Northrop Frye on serious vs. popular poetry

[George J. Dance]

"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.

"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....

"With the twentieth century the tension between the desire to be popular and the necessity to be restricted in audience takes some grotesque forms. One thinks of Eliot, ending his Waste Land with a quotation in Sanskrit, yet speaking of the advantage, for the dramatist, of an audience that could not read or write; or of Yeats trying to bring drama to communities that often could hardly read or write, yet filling his poems with recondite Cabbalism. But the idioms of popular and serious poetry remain inexorably distinct. Popular poems tend to preserve a surface of explicit statement: they are often sententious and proverbial, like Kipling's "If" or Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" or Burns' "For A' That," or they deal with what for their readers are conventionally poetic themes, like the pastoral themes of James Whitcomb Riley or the adventurous themes of Robert W. Service. Affection for such poets is apt to be anti-intellectual, accompanied by a strong resistance to the poetry that the more restricted audience I spoke of finds interesting."

from "Silence in the Sea" (E.J. Pratt lecture, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1968)
http://northropfrye-thebushgarden.blogspot.com/2009/02/silence-in-sea.html

[Dental River]

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.

The change seems analogous to the displacement of painting by photography as the best means of recording information. When our observable world was expanded and made complete by photography, the role of painting, like literature when it was displaced by tools to observe, underwent some mission shift. It is no longer our primary way to record the world, but comes with an obligation to invent new worlds. The good news is that poetry is self-replacing.

Post by George J. Dance
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....

Now a poem can shrink to the size of a keyhole, or be the keyhole, no need to frame for viewing. Let science pick our cotton.

[George J. Dance]

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.

The change seems analogous to the displacement of painting by photography as the best means of recording information. When our observable world was expanded and made complete by photography, the role of painting, like literature when it was displaced by tools to observe, underwent some mission shift. It is no longer our primary way to record the world, but comes with an obligation to invent new worlds. The good news is that poetry is self-replacing.

That's a very good analogy. Another one, that I just thought of would be cooks 200 years or so from now. Originally the occupation had a social role - for the painter or poet, to transmit information - suddenly that's a job being done, and they're on the bread line.

And you're right about the needed adaptation - the painter and poet have to come up with "new worlds" that other people want to buy.

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....

Now a poem can shrink to the size of a keyhole, or be the keyhole, no need to frame for viewing. Let science pick our cotton.

Well, that's the good thing about not playing an important social role; it means being able to write whatever's important to you, which could be anything at all. It's liberating, like losing one's job can be liberating.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.

The change seems analogous to the displacement of painting by photography as the best means of recording information. When our observable world was expanded and made complete by photography, the role of painting, like literature when it was displaced by tools to observe, underwent some mission shift. It is no longer our primary way to record the world, but comes with an obligation to invent new worlds. The good news is that poetry is self-replacing.

That's a very good analogy. Another one, that I just thought of would be cooks 200 years or so from now. Originally the occupation had a social role - for the painter or poet, to transmit information - suddenly that's a job being done, and they're on the bread line.
And you're right about the needed adaptation - the painter and poet have to come up with "new worlds" that other people want to buy.

Which is exactly what Modern poetry has been doing for the last 100 years... and look where that has gotten the art form!

Poetry will never return to the position it held in pre-literate societies, because pre-literate societies no longer exist. 21st Century will have to compete with television, motion pictures, popular song, computer games and the Internet... along with the more traditional art forms of painting, photography, sculpture, dance, various musical and literary genres, and the daily news.

And, as poetry requires an expenditure of thought on the part of its readers, it's always going to be limited to a relatively small percentage of the population. Most people turn to the arts and entertainments as pastimes that provide relaxing alternatives to thought -- Soma for the inhabitants of our "Brave New World."

And this is the reason why poetry is a "dead" art form.

Poetry, painting, sculpture, photography and the more challenging forms of music and literature are unable to compete with the less taxing popular entertainment venues that have become immediately available, and have therefore fallen out of the popular culture to a large extent, and become the property of Academia.

