Is that all, Mr./Ms. Poet?
by SingChi (Member) - published: April 10, 2006
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Just so you know, I'm not dissing those who do.

Okay, when I'm browsing the front page in the poetry section I click on random things. Usually, it is something about how he broke her heart or she/he loves him/her so much and blah blah blah.

Is there anything else to write about? I mean come on! Variety is the spice of life! If you eat apples every single day you're going to get sick of them.

------
Mad monkey fling poo!

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The following comments are for "Is that all, Mr./Ms. Poet?"
by SingChi

Woe as me
Pm in your mailbox...Kacee

( Posted by: Nitz Kitty [Member] On: April 10, 2006 )

No, but it's...
Wrote my first poem approximately 35 years ago, and it was a love poem, a sonnet in French, and am still writing love poems now, so, singchi, it's not "all" but it is "most of it", to some poets anyway. I've reached a point where I flambé the apples, ya know?

Love, in poetry, is as old as...apples and...snakes???

( Posted by: windchime [Member] On: April 10, 2006 )

Not all, but oh, so much...!
No, Singchi, it isn't 'all there is'. But I'm afraid poetry does lend itself to love/lost-love more than any other literary form. Basically, because poetry is at its best when it's wrought directly from human emotion, not intellectual thought; not a desire to educate, convert or inform. And what stirs the strongest of human emotions is usually love.

Windchime has 30yrs on me as a poet, and my first was not a love poem; nor will my last be. (I reckon I average about 50:50.) But I'll never tire of writing them - caramel apples, flambe apples, curried apple soup. Sometimes, I freely admit, those poems suck. But I often consider them my best, simply because they're the ones I spew out at gut-level: they don't need to be worried at to render some clever-clever idea 'poetic', they don't get stultified with overwrought metaphors.

Here are some of my recent favorite ways-with-apples (on this site and elsewhere): tell me, do they all bore you rigid?

http://www.lit.org/view/28413
http://www.lit.org/view/29797
http://www.lit.org/view/30703
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/998.html

- a defensive love-poet
(Oh, and that's Dr. Defensive-love-poet, actually :) )

( Posted by: MobiusSoul [Member] On: April 10, 2006 )

Variety is the spice of life...
...but I think true variety resides not in simply choosing a theme that hasn't been treated before (just look at the Holywood movies, new themes, new things and they all look the same) but in the way a theme is treated, be it as old as the hills. And, beneath all the cliches, love is probably one of the few themes that allows a nearly infinite number of ways in which to treat it. Every person loves in different ways, every person is loved in different way, and, beneath all the sugar coating, every love is something completely new. There are bad poems and good poems. There are bad love poems and good love poems and, while a bad love poem will stick to the surface and speak the same old story, a good one will go beneath the coating, beneath everything that makes this love be the same as any other love and to that silent, irrepetable core. I think I could ramble about this for ages, so I'll stop now :)

( Posted by: Dew Of Blood [Member] On: April 12, 2006 )

To Penelope...
Again, sorry if I offended you.

Do you want blood?

( Posted by: SingChi [Member] On: April 12, 2006 )

Love poem
One says:
What shall he say,
but, day by day
Goes on and on
sonnet and song,
"Love! I Love!
I live unloved"
Is all see.
Is this all of poetry?

She says:
What is the poet without love?
He is a man, to stars above
giving thanks, day by day
that he, as one of few, may say,
"I love not."

I would leave it at that, but I think I know better than to trust poetry to say what I mean. I'm not saying it's the only thing to write about, but I will say that love is an awful easy word to rhyme. *winkwink*

Don't despair, it's just a Spring-time preponderance I'm sure.

-Kitten

( Posted by: Kitten Courna [Member] On: April 12, 2006 )

If you're offering
Quote:

Do you want blood?

If you're just giving it away I'll take some off your hands.

( Posted by: maclaren [Member] On: April 13, 2006 )

mr/ms poet

I read this because you make a very interesting and valid point. I think you figured out why these poems are in the "random or lonely posts".

If I want to be exposed to clichés, I would watch soap operas all day long.

I am not trying to offend anyone.

( Posted by: macbeth [Member] On: April 13, 2006 )

poets
SingChi, it would nice for me if I had a love poem in my heart for a lover, instead of the things I'd like to do to the past creeps!

Robin

( Posted by: Robinbird [Member] On: April 14, 2006 )

Hi Eric

A little blood, gore and don’t forget death do wonders to spice the mind. However, my point Eric was that there are thousand of creative ways to say the same thing that has been said and said without it being a cliché. A poem should leave to the imagination. It would be great if the these poets were told by other lit members when they are doing so.

P. S There is nothing wrong with elusive love.

macbeth

( Posted by: macbeth [Member] On: April 14, 2006 )

Elusive love
Elusive love? Hide and seek with a prize sounds OK to me. Now where did I leave my wife.....

Oh, Singchi

I also get tired of reading endless attempt at love poems.... but I never get tired of reading Poetry (including love poems)...it's the attempts that do not leave you (as Macbeth points out) with anything to think about that are monotonous!

Ivor

( Posted by: ivordavies [Member] On: April 14, 2006 )

First of all...
To say you are not dissing, and then say, "blah blah blah," and then say that you get "sick of them..." I think you are dissing them. Us.

There are many reasons to write poetry, and many to read. Some write poetry as therapy and to share common feelings. A journal of the heart. And, in that sense, love/loss are two of the foremost themes to be found in that kind of journal. If you don't like those themes, stop reading randomly. Find authors you enjoy and read them. When you ID authors you don't enjoy, skip 'em. Nobody is asking you to like everyone's work. Second of all...

Others write poetry to explore all manner of ideas. You seem to want to find a wider variety of that kind of "stuff." Well, look a bit deeper before you complain. I've found quite a bit of really deep dish material here at Lit. Check out the work of WilliamHill for some great stuff on death -- not loss of love, but the Big D. His "Notes on the Fridge" are brilliant, funny and dark. And have nothing to do with "love him so much, blah, blah, blah."

Check out http://www.lit.org/view/32453 for a neat piece Bob just posted with a theme of paganism. Not a hint of Cupid there.

To pimp my own work here -- the work of one write -- just to prove a point. Here are a few poems by "approximate non blah, blah, blah theme:"

* * * * *

Nudity: http://www.lit.org/view/32295

The exposure of self that comes with artistic expression: http://www.lit.org/view/31762

The terrors of multi-tasking: http://www.lit.org/view/30827

Original sin: http://www.lit.org/view/30717

Plotting the murder of a neighbor: http://www.lit.org/view/30333

A child playing in snow: http://www.lit.org/view/30254

The death of old gods: http://www.lit.org/view/29861

The death of our feelings of wonder at nature's grandeur: http://www.lit.org/view/29422

Dancing/sex: http://www.lit.org/view/28574

Hell: http://www.lit.org/view/28432

Imagined seduction: http://www.lit.org/view/26288

Dreams: http://www.lit.org/view/25511

God and the devil: http://www.lit.org/view/25005

Writing/seduction: http://www.lit.org/view/23748

* * * * *

I don't recall ever having received a comment from you on any of these pieces? Have I? If so, forgive me... but if your goal is to promote the writing of a certain type of writing/poetry, my suggestion is to comment on those pieces you enjoy; those whose themes you enjoy or that typify the work you admire. Simply stating, "I see a lot of stuff that doesn't meet my requirements," is

(and I don't mean to diss you....)

about as helpful as saying, "blah blah blah..."

( Posted by: andyhavens [Member] On: April 14, 2006 )

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