Poetry Is Linear

Poetry Is Text

Poetry Has No Breath

History Has Ended

My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose

"Poetry Now" Is The Finest Program Ever Broadcast On Radio It Is Poetry Now

On 5/19/05, Geraldine Monk <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> But isn't this a rather poetic and lofty interpretation of the word poetry?
>
> By disqualifying a whole genre nay a whole caboodle of rip-roaring goodies?
> Poetry did not begin in 'breath' terms unless we're going back to
> pre-speaking monkey-hums (Olson didn't invent poetry - although he'd
> probably like to think he did ) and what would we be leaving out? Nearly
> the whole damn lot of it methinks.
>
> Dismissing with a glancing blow all our whole lit-story: The Sagas the Myths
> the Nursery Rhymes the Playground Songs the Political Satires the Elegies
> the Eulogies the Love poetry the Celebratory poetry the Religious poetry oh
> God stop right there. There'd be hardly anything left.
>
> And there's nothing quite like someone defining what poetry is to makes me
> want to sit down and write a ten volume narrative love poem about and to my
> teddy bear. (I never had one when I was a kid despite numerous pleas to
> Santa so I made up for it later life - pathetic! - I agree).
>
> But poetry today? You get your breath right you get your jazz broken lungs
> cracking to yet another millennium in full blown angst but that's as easy to
> emulate as The Highway Man. So what is the criteria? What is the proof?
> And the Fairy Queen came riding, riding...'
>
> We have to fall back on Lorca's Duende. The char woman singing with more
> soul but less expertise than Pavarotti. That's poetry. But that's not
> poetry either. It's pure undiluted emotion. Sincerity never made a work
> of art. And neither did definitions.
>
> So my answer to your question Rupert is: I don't know. I just honestly
> don't know. I don't even know whether the last thing I wrote is brilliant
> or crap, poetry or piss, all I know is that I had equally fulfilment and fun
> writing both. The trick is in the editing!
>
> And maybe that's all that poetry comes down to. Editing. Does it work?
> But that's a bloody difficult does to come down to.
>
> G.
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> Geraldine Monk
> www.westhousebooks.co.uk
>
>
> Issue for debate
>
> I recognise no linear development of/in poetry. No stories can ever be told
> through poetry. Narrative is the anathema of poetry. Storytelling is all
> lies.
>
> All poetry is breath - the incidentals of jazz, the broken lungs of people
> in the gutters world wide. This is the story without resolution.
>
> A poem is not a poem if it concludes - unless there is any breakthrough in
> history.
>
> Love isn't enough - and considering what love is isn't enough. And Love
> poetry, loving poetry, kindred poetry isn't enough. But without love?
>
> Tell me what you think poetry is today.
>
> Best, Rupert
>
>


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