a comment I made in poems

[novapsyche]

Poetry is an art. Creative writing is an art. As such, there are ways to approach it where you evoke word pictures and images for the reader to enjoy.

A lot of what passes as "poetry" these days is angst-ridden dreck (especially on LJ). Good poetry is crafted: it is a work of art where each word is as carefully considered as a pointillist's dot on the canvas.

Garbage in, garbage out. If you read good poetry, you'll eventually start churning out stuff that looks like what you're reading. If you can then channel your own style and voice into that, you've got it made.

Comments

[poetpainter77.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU!!! Omg, I can't stand when people regard poetry as "easy" just because it's seemingly less visual than, say, painting. But really, it is just as visual, and possibly more visual. Not only to you see finely crafted words on a page, but it paints a thourough picture in your mind.

Yes...agnst is very VERY common. I know, I used to write it like no other (a goblet of blood anyone?). And I've even seen work at school that's considered very very good that's really just an essay made to look like a poem, with an occasional image. People need to realize and value its true artistic quality.

Sorry, I'm venting. Heh.

Thanks a lot for saying that. I agree with it completely.

[droid-1.livejournal.com]

Critique:

Parting

Murk and mire, misery I saw:
Trial, testing, be vale of earth.

Peace and Beauty, Truth and Awe,
All great things of Majesty, Worth

Nirvana, ecstacy, all
Await those who escape the pall

Breaking free into the light
whose power erases all blight,

Past misery will be gone
When we float into the new dawn

Where Time is not; naught but love,
Peace and joy in Heaven above

No pain, no tears, not e'en hate
Can abide where the Angels wait.

G.Droit

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I would advise rewriting this eschewing rhyme. Let the message bring itself out instead of contorting it into an arbitrary form.

And make it more personal.

That's my critique.

[droid-1.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[badsede.livejournal.com]

I do think that a line needs to be drawn somewhere though. Either not all that masquerades as poetry is actually poetry, or not all poetry is art. I am inclined to the latter. For example, not all paintings are art, some are just decoration. This does not mean that they are bad, it just means that they don't play the same role in the the human experience.

I guess I see a distinction between art and craft. In my mind, the distinction is beauty. Art captures beauty .. even when it is not pretty. Art moves our humanity. Art engages our spirits through our senses. Craft only engages our senses. Much of the painting, drawing, poetry, architecture, sculpture out there is not art, but craft - I refrain from saying merely craft because craft itself is also precious.

I have aspired to art on few occasions, my skill rarely reaches outside of craft. But those moments, those moments when I have actually been able to capture beauty - and I have been most successful in cooking of all things - it is in those moments that I find the existence of a God of creation undeniable and I understand the relationship between such a God and myself.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I do think that a line needs to be drawn somewhere though.

Everyone draws their own lines.

not all paintings are art, some are just decoration. This does not mean that they are bad, it just means that they don't play the same role in the the human experience.

I agree. There needs to be a marriage between craft and beauty for art to be formed.

This is the esteem in which I consider poetry.

Art captures beauty .. even when it is not pretty.

The best poetry is, in my vocabulary, arresting.

I have aspired to art on few occasions, my skill rarely reaches outside of craft. But those moments, those moments when I have actually been able to capture beauty - and I have been most successful in cooking of all things - it is in those moments that I find the existence of a God of creation undeniable and I understand the relationship between such a God and myself.

All artists aspire to that.

[steep.livejournal.com]

suggest some good poetry?

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Oh my. There's so much.

Actually, this month's issue of Poetry is excellent: most of the poems deal deftly with existential issues.