On 10 Apr 2004 at 16:36, grasshopper wrote:
> If you really think that the thought behind every poem ever written
> is on the level of : petrol costs less per litre than champagne, I
> wonder what poetry really communicates to you.<
I'm saying that the basic ideas behind every poem art trite; that
what makes the POEM not-trite, if the poet makes it not-trite, is the
PRESENTATION.
> The comparative pricing
> joke isn't what I'd consider wit, and versification, however smoothly
> done, isn't going to make it wit. Perhaps I'd be more impressed by a
> poem that stretched to imply the hidden price of cheap gas for the
> USA, in terms of human lives....<
That, too, is a trite insight. Once again, it would be the successful
presentation of such a trite insight as significant or important (or
both) that would make it poetry -- not the mere cliche that cheap gas
costs lives.
Marcus
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