The exhaustion factor has way set-in, Marcus.
It's not obligatory, but - to repeat - maybe a good time for a "snap"!!
The proof of the pudding is in the...

At least, give us a break. I rarely give an automatic delete to anyone on
poetry.etc but you are pushing the envelope.

Thanks,

Stephen V


> Marcus Bales wrote:
>> ... But it's a meaningless claim to claim it's poetry where
>>> poetry and prose are the same thing. There is no honorific to it, you see!
>>> What's the honor in claiming to be a poet where a poet is just a prose
>>> writer by a different name? What does it get you to call yourself a poet
>>> when you refuse to distinguish poetry from anything else?
>
> On 3 Aug 2005 at 14:09, Stephen Vincent wrote:
>> So meter is a form of branding (MFA credential, product placement and all of
>> that)? On that you are exactly right, Marcus. No honor among prose writers
>> faking it as poets. Protect the territory, poets, Iamb by Iamb. Oy.<
>
> I'm criticizing the notion that poetry is an honorific so that it's not
> territory
> worth defending iam by iamb. What makes something poetry ought not
> be whether it's good or not but whether it meets the criteria for being
> poetry or not that are not hard to agree on: such as, for example, that it
> is written in metered language. That's easy and simple enough to be
> non-controversial, isn't it?
>
> The controversy seems to start when people who write in non-metered
> language want to call themselves poets because they think that being
> known as a poet has some value, but they don't want to have to do
> anything particular in order to make a valid claim. They don't want to
> have to meet any standards at all. They want to claim they're poets
> because ... well, because they want to claim they're poets! Yeah, that's
> the ticket. We'll just say we're poets!
>
>> ... many of the folks here are working to engage you in a flexible
>> give and take around issues that are clearly not iron-clad. At least, I
>> suspect, the many of us who enjoy expanding and testing the formal - and
>> many times, counter-formal - reaches of the poem. <
>
> The distinction between "formal" and "free verse" poetry is just what I'm
> challenging, though. I hold that it's not enough to claim you're a poet, or
> your every golden word is a poem, or poetry, or if you do, there can be
> no honor in it since any idiot can make that claim, and if you hold that
> it's okay for any idiot to make that claim, and be honored for it, then
> what distinguishes you from an idiot?
>
> Tell me, do, what makes something poetry for you -- or you, or you. If it's
> an honorific for excellence, what constitutes excellence? Is there a
> difference between excellent prose and excellent poetry -- or is all
> excellence in writing "poetry"? If all excellence in writing is not "poetry",
> what distinguishes this excellence that is not poetry from that excellence
> that is?
>
> These are important questions that people who claim to be poets ought
> to think about, and to have some sort of at least provisional answers to.
>
> Marcus