Poetry Exercise #1 (updated Jan 4), Join In! Options

[JustDaniel]

dry seriousness

clear the evidence;
wipe away demeaning tears
though you can’t decry

© Daniel J Ricketts 03 Jan 2003

Hi Daniel,

I rather read these three lines as

Cease crocodile tears
you really can't cry.

A simple yes or no response to veracity would be appreciated.

Don

I truly hope that I have not tried your patience, Don!  I greatly value your words and presence!

Your interpretation is quite interesting... and of course the reader is king, some would say!

I intended demeaning to be double-tongued, if you get de meaning...
and I'd hoped that decry would bear double duty as well.  You can't de-cry tears, ya know!

I was just emoting in my frustration with my own inability to grasp yours and Alan's and James' explanations and teachings readily!  Forgive me, please.

dim, but sharin' de Light, Daniel  :sun:

[Guest_Don_*]

dry seriousness

clear the evidence;
wipe away demeaning tears
though you can’t decry

© Daniel J Ricketts 03 Jan 2003

Hi Daniel,

I rather read these three lines as

Cease crocodile tears
you really can't cry.

A simple yes or no response to veracity would be appreciated.

Don

I truly hope that I have not tried your patience, Don!  I greatly value your words and presence!

Your interpretation is quite interesting... and of course the reader is king, some would say!

I intended demeaning to be double-tongued, if you get de meaning...
and I'd hoped that decry would bear double duty as well.  You can't de-cry tears, ya know!

I was just emoting in my frustration with my own inability to grasp yours and Alan's and James' explanations and teachings readily!  Forgive me, please.

dim, but sharin' de Light, Daniel  

Hi Dan,

I take no offense from your honest inputs.  I am flattered you appreciate my presence and I honestly reciprocate the view with you.  I look forward to learning a great deal from you, knowing how to enlightened students.

Not many have the fortitude to admit, "I don't get it."  Believe me, my turn will come again to request a dunce cap.  In fact your three lines derailed me.

The joke is on me for dependence upon dictionary definitions.  By accident dictionary definition for "decry" aligned its stars with your intended "de-cry" and I laugh for missing "de-meaning" entirely.  I must loosen upper collar button to let double-tongue tickle senses.

I was confused whether or not your three lines were directly connected to "Builders of Ruins."  You have clarified indirect link.  

Oh, the opportunity to discuss a work with an artist like yourself is an enlightening pleasure.

I looked into Alice Meynell (1792-1822) on Web.  She has a long list of verses to her name.  Builders of Ruins is twelve, five-line stanzas.  I was disappointed with rhyme scheme, but I could loosen first and second shirt buttons, no?

My poetry professor is on tape as my academic engineering education maximized ignoring classics.  Hence, I need help at the helm to catch up with fleet.

Don

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hehehh, any suggestions for the next poetry exercise? A particular author perhaps? I'm all ears and they're BIG too, lol!
Did anyone get the self-preservation interpretation????

~Cleo

[Guest_Don_*]

Hehehh, any suggestions for the enxt poetry exercise? A particular author perhaps? I'm all ears Iand they're BIG too, lol!
Did anyone get the self-preservation interpretation????

~Cleo

Hi Lori,

Self preservation?????

I read your last interpretation, and believe I grasp your explanation, which I found soundly plausable.

No suggestionsfor next project. Sorry, I am rather poor at picking something for which several would be interested.

Don

[Cleo_Serapis]

I looked into Alice Meynell (1792-1822) on Web.  She has a long list of verses to her name.  Builders of Ruins is twelve, five-line stanzas.  I was disappointed with rhyme scheme, but I could loosen first and second shirt buttons, no?

My poetry professor is on tape as my academic engineering education maximized ignoring classics.  Hence, I need help at the helm to catch up with fleet.

Don

Hi Don!

Yes - she also wrote several sonnets whcih I believe you've written a few as well?

Not a bad idea! Tape your classes!  :dance:

Cheers!
~Cleo

[JustDaniel]

A note to Don:

I'm heartened by your reply, my friend!  Thank you.

... and a bit of 'wisdom' in reply to your loosening your collar:


red light

beware unbuttoned…
especially loose callers
to waft on the fly

© MLee Dickens’son 06 Jan 2004

[Guest__*]

Dear Cleo

We build with strength and deep tower wall
that shall be shattered thus and thus.
And fair and great are court and hall,
but how fair--this is not for us,
who know the lack that lurks in all.

1st image is very pedestrian - of castle-building, no question of seeing any metaphors .....

1st reaction, and 2nd, and 3rd, on re-reading : What a load of tosh, not worth the effort of digging to try and understand what this MIGHT be about. The sort of poem that gave me the idea that poetry is a load of old rubbish, a complete turn-off !

Lines in the style ? I can but par-or-die :

BUILDERS OF SALES CAMPAIGNS

We write with words and deep emotion all
that shall be plastered here and there.
Quite fair and great our "bat and ball",
but, how eloquent we can not compare,
who see competing ads in ev'ry mall.

Is this sort of reply any use to you at all ?

Love
Alan

PS I'M BACK home this morning !

