Poetry is a load of horse **** waste of time and most people intrinsically know it.

Arghus

I can't really understand how someone could be that annoyed by poetry.

Fann Linn

Recommend the War Poets to the OP as an introduction. I'm not into poetry that much myself but just feel the works of Sassoon and Owens are so very descriptive of not only war but also all of the different feelings around war for not only the combatants but also those behind the lines and those at home. Works that are easily read and yet so very vivid.

Padre_Pio

Blondini wrote: »

An innocently typed mispelling
Can indeed be very telling
When your wife checks your phone
After you've been home alone
Your excuse better be compelling

I tried to explain to my wife,
But she filled my day full of strife,
As she smashed up my phone,
And i let out a moan,
When she stabbed me with a steak knife.

mistersifter

I always loved the poem Excalibur by David Brent. Very powerful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=634TC7Feku4

timeToLive

modern rap is poetry

/s

nofools

paleoperson wrote: »

The whole point of language is to communicate, to be clear, and sometimes to provoke feeling. Meanwhile poetry is about making vague statements that are supposed to be "symbols" of something else.

Poetry is all pretentious nonsense. It's elitism in its purest form. People feel like they "get it", they're part of an elite group of people.

If a single person here has respect for or actually reads or even buys poetry - what do you get out of it? How does it improve your life?

Everyone else, what do you think of poetry.

I half agree but anti elitism is just as bad.

Rubberchikken

I'm not smart enough to understand a lot of poems but I do appreciate w b years poetry for example. It can be very evocative imo.

nofools

[Deleted User] wrote: »

bit of a strawman. who said otherwise?

the thread premise is just a tantrum against something totally........ optional?

I got absolutely nothing from the poem, have heard much smarter rap lyrics

It is unimpressive or I'm a cretin, who knows

Each to their own

nofools

Gremlinertia wrote: »

What is your opinion on writing? Not necessarily poetry, just writing, news journalism, instruction manuals, fiction all make no sense to some and stir emotions in others.. I'm genuinely interested in this because i don't 'get' many types of writing and wondering if there's anything you like reading.

I find the description of the scene and setting up the imagery tiresome with many authors. Over and over flowery depictions. I throw the book away in disgust sometimes.

The best ones you don't notice it and you are there in your minds eye. That is skilled penmanship.

CountNjord

I love poetry, there's nothing pretentious about it.
It's a form of expression and creativity, if you don't get it that's your problem not anybody else's.

You might as well have a rant about song writing too, because they're on a similar wave length.

Most poets I know haven't a pot to piss in , but

Homelander

Poetry can be OK. I'm not a fan but I wouldn't outright dismiss it as a medium. Something like "The Road not Taken" I find rather good and thought-inspiring. Or the famous one about the guy who dies in Vietnam.

However some of it is absolutely just nonsense. The Red Wheelbarrow always springs to mind. I remember my English teacher trying to convince us of it's enormous importance and utter brilliance, like it was the literary equivalent of Einstein.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

JustAThought

Fann Linn wrote: »

Recommend the War Poets to the OP as an introduction. I'm not into poetry that much myself but just feel the works of Sassoon and Owens are so very descriptive of not only war but also all of the different feelings around war for not only the combatants but also those behind the lines and those at home. Works that are easily read and yet so very vivid.

I found out by accident that one of the major warpoets - either Sassoon or Owens was related
to a massively wealthy ‘noble’ family in the UK and who offer a cash bursary to struggling poets to help them. They have run this in his memory since the war. One of the recipients of this -
amongst many others - was Seamus Heaney in the 1970’s in his ‘early’ years.

We were brought up in primary school learning off
poems and reciting republican and nationalistic poetry - some of the few lessons I remember from long long ago when I was an eight year old!

I guess the good thing about poems is that it is like good food - good poems that you enjoy make your world a better place. You can survive and live happily without them on toast or potatoes with boiled chicken and veg - but your world is a tastier, more delicious and richer place with ones you enjoy in it.

You just don’t have to eat or enjoy everything on the menu.

Insect Overlord

I'd recommend the compilations from Bloodaxe Books and Neil Astley for anyone who wants to give poetry a chance. Staying Alive, Being Alive, Being Human, and most recently Staying Human. Something for every occasion and emotion.

Riddle101

I wouldn't be mad into poetry but I respect it as a form of literature. Poetry is thought-provoking and can be compelling. It's just another form of expression really.

ablelocks

when written well, poetry can be beautiful and can have enormous impact - Joe Bidens video where he recited a Seamus Heaney poem is the most recent example.

I'm not huge poetry fan, but my mother has a lot of poetry books and it's nice to pick up a book and read a random poem now and then.

jmlad2020

What are you OP, a Junior cert student unhappy with having to do poetry homework? Your emotional intelligence really shows.

Grow the **** up and look at the beautiful things in life, don't just be a moaner. If you were more passionate about anything that matters in life you'd have more respect for poetry, ya big philistine you

Greyfox

jmlad2020 wrote: »

What are you OP, a Junior cert student unhappy with having to do poetry homework? Your emotional intelligence really shows.

