. Reading “True/False” was a concrete example that anyone can write anything, and if the publisher likes what you have written then they will publish it in hopes that others will enjoy it just as much as they did. There is no “standard” that someone who is going to be published must follow. In other words, someone who wants to be published doesn’t have to have a certain degree from college or have any kind of credibility beforehand. The poem, “True/False” is a simple list of statements that the reader must deem as either as true or false. There is not much more to that. Sure anyone can read it and think that there is a “deeper psychological” meaning hidden in the words. But for some reason I don’t feel like that at all about this poem. It is more likely that this poet had been previously published and wondered if he just wrote random thoughts down, would he be able to get published. And he got what he wanted. He wrote down random facts that he thought was clever, numbered them, and called it a poem. And behold! A poem is born. But in all honesty can we call this poetry? Is this real skill? Hell, I could write a list of things I did in a day and call it “My Day,” and say it’s a poem. If the publisher likes it, then he’ll do his thing. But if he doesn’t then it dies there. But really why aren’t more people writing like Shakespeare, or Dickinson, or Poe? Because it’s hard and takes true talent, which unfortunately not everyone has. It’s good to write because you enjoy writing. It is however ridiculous to think that everything you write is an amazing piece of work that will affect society. Just because you have a pen in your hand it doesn’t mean that you are a good writer. The sooner people realize that, the sooner we’ll get less of what people deem “poetry” and get real works of literature.

Now I’m not saying all poets have write in flowery English but they should at least have the training of what is universally considered “good” poetry and be trained in the classics before they develop their own style. Once you have the fundamentals, you have the building blocks to make your own work good.

*Donya Botkan*

Response to Random Symmetries by Tom Andrews By Perry Wertheimer

After reading this poem I am still extremely confused and don't really understand it. Not that I dislike it, I just don't see what the message is or why the shots of this film are significant within themselves.

When first reading the title I thought that it would be like eighteen steps or ways in which your life changes. Some of the things that were mentioned I felt were extremely similar to those in which people experience in everyday life and we all seem to come across at one time or another. In addition, while reading through I felt the occurrences that the author was mentioning tended to become more and more singular where they involved thoughts going on within your brain as you they are happening.
My favorite line in the poem was when he says on line 9 that "The eighth shot is like the color orange". It is so vague where it leaves so much imagery in ones mind. At first I thought of an orange (the fruit) sitting blankly on a brown wooden table and the second time I read through the poem I envisioned an orange goldfish cracker that was filled in a bag with other goldfish crackers, but for some reason this one cracker stuck out compared to the rest. I also enjoyed the fourteenth shot where he mentions how it is like sleep. One can clearly see in a film where this is just a person lying there sleeping. After reading this it made me think more of an older movie because when I think of sleeping in a movie I feel more inclined to think of a middle aged mother or father that is sleeping after a long day of work.

Even though these shots of the film were rather clear they didn't really tie in to one another and also did not end well. I thought that each line and shot was much different than all the others especially the ones before and after it so how could they flow together? The last line is also about looking at yourself first glance after getting a haircut. Yes, that happens with everybody, but what makes this haircut so interesting? Did he/she cut a lot of hair? Get a type of haircut that would stick out? I didn't particularly understand this, but like the rest of the poem it was vague and left for my imagination which I did enjoy.

Overall, I did like this poem I just found it to be unclear. However, this could have been intentional by the poet because he wants the reader to imagine what they want. If I could change anything, I would just change the end to make it a little bit more dramatic or something that is more descriptive.

BY: Perry Wertheimer

Exquisite Corpse

Oranges are better than Apples
Fruit that ate itself
Dreams come to me like a nightmare
That I really despise
My Mind
Blocked from all my ideas
and dreams feel silk, sliding along an endless slope
They say sleep lasts forever, but once I dreamed I never woke
The colors that appear seriously weird me out.

But I'm OK with...

Poetry with riddles,

Look for more

and mystery makes us look for more
This mystery will continue forever
Within the minds of our children


`Brian Michael Dunar

ps. A bunch of posts I've been stocking up in my notebook and haven't translated to my PC will be coming in this week.

