If anyone here writes poetry, would you care to share?

Here's one of mine from about 10 years ago.

rooted in time

time is flying, but I haven't wings
a fallen branch crackles, it sings
listen for it you'll soon be shown
that when you die you may still grow
a downed leaf from fall may know
that suicide is how to go
the colors creating less...or more
who's to say this isn't pure

each fortnight passes like a day
a moment though can forever stay
if your hands can reach for all
this tree...its leaves will never fall

We have gazillions of limericks and double dactyls here but if you're looking for "proper" poetry try this thread where you will find a whole cycle of poems I wrote.

And I recommend that you visit the museum in question, if you haven't already.

As far as "proper" poetry, I am no purist; I enjoy it in all its forms. Thanks for the link!

Oh yes, I forgot to say, welcome aboard.

I wrote this forty years ago when I still thought alcohol was a proper beverage. ...


Can I live it down tomorrow
If I live it up tonight?
If I go out and drown my sorrow
Will it all turn out all right?

The last time I had reason
To go out and paint the town
My friends and loved ones told me
That I'd never live it down,
But the booze and bright lights caught me --
I got higher than a kite.
Can I live it down tomorrow
If I live it up tonight?

I've lost my home and family
And my reputation's wrecked.
They say I've lost my reason
And have nothing to protect.

My friends down at the flophouse
Say they think I'm doing fine.
They're urging me to share the joy
Within their jug of wine.

The ladies all say, "Live it up !"
They like the way I dance,
And in the sparkle of their eyes
I see the promise of romance.

I know one drink's too many
And a hundred's not enough
But maybe I'll get drunk again
And life won't seem so tough.

The bottom line is where I'm at
And I think I've bottomed out
But maybe I'll have just one more drink
And take away all doubt.

I can't bear to face the mirror --
I cut off my nose for spite.
Can I live it down tomorrow
If I live it up tonight?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jerry thomas,

Excellent piece of work jerry but are you sure about when you wrote it? It reads like the poem of someone who has just decided that alcohol isn't a proper beverage.

Whenever you wrote it, it really is very good.

Thanks very much, Bob. The date of its creation is fuzzy in my memory. It was at a time when I was a traveling salesman in Colorado and my car radio was always tuned either to local Mexican stations or to those specializing in Country - Western music.

Here's another, entitled
... "I'm Like Love ..."


I'm like an old-time country song.
I'll do you every way but wrong.
You can hear me in the twang of your banjo strings,
Or the heartbreak songs a lonesome cowboy sings.

I'm like a country western rhyme
You can hear me any time
You can hear me in the whistle of the midnight train
And the whisper of the rhythm of the falling rain.

I'm like a home-made country tune
The kind that won't be over soon.
I'm peaceful like a river that is wide and deep
And I can be the lullaby that sings your child to sleep.

I'm like a country melody,
And you can always count on me.
You can hear me in the background when you're on a spree.
If you like my kind of music, come and dance with me.

I've been writing some non-limericks. Here's one that's almost finished.

Not Another Limerick About a Trout

O trout!
Come out stout trout.
Find out devout scout.
A kraut a sprout,
A debt, a doubt,
Adept en route,
Inept without,
An apt redoubt.
O trout!
Flouts and shouts,
The trout he pouts.
Lo! Out out low trout.

Well that should have enough rhymes to please almost anybody.

Incidentally, sewnmouthsecret, you'll find quite a lot of my other poems and prose writing by following the various links in my signature.

Let me know if you enjoy any of them.

Very nice submissions. It is nice to see regulary poetry, instead of just limericks and DDs, though I can't write much beyond them. Remember, Bob, when I tried to write a poem on my Blog, and it turned out to be a limerick in disguise?

I suppose we could start a Poetry 101 course here.

Welcome, sewnmouthsecret (interesting name!). See your PMs.

quote:

I wrote this forty years ago when I still thought alcohol was a proper beverage. ...

I saw this doggerel a few years ago when I thought that alcohol was a proper beverage - it helped to convince me that I was right:

There are many good reasons for drinking
And one has just entered my head.
If a man cannot drink while he's living,
How the hell can he drink when he's dead?

