On 10 Apr 2004 at 15:50, grasshopper wrote:
> I feel a versified joke is in a different category from other
> types of poem, because the whole poem is about reaching the punchline.
> It's basically one-dimensional, and depends on the punchline -no
> levels of interpretation, or added resonance etc. So I feel the
> punchline should be original because the poem depends on it so
> much. Otherwise, for me, it's like repeating someone else's
> witticism and claiming it's your own wit.<
The wit is in the presentation; jokes about comparative pricing go
back as far as writing, so far as I know. Poems about love, too. So,
once again, show me an example of "honest originality" in a poem --
otherwise you have to admit that you're just repeating other peoples'
insights and claiming they're your own.
Poetry is presentation, it's rhetoric, it's not original thought in
the least. The "thought" or "insight" you find in poems is banal and
trite in every case I know of -- what makes it poetry is how it is
presented, not what it says.
Marcus
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