you know what grinds my gears?
people who don't appreciate poetry, and call it shit. you can not appreciate poetry and leave it alone, but calling it shit is another thing. i suppose everyone does this to some sort of art or some sort of thing. you may not say it, but you think it. i know someone here thinks that something is shit -- what say you? john cage's music? 3'43 seconds of silence? SHIT! honking and coughing and scraping? SHIT!* whatever, point is, people've got their opinions, but for goodness sakes, man, be a little less napalm-the-shit-out-of-it about the subject!
"Uggh. I read that poem for the first time in 8th grade and it's so awful...I'm at a loss. Poetry is not simply throwing words together. Honestly, what the hell?
At least you didn't post his wheelbarrow piece.
NOTHING DEPENDS ON THE FRIGGIN' WHEELBARROW!
I know, all of you poetry snobs will disagree.
But the fact that HE was published when there are so many poets IMMENSELY better who haven't been is infuriating.
Makes me grind my teeth down to the jawbone."
for those of you who forgot AP English (or regular English, for that matter,) we're talking about William Carlos Williams and two of his biggest poems that everyone knows, and have therefore become infamous: "This is Just to Say" and "The Red Wheelbarrow." so here's the deal, we all know about the plums and how delicious they were, and let's not over-analyze things...he loved the plums. so sweet, so cold.
so what of it? my theory about this is that people take poetry's symbolic rap for granted. they think that since poetry is "high" art that putting something in such simple terms can't be so damn easy. that it's gotta be harder. and so when they see something like this, where the freaking point is that the plums were really really good, people can't believe their eyes. "how is this poetry?" they say.
How is this poetry? simply put, it's poetry because it was set into lines, put into a rhythm, and then read as if it were poetry. that's a lame excuse, huh? because it's so simple is part of the point -- i believe -- of the poem. simplicity. desire for nothing more than a plum. that temptation, and resulting guilt. sounds fancy in those words, but putting it into more simpler terms, plums = delicious, delicious = tasty, after-thought = oops, those were yours, weren't they? shoot. and that's how simple our desire can be. how desires like this are so easily passed over is something this poem -- possibly -- can point out, and that complex desires like love or whatever don't even enter the equation. there's no room for it. it's desire-consequence-guilt. which can enter into all the other things that're out of the equation in the first place.
plus the fact that this is done in the simplest American English possible. that was also a point of Williams's, simple, plain American language. a native poetry.
looking at the comment above, it really grinds my gears to see people ignore the fact that poetry can be really, really simple. that poetry, in essence, is all about understanding one thing that grabs you in the poem, following the logic, and then thinkin about it all a little later. poetry's number one is enjoyment of words. number two is the thinking part. pretty much always.
and thusly ends my teacherly lesson and theory of poetry.
andrew
"Uggh. I read that poem for the first time in 8th grade and it's so awful...I'm at a loss. Poetry is not simply throwing words together. Honestly, what the hell?
At least you didn't post his wheelbarrow piece.
NOTHING DEPENDS ON THE FRIGGIN' WHEELBARROW!
I know, all of you poetry snobs will disagree.
But the fact that HE was published when there are so many poets IMMENSELY better who haven't been is infuriating.
Makes me grind my teeth down to the jawbone."
for those of you who forgot AP English (or regular English, for that matter,) we're talking about William Carlos Williams and two of his biggest poems that everyone knows, and have therefore become infamous: "This is Just to Say" and "The Red Wheelbarrow." so here's the deal, we all know about the plums and how delicious they were, and let's not over-analyze things...he loved the plums. so sweet, so cold.
so what of it? my theory about this is that people take poetry's symbolic rap for granted. they think that since poetry is "high" art that putting something in such simple terms can't be so damn easy. that it's gotta be harder. and so when they see something like this, where the freaking point is that the plums were really really good, people can't believe their eyes. "how is this poetry?" they say.
How is this poetry? simply put, it's poetry because it was set into lines, put into a rhythm, and then read as if it were poetry. that's a lame excuse, huh? because it's so simple is part of the point -- i believe -- of the poem. simplicity. desire for nothing more than a plum. that temptation, and resulting guilt. sounds fancy in those words, but putting it into more simpler terms, plums = delicious, delicious = tasty, after-thought = oops, those were yours, weren't they? shoot. and that's how simple our desire can be. how desires like this are so easily passed over is something this poem -- possibly -- can point out, and that complex desires like love or whatever don't even enter the equation. there's no room for it. it's desire-consequence-guilt. which can enter into all the other things that're out of the equation in the first place.
plus the fact that this is done in the simplest American English possible. that was also a point of Williams's, simple, plain American language. a native poetry.
looking at the comment above, it really grinds my gears to see people ignore the fact that poetry can be really, really simple. that poetry, in essence, is all about understanding one thing that grabs you in the poem, following the logic, and then thinkin about it all a little later. poetry's number one is enjoyment of words. number two is the thinking part. pretty much always.
and thusly ends my teacherly lesson and theory of poetry.
andrew