And this one:

The Horse and Mule live thirty years
And nothing know of wines or beers.
The Goat and sheep at twenty die,
But never tasted Scotch or Rye.
The Cow drinks water by the ton
And at eighteen is almost done.
The Dog at fifteen cashes in,
Without the aid of Rum or Gin.
The Cat in Milk and Water soaks,
And then in twelve short years it croaks.
The useful, sober, bone-dry hen,
Lays eggs for Nogs and dies at Ten.
All animals are strictly dry,
Teetotal live and quickly die.
But sinful Plymouth Gin-full men,
Survive for three score years and ten.
And some of us (the mighty few),
Stay pickled till we’re ninety-two!

Here's a brand new one, posted yesterday on my blog. It was written about an incident at Harrow Summer School this year and has the somewhat-less-than-snappy title

On Being Joined In The Pub By Two Female Colleagues Whose Limited Range Of Conversational Gambits Had Previously Been Remarked Upon

It is, of course a true story, and the title sums up what it's about.

quote:

I'd have really loved to talk
To someone about something,
And I thought, before they entered,
That I didn't much care what.
When they sat down and joined me
I found their conversation
Was on topics they thought jolly:
And topics I did not.
There was colonic irrigation,
Beauty treatments, oral sex
And what to do with boyfriends
Come to visit for the day.
One turned to me and murmured
"I forgot your not a girl, Bob!"
But it didn't stop her finding
Some more similar things to say.
So I finished up my beer;
Said, "I don't think that there is much
I can contribute to this, or
Any other conversation.
So, if it's all the same to you,
Though it's early, I'll be going."
There's a lot to say for silence
In that kind of situation.

I went to the pub the other day to have a pint of Fullers London Pride. Sadly the chap sitting at the bar could talk only of sport, sport and more sport!

So I let him talk while I drank and I made occasional sounds of agreement. No doubt he went home to his wife and told her what a fine conversationalist I was!

Or written as a poem, since this is a poetry thread:

I went to the pub,
The other day,
To have a pint
Of Fullers London Pride.

Sadly,
The chap
Sitting at the bar
Could talk only of sport.
Sport
And more sport!

So I let him talk
While I drank
And I made occasional sounds
Of agreement.

No doubt he went home
To his wife and told her
What a fine conversationalist
I was!

I don't mean this contribution to denigrate anything offered so far. This is something I wrote around '93 after the incident recounted here. It's not poetry, it's doggerel, but I liked it then and I like it now.

In the early-90s, within the space of a week, the cheetah escaped from its exhibit, burglars broke in to the restaurant one night and made pizza while they looked for loot, a curator broke the window in an exhibit, and the three-year-old elephants got out one night. Names have been changed to protect the employees, who are now long gone.

THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the zoo
The animals snoozed, for what else could they do?
They’re locked for the night, caged and confined
In exhibits escape-proof, by experts designed.
Experienced men with college degree
Who dare a dumb animal, “Try to get free!
Climb Attica’s walls; from the state prison, run,
But elope from the zoo? It cannot be done.”
The cheetah escape? “A fluke,” they declare.
“Now even that fleet cat can’t get out of here.”

Thus nightkeeper Peg, as she makes her rounds
Listens for vandals, not breaking-out sounds;
Worries that burglars might break in the kitchen
Of the food court, close to hour of witchin’,
And call out for pizza, roll out the barrel,
Have a zoo picnic without telling Carol.
But worry about finding animals loose?
Perhaps a stray chicken or a Pilgrim goose.
But no other escapee can come to pass
(Unless some curator smashes their glass).

So off Peggie drives in the cold and the dark,
Stalwart protector of our city park,
Through quiet disturbed by not even a mouse
To spread some more hay in the elephant house.
Partly ajar was the door at the side.
Behind it stood Alice, trying to hide,
A six-foot-six elephant, maybe much more
Trying to squeeze its bulk behind the door.
“Oh -----!” Peg cried out, (fill in the cuss)
“I know this is going to stir up a fuss.”
Many’s the man who would fly from the spot
Where he met a pachyderm, gentle or not,
But Peg stood her ground, giving no quarter
Though her knees shook and bowels turned to water.

