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Sure, but they are not in the words of Ms Slick the pills that mother gives you - though *they do quite a lot Yr ps question is so broad I'd have to say yes Unscrew the *doors* themselves from their *jambs* ! is a favourite of mine But some of friends who are inclined to faith like to judge poetry by what it says; and I have an aversion to that. When I first read Whitman, it was the prosody that blew me away. I'm really not sure about what he's saying. Let the idea that grass could be the long hair of graves show where it could lead. The doctor will see you now, Mr Whitman Pardon me if I have sd this but I had once the experience of being told by one after another that my poetry was really beautiful. I was on cloud 9. Maybe 8. But it was just after I'd moved back from Cornwall to London and my gig, a long gig, had for various reasons, been a reading of landscape poems, as far as I'd got then. I realised after a while, and after hearing and overhearing further comments that by and large they knew cornwall to be beautiful, even seeing the wreckage of the industrial revolution as mysterious blah blah, and took my poetry to be an affirmation and endorsement of that. But I was mostly speaking of the destruction of the language and culture; the economic vandalism and theft; colonisation etc *as *well as the granite landscape. And if they saw that landscape in all weathers they might not be so fond of it. (There's a poem by the Swede Froding that runs grey grey grey grey grey) Or there was an audience of believers which was very happy when I praised a hymn as poetry, because *they liked what it said, but weren't happy when I laid into another for sloppiness, because they liked what that one said too. Q & A took us to Auden's Stop all the clocks which they liked and thought "strong" without seeming to know what was going on. I referred to the ascent of F6 text and they got quite ratty when I suggested that text makes meaning and so makes meaning mutable rather than containing it. The motivational in poetry is of course entirely possible; but it's not likely to be anything you could extract, abstract and put on a t shirt. What is the poet saying? is hardly the first or most important question L On 17 October 2013 11:54, Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]>wrote: > L-Seems quite a lot of motivational message there P > Ps does poetry exclude motivational messages ??P old and puzzled amongst > other things > > -----Original Message----- > From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On > Behalf Of Lawrence Upton > Sent: 17 October 2013 11:11 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: domestics > > Well it's poetry I'm trying to write, not motivational messages. Best L > > > On 16 October 2013 22:47, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > Cheery little number, L. > > > > B > > > > > On 16 Oct 2013, at 10:33 pm, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]> > > wrote: > > > > > > The hissed rant of victims, > > > > > > perpetrating audience conflict, > > > > > > all reconstituted; > > > > > > high street take out, edited > > > > > > > > > > > > by and for news agencies; > > > > > > torn stuck apart together; > > > > > > cosmetically-enhanced patched; > > > > > > dissected; written; writhing > > > > > > > > > > > > the dead heap, pieces and bits > > > > > > mixing, voices merging, > > > > > > dead among living. > > > > > > Phrases constitute. > > > > > > > > > > > > The books guide through traps, hurts > > > > > > that all must negotiate > > > > > > in violent deception > > > > > > from birth beyond breath. > > > > > >