True/ False

I was especially intrigued by the poem True/ False we talked about in class. When I first read this piece of work, I thought, what I figured a lot of other people might have thought, that it was just a random numbered group of statements. I found myself flying past intriguing statements like "Sometimes I get feelings of deja vu," and "There's a number missing," because I was waiting for the give away at the end. You know, that profound statement that kind of draws everything together in conclusion. Well, I clearly did not give this poem enough consideration as I quickly moved on to the next one. When we discussed it in class I went back and read it a few more times and finally felt a connection to the author. I don't know if anyone else out there is like me but I constantly have to read portions of papers sometimes two or 5 times before I get the answer. I'm that guy that usually takes the whole time allotted to finish a test because it takes me so long to understand the questions. Maybe I have dyslexia or something, I don't know but there has to be a reason I can only read at a third grade level. Anyways, when I truly understood this piece of work I found that the author came to life through its words. I guess what I'm trying to say, and I'll use another example to explain it- Have you ever watched the travel channel series Anthony Bordain's No Reservations? Well, I watch him quite frequently and I love his use of words when he describes his feelings and environments of the places he visits. Without to much further digression I'll get to the point. If I were to read any material he wrote, I would be able to recognize his characterization even if his name weren't written at the top of the work. True/False embodies this characterization of the author with phrases like "A woman eating a banana..." and "I wet the bed" in its generated perversion. Also, the way he messes with your mind in #23 and #70; (the deja vu lines) show a sense of humor. Sooo many poems I read lack multiple feelings and characterization so when I finish True/False and realized it didn't have a definitive conclusion I feel like I discovered its meaning. To me, some poems have stories, and some poems evoke thought through characterizations. This poem was the latter.

Jay Woodward

Spirituality and Compassion in Bob Hicok's "My new neighbor"

In Bob Hicok’s poem “My new neighbor,” Hicok describes a cow living in a field beside a small Presbyterian church which he therefore assumes later to be “a God-fearing cow” (26). He explains how this cow has a tag that reads “42” and is destined to be slaughtered, processed, and turned into hamburger for his own consumption. Throughout the poem, I see themes of the poet’s conflict between compassion and desire, as well as divinity’s mystery.

In the first half of the poem, Hicok expresses concern for the cow. He “confessed to 42” that he eats cheeseburgers and reflects: “I had never addressed my food/before it had reached the plate” (19-21) A confession implies guilt or shame, so he feels bad for eating the meat of another being but also takes great pleasure in it.

Hicok then continues in the next lines to wonder what he would say “to chicken teriyaki/by way of lessening the blow or making it feel welcome?” (22-23) Hicok acknowledges that the act of eating meat can be considered a “blow” by an animal whose flesh will be eaten, and he gives an example of a chicken before it is turned into chicken teriyaki. He feels he needs to comfort or assuage his “victims” before they die to show some kind of remorse or appreciation. Yet while he feels guilty for enjoying the meat of these slaughtered animals, he also enjoys it and therefore feels a conflict of interest.

I also see themes of divinity in this poem, including an awareness of higher powers and even using the cow as a metaphor. Hicok wonders “if the congregation of flies/on the eye of the cow/stared at the eye of the cow/with their compound eyes” (2-5). He entertains the possibility that flies, typically considered to be tiny and insignificant, have enough of a consciousness to be aware of the cow. Their host is a vast, complex organism and its eye “must be/their home planet” (36-37). Hicok wonders if they are sentient enough to conceive the solar system of this cow’s body and the even greater universe like the field in which the cow grazes.

Hicok also uses the cow as a metaphor for a higher power or god. He asks it if agnosticism is “the most reasonable position” because he believes “the mind cannot dispense with the notion/of a first cause” (32-35). Agnosticism is a neutral spiritual position in which agnostics (such as myself) believe it is impossible to know whether or not a higher power exists. After all, it would be supernatural and therefore have no natural evidence to confirm (or refute) its existence.

Agnosticism neither confirms nor denies the existence of a god, which is exactly what Hicok is debating in his poem. In this passage, he seems to struggle with the concept of god. He asks 42 – who he will probably eat later –whether or not agnosticism is the most reasonable position because he can’t put aside the concept of a fundamental origin. He can’t find any proof for the existence of a higher power but can’t dismiss it either because he doesn’t know any natural causes that could’ve created the universe, such as the Big Bang theory.

Hicok ends by stating how comforting it is “to talk/to large animals, whether they listen or not” (37-38), then repeats this line to emphasize its deeper meaning. Large animals like the cow could represent higher beings, as the cow does to the flies. Talking is a form of communication so this line could imply that Hicok is trying to communicate with a higher power. He finds it comforting to talk to the cow even without knowing if the animal understands or cares what he has to say. My interpretation of this metaphor is that Hicok finds comfort in having hope in a higher power regardless of whether or not it exists.

--Jessica Murphy