[Guest_Don_*]

I looked into Alice Meynell (1792-1822) on Web.  She has a long list of verses to her name.  Builders of Ruins is twelve, five-line stanzas.  I was disappointed with rhyme scheme, but I could loosen first and second shirt buttons, no?

My poetry professor is on tape as my academic engineering education maximized ignoring classics.  Hence, I need help at the helm to catch up with fleet.

Don

Hi Don!

Yes - she also wrote several sonnets whcih I believe you've written a few as well?

Not a bad idea! Tape your classes!  

Cheers!
~Cleo

Hi Lori,

The professor on tape to which I refered were purchased from The Teaching Company to absorb commuting to and fro between work and home.  Attempts to record in lecture halls, class rooms and chemistry labs were abject failures.

Yes, I have written a few sonnets, but have yet to practice to proficiency.
As practice consists of consuming others, I shall return to read sonnets of Alice Meynell.

I request your guiding help.  What poems would you suggest make reader SEE, HEAR, SMELL, TASTE or FEEL.  Strong imagery may suggest, but if I put a page of verse to tongue it transmits taste of pulp. Flavored ink perhaps?

Don

[Guest_Jox_*]

Alan,

My very dear fellow how absolutely spiffing to see you returned safely to the fold.

Secondly, my apologies for not being in this debate the last few days - as I have lots to respond to. My two excuses are (i) I've been busy; (ii) I've been busy on MM over at the short story educational bit - do have a go, all. (iii) MM has been "down" for much of the time I've been available. (iv) I can't count.

Fourthly, I hate you, AMD. You have really shown me up on here. Why did you have to return from living in an envelope? Look, why do you have to be so wonderfully accurate and forthright about that poem? Why can't you beat about the bush like any respectable Brit... like me, for goodness' sake! I spent ages carefully saying that it might be good and I just was not in-tune with Victoriana etc, when all the time I meant that I hated it!

I'm far too much of a coward - evidently! THANK YOU ALAN for showing that to everyone. But Alan says "The sort of poem that gave me the idea that poetry is a load of old rubbish, a complete turn-off !" and I think I'd just like to - sort of - agree(ish) with him; if that's ok? (If it's not this poem is probably the best ever written pre MM-members' attempts - that shouldn't offend too many people).

Actually, it is far from the worst I have read - I loathe Keats for example - though I suspect most would say he was a far better poet. Nevertheless, it's definitely one to be printed on those novelty boggy-rolls.

Alan, do you think I was too strident there?

James.

PS Welcome back Alan!

[Cleo_Serapis]

Nwext part of exercise -

Please re-write the last stanza. This can follow the meter in place, or you may write any style you wish.... How would you end this piece?
Good luck!
~Cleo

[Cleo_Serapis]

Dear Cleo

1st reaction, and 2nd, and 3rd, on re-reading : What a load of tosh, not worth the effort of digging to try and understand what this MIGHT be about. The sort of poem that gave me the idea that poetry is a load of old rubbish, a complete turn-off !
! Well, at least you tell us what ya think!

Lines in the style ? I can but par-or-die :

BUILDERS OF SALES CAMPAIGNS

We write with words and deep emotion all
that shall be plastered here and there.
Quite fair and great our "bat and ball",
but, how eloquent we can not compare,
who see competing ads in ev'ry mall.

Is this sort of reply any use to you at all ?

Love
Alan

PS I'M BACK home this morning !

Welcome back Alan! Happy New Year!

I like your reply, very funny, but you've got the rhythm in place - did ya notice?    ???

Now - write an ending too please...

Cheers!
~Cleo  

[Guest__*]

Dear Jox & Cleo

Thank you for the welcomes !

James, this style of poem convinced me for 51 years that poetry is rubbish. I recall being forced through Darien's Peak or some such by Keats at school, where the only thing I learned with certainty is that the effort to disassemble to find the meanings was not worth the effort, the meanings gleaned I mean. All that hacking through the jungles of the isthmus to see .... water, I ask you !

But I guess in Vic days the rich had nothing better to do to fill their idle lives, so this wordy version of charades was ideal ?

Ending ?

Ruins of Builders - a parody through and through on "Creatives" in ad-land !

We write with words, "sincere" emotion all
that shall be plastered here and there.
Quite fair and great our "bat and ball",
but, how eloquent we shall not compare,
who see competing ads in ev'ry mall.

The stars who're paid, then act, cause fall
of advert-trusters, who one by one
stand musing o'er our empty stall;
and fleeting coins shall fall upon
these images, our lier's wall.

What have they wrought, these lives of ours,
so many-worded, multi-conned;
a bitter wind will shake the towers,
and dark with color, sunless and cold,
we'll die, alone with plastic flowers.

It makes him pause, this poet's whim,
the shrill and wordly-played ideas,
and those pathetic thoughts, so dim,
for he, etern'ly mulling, sans fears,
dying, feels ennui overcoming him !


Alan McAlpine Douglas (writting under the name of Alice Barrett Keats - In-joke for Jox ! )

[Guest_Jox_*]

And make our pause and silence brim
with the shrill children's play, and sweets
of those pathetic flowers and dim,
of those eternal flowers my Keats,
dying, felt growing over him!