Grow the **** up and look at the beautiful things in life, don't just be a moaner. If you were more passionate about anything that matters in life you'd have more respect for poetry, ya big philistine you

Do you always insult people who have a different opinion to you? I find a few poems are good like the daffodils or Dulce Et Decorum but find 90% of poems to be pretentious boring nonsense.

Hyperbollix

I think full time gimps like Leo Varadkar give poetry a bad name, by virtue of always trying to crowbar it into their speeches, because a lot of politicians want to play Winston Churchill as much as possible. It can be easily seen for what it is, self serving agrandisement by people who wouldn't read poetry or know a poet if they punched them in the face.

But when you look a poetry in it's own right, it can be very moving, thought provoking, emotive, and most of all fitting as a method of acknowledging certain events, experiences or just the human condition.

valoren

It's subjective like any art form.
There are some gems like the below which are timeless.

Out of the night that covers me,   
  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,   
I thank whatever gods may be   
  For my unconquerable soul.   

In the fell clutch of circumstance 
  I have not winced nor cried aloud.   
Under the bludgeonings of chance   
  My head is bloody, but unbowed.   

Beyond this place of wrath and tears   
  Looms but the Horror of the shade, 
And yet the menace of the years   
  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.   

It matters not how strait the gate,   
  How charged with punishments the scroll,   
I am the master of my fate:
  I am the captain of my soul.

To write something like that must be incredibly gratifying.

Capt'n Midnight

As Brendan Behan explained it

"There was a young man named Rollocks,
who worked for Ferrier Pollocks.
As he walked on the Strand.
With his girl by the hand.
The tide came up to his knees."

"Now that's prose," he continued. "If the tide had been in, it would have been poetry."

mistersifter

Serious poetry lovers might roll their eyes at the mention of Charles Bukowski, but I love this one:

Alone with Everybody

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

Church on Tuesday

Homelander wrote: »

Poetry can be OK. I'm not a fan but I wouldn't outright dismiss it as a medium. Something like "The Road not Taken" I find rather good and thought-inspiring. Or the famous one about the guy who dies in Vietnam.

However some of it is absolutely just nonsense. The Red Wheelbarrow always springs to mind. I remember my English teacher trying to convince us of it's enormous importance and utter brilliance, like it was the literary equivalent of Einstein.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens


I think the bolded line gives away the brilliance of that poem. Why does so much depend upon a wheelbarrow and what does that tell us about the situation or otherwise of that particular household/farm holding?

corner of hells

corner of hells wrote: »

In school , years ago , our class bully was about to kick the bollix out of me , when I defended myself with a bit of Kavanagh , " O stony grey soil of Monaghan" , swiftly followed up with a bit of Yeats , " the Lake Ilse of Inisfree".

Bit of poetry calms the mind.

I found a bit of interpretative dance to be more effective.

If — BY RUDYARD KIPLING

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

o1s1n

Never was hugely into poetry myself but I quite like some of the stuff that came out of WW1, such as Siegfried Sassoon's The Hero.


'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the mother said,
And folded up the letter that she'd read.
'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke
In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies
That she would nourish all her days, no doubt
For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.

He thought how 'Jack', cold-footed, useless swine,
Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried
To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair.'

JustAThought

On the theme of good versus different & salt water - I like this one : Saltwater by Finn Butler

Everyone who terrifies you is 65% water
And everyone you love is made of stardust
and I know
sometimes
You cannot breath deeply, and
the night sky is no home, and
that you are down to your last two percent,
but
nothing is infinite
not even loss.
You are made of the sea and the stars, and one day
You are going to find yourself again.

tinner777

I rely on you

I rely on you
like a Skoda needs suspension
like the aged need a pension
like a trampoline needs tension
like a bungee jump needs apprehension
I rely on you
like a camera needs a shutter
like a gambler needs a flutter
like a golfer needs a putter
like a buttered scone involves some butter
I rely on you
like an acrobat needs ice cool nerve
like a hairpin needs a drastic curve
like an HGV needs endless derv
like an outside left needs a body swerve
I rely on you
like a handyman needs pliers
like an auctioneer needs buyers
like a laundromat needs driers
like The Good Life needed Richard Briers
I rely on you
like a water vole needs water
like a brick outhouse needs mortar
like a lemming to the slaughter
Ryan’s just Ryan without his daughter
I rely on you

© Hovis Presley 1994

Invidious

What a crazy thread. Ireland is internationally renowned for its poetry, two Irish poets have won Nobel Prizes, and yet some people just want to call it all "horse ****" and a waste of time.

kippy

Invidious wrote: »

What a crazy thread. Ireland is internationally renowned for its poetry, two Irish poets have won Nobel Prizes, and yet some people just want to call it all "horse ****" and a waste of time.

Boards is full of crazy threads and crazy people!

Kaybaykwah

The "Elitist"

There was a young man from old Lancashire
Of course his manners were gruff
Cuz his nurture was shear,
he would
Sup on every word of Paul Anka's stuff

What was his wake up but a cup of Sanka
He claimed his favorite fillum be Willie Wonka, sure
And when his mates shouted at him wake the feck up ya "bleedin' Wanka!??"
He would softly reply Danke Schoen.