I just came across an interesting article, Broken English: Deviant Language and the Para-Poetic, by Clark Lunberry who teaches English at the University of North Florida.

quote:

Non-native students of English will often speak and write in ways that, in addition to being technically incorrect, seem both peculiar and provocative to the native speaker. The individual words are generally recognized but the awkward manner in which they have been combined creates obstacles that render their meaning anywhere from interesting to incomprehensible. The native speaker detects linguistic disruptions almost immediately, possessing a seemingly instinctive awareness of conventional boundaries and the limits of language.

[Changed URL to a better one.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

I have some rather good examples of this from a poetry class I taught to a mainly Japanese group of young teenagers a couple of years ago.
Some of the poems they wrote contain several things which are quite surreally startling imagery.
(Warning for people who say "if it doesn't rhyme, it isn't poetry" - none of this rhymes, that wasn't the point of the class!)

Here's one of them from a student named Shinsuke Oshima

Shinsuke is strange in the night
Because he plays the guitar
And draws strange flowers
In front of the mirror.
But it became 10 O'clock. Finish!
And the bell cried.
Then came his kangaroo!

The poem seems to make a kind of sense up to that last line which is a bizarre non sequitur and yet...

the declamatory word order (rather than the more usual "And then his kangaroo came") looks as if it ought to have some significance.

Another very short (two line) poem from Korean student Ka Ho Hui seems to have an epigrammatic feel to it and I think it may have been translated but what it means is anyone's guess.

Fire and ice is twice different taste.
I hate to do great things in the world.

One final example from another Japanese student, Yasuo Tanaka.

The sunshine in London feels good.
The rainy too
Because I love the rainbow after the rain,
Feel so nice.
I like to ride on the rainbow.
It's habit forming.
I've never been this happy.


I think all of those show that the students struggle with the language forms is in no way stifling their exuberance and creativity.

As I've said in the past
Just
Putting in line breaks,
And capital letters,
And punctuation -
Wherever -
The fancy takes you.

Or paragraphs
Where you will
Doesn't
Mean that you
Or anyone else
Has written poetry.

Didn't need a crystal ball to see that coming. Kinda, missing the point of the topic though.

(Warning for people who say "if it doesn't rhyme, it isn't poetry" - none of this rhymes, that wasn't the point of the class!)

As I've said in the past
Just
Putting in line breaks,
And capital letters,
And punctuation -
Wherever -
The fancy takes you.

Or paragraphs
Where you will
Doesn't
Mean that you
Or anyone else
Has written poetry.

Didn't need a crystal ball to see that coming. Kinda, missing the point of the topic though.

You forgot to mention fixed meter (or metre), Bob.

I refuse to get involved in off topic discussions of what does and what does not constitute poetry. It is tired old ground that I have no intention of retreading.

Yeah, Bob, I hear you.

quote:

I refuse to get involved in off topic discussions of what does and what does not constitute poetry. It is tired old ground that I have no intention of retreading.

Tired it may be but I have never seen an answer that I find convincing. Or a reason why the lines I have just written are, or aren't poetry.

To me, this topic is entirely about what constitutes poetry. One can look at something "poetically", but I don't think that is what the non-native speakers are doing. Something about there lack of understanding English makes the things they say sound poetic. Poetry is often full of metaphor. Metaphor is describing one thing using another. When a non-native speaker is writing, they often use the wrong word to describe something, and it seems like metaphor.

quote:

And the bell cried.
Then came his kangaroo!

The first line to me is very poetic, and an interesting use of metaphor. The second line, however, it just plain confusing.

Yes, I agree with you, Sean. The reason zmj and Bob are reacting is because we've discussed this subject before ad nauseum, much like a few other topics that I won't even mention (except to say that I am a guilty party in one of them! ). One old thread can be found here, but there are others.

I thought Bob's examples were excellent examples of zmj's quote. As I've mentioned here, one of my colleagues was born in China and didn't move here until she was in her 20s. Now, granted she is well educated with a PhD so her language isn't awkward at all. Still, I marvel at how she is able to write so clearly, partly because she has a more elementary grasp of our language. Perhaps she is just gifted in being able to write so clearly, but I think it has something to do with her innocence with using our language.