She grabbed for her radio (marvelous tool)
And yelled for Security, in voice most uncool.
“NINE TO TEN, NINE TO TEN, NINE TO TEN, NINE TO TEN!”
She screamed in the mike, and then over again
To Beverly Wilson, 100 pounds, strong,
Who couldn’t imagine what had gone wrong.
“FIRE!” yelled Peggie. “FIRE, I say!”
“Don’t worry,” said Beverly, “I’m on the way.”
She rushed to the zoo, threw open the gate
And spied in her headlights, Ginny and Kate
Destroying the shrubbery planted by Huck,
Two tree-chewing eating machines run amuck.
“Peggy,” said Bevvy, “calling ‘Fire’ was dumb.”
“If I’d holllered ‘Elephant,’ would you have come?”

Peg called up the keeper, who didn’t believe her,
But rushed in to act in the role of retriever.
He followed the elephant spoor through the zoo -
Footprints left here, there a turd or two,
Made the escapers come into line, then
Led them back home to put into their pen.
He found that the elephants pulled out the pin
Securing the door that was holding them in.
If they could do that when they’re still so small,
When they get bigger, will they go through the wall?
Or will men of wisdom and skill soon create
A cage which will thwart Alice, Ginny, and Kate?

Addendum: The answer to the last question turned out to be "No."

I don't know why you thought that would denigrate anything so far.
There is a very fine tradition of using variations on well known poems to parody or satirise real events. Jabberwocky has been used dozens of times and Night Before Christmas is also popular.

I quite enjoyed this one, especially the line “If I’d holllered ‘Elephant,’ would you have come?”

Nicely done.

I think that "The night before Christmas" is one of the finest pieces of verse there is.

Easy to read, easy to understand and with a rolling resonance that makes it difficult to resist. (I'd have said irresistible but I wasn't sure how to spell it).

When I joined the teaching staff at the women's college in Taiwan, I was asked to teach a course in Mass Media. In doing that, I learned along with my students of the influence of cartoonists, such as Thomas Nast, and poets, such as Clement C. Moore.

Because of their efforts we know what Santa Claus looks like, and how he behaves.

As I said at the end, man failed to hold back the elephant horde. Several years later, I was involved with a project to test their cognitive ability. "An elephant never forgets" was tested by showing them one item, then two: the first and another chosen arbitrarily. If they remembered which was first shown, they got a treat. If they failed, nothing. Each test was repeated fifty times. By test #30, you had angry four-ton elephants two feet away getting madder by the minute.

One night they got out again. The testing table was in a small supply room off the holding area. They smashed it into splinters, ending the project.

quote:

"I forgot your not a girl, Bob!"

I assume that wasn't on purpose, Bob? On the other hand, it could have been a clever way of indicating that the girl wasn't that smart.

I know, Richard, that you don't like poems that that are free verse, and I didn't used to either. However, I am beginning to really like them. It depends, though. Your trip to the pub clearly sounded like prose and not free verse.

quote:

Your trip to the pub clearly sounded like prose and not free verse.

Why?

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:

quote:

"I forgot your not a girl, Bob!"

I assume that wasn't on purpose, Bob?

No, it was quite intentional. IT was a way of saying that she was aware that I wasn't happy with the conversation but didn't intend to change it. These two women seemed to be unable to discuss ANY subject other than sex. Another part of their conversation concerned the erotic possibilities of colonic irrigation.
I didn't mention in the poem that she followed up the "not a girl" remark by asking if I'd ever given a blow job. (She is certainly aware that I'm not gay!) Now that was definitely sexual harassment and I'm sure I could have had a case. I chose instead to simply leave them to it and go home, even though I had originally intended to have another pint.

quote:

Why?

Quite right Richard.
When you wrote it again, laid out as verse it automatically became a poem.
In my opinion, not a very good one, and one that certainly betrayed it's prose roots in syntactical structure and the lack of rhythm, but a poem nevertheless. Congratulations.

quote:

I didn't mention in the poem that she followed up the "not a girl" remark by asking if I'd ever given a blow job.