Alternative ending...

Man has but a short time to live...
Ashes to ashes, etc...

I wouldn't have the ability nor interest to write an alternative ending to another's poem. However, I've put both my brain cells to this and I think I have a perfect ending. Mind you, the rest of the poem would need changing too!

Seriously, I could not do as well as this...

Don't live today for tomorrow like you were immortal.
The only survivors on this world of ours are
The warming sun, the cooling rain,
The snowflake drifting on the breath of the breeze,
The lightning bolt that frees the sky for you
Yet only eagles seem to pass on through.
The words of love, the cries of hate,
And the man in the moon who seduced you
Then finally loosed you.

(Excerpt of lyrics from “Burning Rope” song by Genesis - from their Album “And Then There Were Three” - March 1978)

Album available from Amazon.Com here - well worth buying!

Now, I know one is spoken poetry and t'other lyrics but I think they express not dissimilar sentiments but in extremely different ways.

Besides, I’m sure Mr Moon is more romantic than Mr Keats

(Just to prove that I do have an interest in Keats and don't dismiss him lightly, here's an excerpt from his biography... (Sir Sidney Colvin (1887))

and went in the second week of August to Winchester. The old cathedral city, with its peaceful closes breathing antiquity, its clear-coursing streams and beautiful elm-shadowed meadow walks, and the nimble and pure air of its surrounding downs, exactly suited Keats, who quickly improved both in health and spirits. The days which he spent here, from the middle of August to the middle of October, were the last good days of his life. Working with a steady intensity of application, he managed to steel himself for the time being against the importunity of his passion, although never without a certain feverishness in the effort.

Winchester... 2004 - I'll be in the City Centre tomorrow (I'm rather later than Keats, he was here in 1819) - passing the Keats Room in our Guildhall so I'll give a nod in its direction in respect of John Keats from all his friends at MM.

James.

[Guest_Jox_*]

Alan, Hi.

Yes, I am completely out of kilter with Victoriana - though, to be fair, Keats was actually rather earlier than that - he was about snuffing it when Vicky-baby was born. (Still, I quite wrongly, call almost everything in 18thC "Victoriana").

I can't even enjoy the Brontes (any of them!) or another local writer - Jane Austin - she's actually buried in our Cathedral - I shall (literally) be walking over her grave tomorrow. I just feel so alienated by the language - and as you indicate - the "toffish" Grand Tour mentality. (Though those novelists did not take that to the best of my knowledge).

Now, someone reading this may say I only like modern works. Not so! In music my favourites are things "like" Tangerine Dream and The Beatles, Gregorian chants, Montverdi's Vespers and I even have an album of Anglo-Saxon Easter Music - great stuff, even if they were the thugs who duffed-up the Welsh. Moreover, as my signature indicates, I still regard Wagger-Dagger as THE greatest writer in the English language - and I would expect in any language. Only last night I watched Richard II for nearly four hours on tv. So I'm not a brutal modernist at all - but save me from all that gushing romantic "Victoriana" stuff - please! (For the record, if romance be the food of dreams then read on (Bill, naturally).

James.

[Guest__*]

Dear Jox

"if romance be the food of dreams then read on (Bill, naturally)"

I assume that this is Bill ...... Clinton ?

Jane Austen - A friend who had my respect encouraged me to read Pride and Prejudice, which would have been right outside my normal interests, and I am very glad I did - it IS one of the greatest books in the language, and quite fascinating, because, actually, nothing happens, but it is beautifully described.

I had the Pehguin version, which has a long, scholarly, intro. But when I realised that this a-hole of an intro-writer was actually telling the story in sequence, and full of psychologolocical (yeah, you got it ! ) babble, I finally skipped to the real thing. I have to encourage you to struggle in, then you will love it.

Guess what - it is midnight, and I'm wide awake.

Love
Alan

[Athena]

Welcome back, Alan!    

As for these exercises, you know, Folks:  
It is my thought
I'm not so hot
at following instruction;
for when I try
my skill to ply
my efforts bring destruction!  


But, I enjoy reading what all the rest of you are doing! I'm really impressed with all your efforts ... they're waaaaay cool!    

Hugs,
Dolly  

[Guest__*]

Dear Daniel

Well, if that doesn't bring it slap up to date, nothing ever will. Love it !

Love
Alan

[Athena]

Hi Don,

I wanted to get in here to give you thanks for your sweet words to me about my first poem in this thread.  Most kind of you.

Thank you!

Dolly

[Cleo_Serapis]

We build with strength and deep tower wall
that shall be shattered thus and thus.
And fair and great are court and hall,
but how fair--this is not for us,
who know the lack that lurks in all.

And make our pause and silence brim
with the shrill children's play, and sweets
of those pathetic flowers and dim,
of those eternal flowers my Keats,
dying, felt growing over him!


Cleo's alternate ending:

When all the world has come to pass
and all beliefs site fields of doom.
You'll find new life amidst the grass
where ageless weeds begin to bloom,
and breathe forevermore enmasse.