What is poetry?

Agent327 · Dec 24, 2008

holy king · Dec 24, 2008

what is art?

Agent327 · Dec 24, 2008

I suggest starting a specific thread on that subject; this thread is intended for poetry only.

holy king · Dec 24, 2008

ugh...

everything involving words can be poetry. dada was poetry. why narrow it down?
if people like to read it it's ok.

holy king · Dec 24, 2008

not that it wouldnt be poetry if noone on earth liked to read it, it's just that it wouldnt make much sense then...

Cato the Elder · Dec 24, 2008

This is one of my favorite bits of Latin poetry. My teacher loves it, and quite frankly, I can't blame her. Catullus 85, Odi et Amo:

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate [you] and I love [you]. Why do I do this, you might ask.
I don't know, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.

A bit loosely translated, by yours truly with the help of wiki, but otherwise it makes absolutely no sense.

Perfection · Dec 24, 2008

My second favorite poem:

h(a

by e. e. fiftyson

h(a

pe
rf
po
st

s)
ap
p

iness

Agent327 · Dec 24, 2008

@Cato the elder: Curious that you should mention it; it's the one verse of Catullus that I'll never forget. Also, the absence of the "you" in odi et amo brings a philosophical tinge to it. These lines say exactly what they mean and each word is just right.

It reminds me of two things: Horatius' O navis, quid facis? - which I may quote later on - and, this

Liebes-Lied

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefe schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Neue Gedichte (1907)

Love-song

How to hold my soul, that
it touches not thine? How to
lift it beyond you to other things?
O I'd love to bring it to
something lost in darkness,
to some strange silent spot, that
does not swing when your deeps do swing.
But everything that touches us, you and me,
takes us together like a touch of string
that pulls from two strands one voice.
On which instrument are we strung?
And what violinist holds us in his hand?
O sweet song.

Unfortunately, it seems to me, the essence here is lost in translation - that may be the translators fault though, being me.

@holy king: You're free to quote some dada poetry here, if you feel it's up to the standard of quality.

Ecofarm · Dec 24, 2008

Poetry = emo-prose.

Kyriakos · Dec 24, 2008

The following is my translation of one of my favourite poems by Cavafy. It is part of the "hidden" ones.

The pawn

Often, as i watch others playing chess
my eye is following a pawn
which slowly finds its way
and reaches the final line.
With such willingness it goes to the end
that you would think that naturally here shall begin
its joys and its rewards.
Many unpleasantness does it find on the road.
Blades crookedly are being thrown at it by walkers-by
the castles hit it with their wide
lines' inside their two squares
fast riders seek with malice to make it stranded'
and now and then with a diagonal threat
in its path some pawn is found
from the camp of the enemy sent.

But it escapes from all the dangers
and it reaches the final line

How thiumphantly does it there reach,
to the horrible line the last
how willingly does it touch its death!

Because here the pawn shall die
and all of its worries were merely for this.
For the Queen, which shall save us
to ressurect her from the grave
it came to fall to the chessboard's Hades.

Harbringer · Dec 24, 2008

Cato the Elder said:
This is one of my favorite bits of Latin poetry. My teacher loves it, and quite frankly, I can't blame her. Catullus 85, Odi et Amo:

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate [you] and I love [you]. Why do I do this, you might ask.
I don't know, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.

A bit loosely translated, by yours truly with the help of wiki, but otherwise it makes absolutely no sense.

That makes perfect sence, hes talking about love in a bad relationship.

warpus · Dec 24, 2008

what is poetry?
it is usually crap
i hate poetry.

Bigfoot3814 · Dec 24, 2008

Poetry is anything that isn't prose.

Agent327 · Dec 24, 2008

@Ecofarm/warpus/Bigfoot3814: This thread is not about what poetry is, it's about showing what poetry is. (Interesting haiku though, warpus.)

Harbringer said:
That makes perfect sence, hes talking about love in a bad relationship.

That is true; it is equally true Catullus speaks of love in general and describes what it feels like to experience the feeling.

@Varwnos: I did not know (or recall) this interpretation of Kavafis of the game of chess, which has inspired poets perhaps since its invention. One example by Jorge Luis Borges:

Chess

I

Set in their studious corners, the players
move the gradual pieces. Until dawn
the chessboard keeps them in its strict confinement
with its two colors set at daggers drawn.

Within the game itself the forms give off
their magic rules: Homeric castle, knight
swift to attack, warlike queen, king decisive,
bishop slanted, and attacking pawns.

Eventually, when the players have withdrawn,
when time itself has finally consumed them,
the ritual certainly will not be done.

It was in the East this war took fire.
Today the whole earth is its theatre.
Like the game of love, it is infinite.

II

Faint-hearted king, sly bishop, ruthless queen,
straightforward catle, and deceitful pawn -
over the checkered black and white terrain
they seek out and begin their armed campaign.

They do not know it is the player's hand
that dominates and guides their destiny.
They do not know an adamantine fate
controls their will and lays the battle planned.

The player too is captive of caprice
(the words are Omar's) on another ground
of black nights and white days.

God moves the player, he in turn the piece.
But what god beyond God begins the round
of dust and time and sleep and agonies?

(From Selected poems, edited by Alexander Coleman, Penguin bilingual edition 1999. Translation by Alastair Reid, corrected by me)

Agent327 · Dec 24, 2008

We've had some short lines of poetry, a haiku, some free verse and some sonnets - a form remotely related to the sonata, if only because of the musical undertones. Here's a curiosity, as it's - according to scholars - the first piece of Dutch, supposedly scribbled in the margin of a manuscript by a monk trying out his pen:

olla vogalan nestas hagunan
hinase ic anda thu

In modern Dutch:

alle vogels zijn nesten begonnen
behalve ik en jij

In German:

alle Vogeln haben Nesten begonnen
außer ich und du

In English:

all birds have started nests
save I and you.

Cheezy the Wiz · Dec 24, 2008

Ecofarm said:
Poetry = emo-prose.

No.

Poetry is literature not written in prose.

Ecofarm · Dec 24, 2008

Not prose = emo-prose.

Cheezy the Wiz · Dec 24, 2008

That's it, I'm going to slit my wrists now, if I can get through the fifty black rubber bracelets I have on.

Ecofarm · Dec 24, 2008

I could sense victory coming on that one. You are a wise man to bow to my superior non-fallaciousie logicusness.

Agent327 · Dec 25, 2008

Keeper of the Sun God's Treasure
----------------------------------------
Your eyes stare coldly,
calculating - so very suitable
for the task of accounting
Your mouth betrays your nature
so sensuous these lips
It is no mystery how
you stood when Akhenaten
fell - it is as clear
as the crystal
the Venetians once
were famed for:

You are like this trinket

What is poetry?

Observer

Deity

Observer

Deity

Deity

King

The Great Head.

Observer

Deity

Creator

Your A One Flower Garden

In pork I trust

Deity

Observer

Observer

Socialist In A Hurry

Deity

Socialist In A Hurry

Deity

Observer

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