You could have told her you didn't know what one was and that maybe she could show you. I am assuming she wasn't a six-pinter.

quote:

Quite right Richard.
When you wrote it again, laid out as verse it automatically became a poem.
In my opinion, not a very good one, and one that certainly betrayed it's prose roots in syntactical structure and the lack of rhythm, but a poem nevertheless. Congratulations.

Interestingly this is now getting us closer to my definition of art - or at least one of its criteria. Any work of art that has required no skill or talent to create is not, in my book, art.

I do not agree that simply writing prose in verse layout makes it verse, since it's something that even a computer could do automatically. Had I tried to do the same thing by turning my prose into a limerick by simply changing its layout (which requires no talent or ability), then it wouldn't have worked at all:

I went to the pub the other
Day to have a pint of Fullers
London Pride sadly the
Chap sitting at the bar
Could talk only of sport, sport and more sport!

So I let him talk while I drank and
I made occasional sounds of agreement
No doubt he went home
To his wife and told her
What a fine conversationalist I was.

To turn it into a limerick would need ability and thus, to my mind, the limerick, in spite of its universally poor reputation amongst "proper" poets, is often the more difficult form. The job can be done by a competent limericist:

I went to the pub one fine day
To drink up some Pride, but oy Vey!
At the bar I was caught
By a bore talking sport --
I just listened till I got away.

I suspect when he got to his house
This bore would have said to his spouse,
"I met a nice sort
In the pub - he liked sport!
So strange, since most others will grouse!"

That is not to suggest that all blank verse is rubbish, of course, but simply that I believe that a lot of it is - and is verse in name only, simply because it is written in lines not sentences. and paragraphs.

quote:

Why?

Bob, might be helpful here. I am not sure. It'd didn't stimulate me like Bob's did, but that's not very articulate!

Besides, it isn't "art," according to Bob's definition, because you didn't create it as art. You created it as a farce. Big difference.

It sounded to me like a story of your going to a pub. Period. Bob's seemed more artistic, and I really liked his explanation of the use of "your." You see, nobody who would rearrange their prose to poetry format would think in those terms.

It is really hard to explain, though, Richard; I will give you that.

quote:

Besides, it isn't "art," according to Bob's definition, because you didn't create it as art.

But, as you can see, Bob himself has said that it is art!

I'd say he did create it as art. When he said to himself, "Right, now let's lay it out as if it were a verse", his intention was create a parody of blank verse. A parody of blank verse must, per se, be blank verse in itself. He set out to create a bad poem and he succeeded in doing so.

Remember, what some see as an art/not art dichotomy, I see as a good art/bad art dichotomy.

(You could even, he said tongue firmly in cheek, argue that while Richard's piece is a bad poem it is good art because it achieved his aim of being a bad poem.)

Here's one of my "free verses" from a dozen yrs ago.

DROUGHT’S END


Rain has come to this brown thatch.

Someone ate a wise harvest: July tomatoes
ripened on a sill.
Now fat beefsteaks hang stupidly
green in October.

The rain is so
gentle, plentiful: all
living things, tearful, plump
and stretch as though each were the glad housewife, holding her apron, that impossible safety net, out to catch one last drop.

It will not
be enough
not this year
better fry the green tomatoes now
before they rot

there will be hell to pay for rain come so late

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bethree5,

quote:

(You could even, he said tongue firmly in cheek, argue that while Richard's piece is a bad poem it is good art because it achieved his aim of being a bad poem.)

But do you not agree that the limerick version is a far better piece of work - as well as needing a good deal more effort to produce?

Robert Frost once said
he wouldn’t write free verse --
it was like playing tennis
without a net.
It’s unfortunate that you, as a group
who collectively
through the OELDIF,
have shown that limericks can serve
a legitimate purpose
as an art form
while at the same time
can entertain,
put down that very art form.

Is a limerick any less “art” just because people believe they are trivial? Richard’s limerick about a mundane pub visit (not an earth-shaking event) seemed more poetic, showed a greater degree of discipline and ability, struck a richer chord with me than did his free verse (read that as “patterned prose”) version. To me, his first was what someone earlier said was a paragraph broken into sentences placed one under the other.

Perhaps I lack something free verse aficionados possess but I prefer a patterned structure, not necessarily rhyme, in a poem. I liked Bethree’s poem for its imagery and ideas, but I disliked the pattern, or rather lack of one. She obviously liked it or she wouldn’t have written it in this manner.

Is what I began this piece with “free verse”? I can say it is and that it is Art. You may say it is not because it violates some “standard” but does that make my assertion any less true? If Art is in the eye of the beholder, you can say my creation is bad in many ways but does this make my claim to Art status any less valid? Isn’t bad art still Art? Why should your opinion on the matter count for more than mine? Why mine more than yours?

Art, as a concept, lost its luster for me several years ago when various zoos sold paintings for considerable sums which were “created” by animals (chimps, elephants) slopping paint on a canvas. Ah, the praise Art critics lavished on some works before they learned how they were actually made. Which meant they then had to ascribe artistic talent to what had just the day before been “dumb” Artless animals. It made me decide Art often is just the height of pretension.

Who, on this board, has suggested that limericks are not poetry? Or are inferior to other styles of poetry? I personally don't care for limericks, but I would not go so far to say they are not poetry or art. I can even appreciate that some limericks are better (aesthetically) than others. (I like Edward Lear's limericks better than most modern ones.) This is a different argument from the "free verse isn't poetry" one. This is more about how art is valued by a society (e.g., fine arts, folk art, primitive art). Traditionally, light verse (limericks, double dactyls, doggerel) were not valued as highly as serious art. That distinction started to break down around the time that pop art changed how many in the art world (artists, art dealers, critics, philosophers) made, categorized, perceived, sold, and appreciated art. In the world of novels, you saw the same thing with a distinction between great literature and genre writing (e.g., science fiction, mystery, romance). Is the Gilgamesh epic poetry? In its Akkadian and Sumerian versions it has neither rhyme nor meter. Yet most consider it to be a superb poem and work of art. And pace Robert Frost, playing tennis without a net is still playing tennis.

Are we having another "what is art?" oh, goody, gum! Welcome to the fray, Proofreader.

I studied free verse for a while in the 1980's, at which point longstanding forms such as sonnets and sestinas were beginning to make a comeback. It is very hard to make free verse 'work', by which I mean be understood and enjoyed by more than a tiny enclave. A good specimen contains a great deal of rhyme/slant-rhyme/alliteration etc as well as rhythmic pattern, all in the attempt to meet the challenge of a line which may be of any number or length. And metaphor is key, more so than in prose.

My sample is not "good"/publishable IMHO, even though it meets many criteria. That is because I am not very clear-- I typically come across with a big mood and cloudy metaphor, with no 'grounding', making it hard to relate to -- an issue of not having thought things through well enough to communicate clearly.

I am very happy that time-honored forms have returned. It is no easier to write a good sonnet, of course. But I suspect that there will be free verse of higher quality when poets routinely learn by working thoroughly with the old forms first. Most of all, I hope that our schools return to the study of poetry, classic and otherwise, starting at the youngest grades. I think it not coincidental that the last 50 yrs saw simultaneously a rapid drop-off in the teaching of poetry and a rapid rise in high-quantity, low-quality, 'all about me writing however I feel like it' poetry.

I, for one, have never denigrated the limerick. Nor am I ever likely to do so. Good grief I have 425 submitted to the OEDILF and 382 approved. I think that shows a certain fondness for the form.

Nor will I ever be heard to disparage rhyming couplets, double dactyls, or nursery rhymes.
I will also not say a word against sonnets, epic verse or any other "respectable" (please note the quotes) verse forms.

I just sometimes get a little frustrated that there are others around here that do not afford free verse the same degree of respect. It has been suggested, more than once, that free verse is just prose broken into arbitrary lines. It isn't. I work as hard at free verse as at limericks, and vice versa.

Tell me who it is that has been saying bad things about limericks and I'll pop round and hit him with my rhyming dictionary.

quote:

He set out to create a bad poem and he succeeded in doing so.

Your words, Bob. Don't damage your dictionary.

And I know you can and do write limericks of the highest quality. I've checked the OEDILF archives.

Stella remarked recently concerning my "looseness" in limerick constuction. I agree with her totally. Many of mine don't quite fit the established standard, as Richard in his critiques of my OELDIF submissions can affirm. I do attempt to incorporate rhythm, alliteration and metaphor (usually unsuccessfully) but I'm just in this for fun.

But limerick-building does have a set standard to be judged against while free verse, despite what its advocates claim, has little restraint. Most free verse seems to me to be amorphous and arbitrary, like modern art.

quote:

Who, on this board, has suggested that limericks are not poetry?

Not on this board, so far as I can recall. But it is something that I have certainly heard from "serious" poets.

I recall one instance when a poet in the public speaking world composed a free verse work that related to a workshop we had undertaken. Not be outdone I penned a few limericks that covered the same areas as did his and sent them to the coordinator of the event, who professed himself impressed that I had managed to compress so much information into the strict form of the limerick. He passed my efforts onto the "serious" poet - who completely ignored them and didn't even reply to my email. He might just have simply been a rude man (indeed he surely was a rude man)- but I suspect that his response was, in the main, due to the fact that I had dared to suggest that the trivia of the limerick had any right to be in the same league as his wonderful free verse.

Incidentally, whereas I accept that my free verse was nothing more than prose written as verse - which exercise I undertook to make a point - I still maintain that free verse is significantly easier to write than verse that rhymes and scans.

It has been suggested, more than once, that free verse is just prose broken into arbitrary lines. It isn't. I work as hard at free verse as at limericks, and vice versa.

Metrical poetry has not always been written. It was originally an oral art form. After writing was invented, poems tended to be written down (on clay tablets, papyrus, paper, computer files). Between the invention of writing and the invention of the printing press, how poems were formatted has changed. Most MSS do not divide poems into lines and stanzas, because that would've been a waste of resources, and besides one can identify a line by its rhythmic pattern. When poets started to experiment with other kinds of rhythmic patterns than the strictly traditional metrical ones (e.g., imabic, dactylic), they had to rely more on the printed form of the poem to convey some of the patterns. (There was also the influence of concrete poetry and carmina figurata on this. I think of e e cummings' playful formatting of his poems.) I have noticed that many folks have, what I call, a hard labor theory of aesthetics. The easier something is the less likely it is to be art. As you point out, Bob, this is more often simply incorrect. On the other hand, just because something is facile for one person doesn't mean it is for others. I have friends who can whip out a humorous sketch in seconds. The ease he does this in, doesn't make it not-art. The snooty, academic lit crit types used to look down their noses at any writing that was easy to compose and easy to understand. So, Finnegans Wake is an epitome of literature, while Updike is not? Never made sense to me.

quote:

I have friends who can whip out a humorous sketch in seconds. The ease he does this in, doesn't make it not-art.

As my late step-father used to say, "Nothing looks as easy as a difficult job done by an expert". It isn't simply the effort that's put into a creation that matters. Talent is also vital.

I find limericks easy to create and therefore I could put in less effort to create a worthwhile work than would someone lacking my flair for this artform. But I am not good with the paintbrush and, no matter how much effort I put in, would never produce a worthwhile painting - BY MY STANDARDS.

But some so-called modern art is created by those who seem to have zero talent and put in next to zero effort. Where is the talent, ability and effort in creating a space, fitted with a light that goes on and off, and calling it a great work of art? Which nomenclature the Turner prize judges seem to have accepted since they awarded the top prize to this effortless, boring and singularly unattractive creation.

No form of art seems to be free from this "Emperor's new clothes" syndrome.

True, Proofreader, I did say that, but I wasn't talking about his limerick.
I was talking about

quote:

I went to the pub,
The other day,
To have a pint
Of Fullers London Pride.

Sadly,
The chap
Sitting at the bar
Could talk only of sport.
Sport
And more sport!

So I let him talk
While I drank
And I made occasional sounds
Of agreement.

No doubt he went home
To his wife and told her
What a fine conversationalist
I was!

Where Richard set out to create a bad piece of free verse and succeeded in creating a bad piece of free verse. If you are prepared to argue that this is a good verse I'm prepared to disagree with you.

Nothing wrong with his limericks though.

In some ways I find composing limericks to be easier than writing a medium-sized paragraph of prose. What of it? Does that make prose more artistic than a limerick? Not hardly. Does it mean that limericks are not art? I don't think so. Bob and I have both written poems in free verse. We have both said it takes actual mental labor. It's not simply writing something in prose and reformatting it as irregularly metrical lines in a poem. Why do you continue to mock and belittle us? More than just the form, writing poetry is about a certain approach to the subject matter, the use of poetic language, metaphor, etc. A common misconception about free verse is that it is not rhythmically patterned writing. It is though. It's just not as regular and fixed as some metrical forms. Even prose has rhythms and that is something that the crafter of a fine piece of prose takes into consideration during the composition of the text. You seem to imply that the insincerity of the artist or the displeasure of the consumer can actually determine whether a work is a piece of art or not. That's silly. Just because van Gogh's work was unappreciated during his lifetime does not diminish its aesthetic value one iota. And a thousand Turner Prizes presented for mediocre pieces, cannot disqualify conceptual art as art.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:

Incidentally, whereas I accept that my free verse was nothing more than prose written as verse - which exercise I undertook to make a point - I still maintain that free verse is significantly easier to write than verse that rhymes and scans.

And I write both and maintain that you are wrong. They are different animals with different difficulties. As it happens I find limericks significantly easier to write than free verse - it's precisely because there are no "rules" that it's so damned difficult to do well - though I'll grant that, as you so ably demonstrated, it's very easy to do badly.

quote:

And I write both and maintain that you are wrong. They are different animals with different difficulties. As it happens I find limericks significantly easier to write than free verse - it's precisely because there are no "rules" that it's so damned difficult to do well - though I'll grant that, as you so ably demonstrated, it's very easy to do badly.

I suppose where we differ is that I suggest that, where a piece of art is truly appalling, it ceases to be art; you seem to be saying that, no matter how poor is the art or how talentless the artist, if it's called art and follows some kind of artistic norm, then that's what it is.

I maintain that Tracey Emin's unmade bed is not a sculpture and John Cage's 4' 33" is not music, simply because, regardless of what their creators called them, neither work demonstrates the slightest amount of talent or effort in its creation.

Neither do I think that my piece of free verse was art for the same reasons.

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though I'll grant that, as you so ably demonstrated, it's very easy to do badly.

It's nice to have one's talents recognized in one's own time.

And I agree a musical work that is totally silent is not and can never be Art. Although if I could get my wife to sing it, I'd at least be contented aurally for 4' 33".

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And I agree a musical work that is totally silent is not and can never be Art.

Thank goodness there's at least one other person on this board who agrees with me about this piece of non-art!.

And I agree a musical work that is totally silent is not and can never be Art.

It's not completely silent, and it is art.

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It's not completely silent, and it is art.

You can argue the tonal part but what can justify the silent part -- and not only silence as art but silence as copyrightable, sueable art. Cage sued another artist for using a portion of his silence without permission.

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You can argue the tonal part but what can justify the silent part -- and not only silence as art but silence as copyrightable, sueable art. Cage sued another artist for using a portion of his silence without permission.

I seem to recall the case was chucked out.

And it's not art; silence is not art.

Cage sued another artist for using a portion of his silence without permission.

1. John Cage was dead by this time. It was the his publishers who sued.

2. The other artist was Mike Batt, who is the Deputy Chairman of the British Phongraphical Industry and a fan of Cage's works.

3. The case was not dismissed. Batt settled out of court for an undisclosed sum (which was rumored to be in the six figures range).

Anybody here apart from me ever get tired of running round and round this particular mulberry bush?

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Originally posted by Richard English:

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And I write both and maintain that you are wrong. They are different animals with different difficulties. As it happens I find limericks significantly easier to write than free verse - it's precisely because there are no "rules" that it's so damned difficult to do well - though I'll grant that, as you so ably demonstrated, it's very easy to do badly.

I suppose where we differ is that I suggest that, where a piece of art is truly appalling, it ceases to be art;

And I shall certainly do my very best not to read that as a suggestion that my own free verse is truly appalling. Fortunately I'm secure enough in what I do to know that isn't the case.

You see how easy it is to give the wrong impression?

The real question isn't what makes one thing art and another thing not, it's what makes one man capable of deciding what is truly appalling and what is not.