I believe that there are a significant number of people within our modern day culture who, like myself, enjoy both the popular entertainments and the traditional art forms -- and who would devote as much time poetry as they do to music or film... *if only modern poetry offered a sufficient reward for their efforts."

When I first laid eyes upon Stevenson's "Requiem," I felt compelled to commit the poem to memory. When Louise Webster sent me a copy of her "Fair Autumn" for inclusion in my poetry journal, I felt the same driving need to make it a permanent part of my psyche. I have never experienced this phenomenon with the poetry that appears in the academic poetry journals of our time. Not once.

So while poetry will never return to the prominence of an oral art form in a pre-literate society, I believe that it *could* attain a much wider audience than it currently has -- if it were to return to the topics, styles and formats that made it one of our most beloved art forms for 2,500+ years.

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....

Now a poem can shrink to the size of a keyhole, or be the keyhole, no need to frame for viewing. Let science pick our cotton.

Well, that's the good thing about not playing an important social role; it means being able to write whatever's important to you, which could be anything at all. It's liberating, like losing one's job can be liberating.

Ugh! No, this is a very bad thing. The result of this "liberation" will be a slew of "liberated" poems -- poems that have no interest to anyone apart from their authors. IOW: Imitation Bukowskis writing about the invigorating feelings experienced by them during their morning bowel movement.

[General Zod]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.

The change seems analogous to the displacement of painting by photography as the best means of recording information. When our observable world was expanded and made complete by photography, the role of painting, like literature when it was displaced by tools to observe, underwent some mission shift. It is no longer our primary way to record the world, but comes with an obligation to invent new worlds. The good news is that poetry is self-replacing.

That's a very good analogy. Another one, that I just thought of would be cooks 200 years or so from now. Originally the occupation had a social role - for the painter or poet, to transmit information - suddenly that's a job being done, and they're on the bread line.
And you're right about the needed adaptation - the painter and poet have to come up with "new worlds" that other people want to buy.

Which is exactly what Modern poetry has been doing for the last 100 years... and look where that has gotten the art form!
Poetry will never return to the position it held in pre-literate societies, because pre-literate societies no longer exist. 21st Century will have to compete with television, motion pictures, popular song, computer games and the Internet... along with the more traditional art forms of painting, photography, sculpture, dance, various musical and literary genres, and the daily news.
And, as poetry requires an expenditure of thought on the part of its readers, it's always going to be limited to a relatively small percentage of the population. Most people turn to the arts and entertainments as pastimes that provide relaxing alternatives to thought -- Soma for the inhabitants of our "Brave New World."
And this is the reason why poetry is a "dead" art form.
Poetry, painting, sculpture, photography and the more challenging forms of music and literature are unable to compete with the less taxing popular entertainment venues that have become immediately available, and have therefore fallen out of the popular culture to a large extent, and become the property of Academia.
I believe that there are a significant number of people within our modern day culture who, like myself, enjoy both the popular entertainments and the traditional art forms -- and who would devote as much time poetry as they do to music or film... *if only modern poetry offered a sufficient reward for their efforts."
When I first laid eyes upon Stevenson's "Requiem," I felt compelled to commit the poem to memory. When Louise Webster sent me a copy of her "Fair Autumn" for inclusion in my poetry journal, I felt the same driving need to make it a permanent part of my psyche. I have never experienced this phenomenon with the poetry that appears in the academic poetry journals of our time. Not once.
So while poetry will never return to the prominence of an oral art form in a pre-literate society, I believe that it *could* attain a much wider audience than it currently has -- if it were to return to the topics, styles and formats that made it one of our most beloved art forms for 2,500+ years.

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....

Now a poem can shrink to the size of a keyhole, or be the keyhole, no need to frame for viewing. Let science pick our cotton.

Well, that's the good thing about not playing an important social role; it means being able to write whatever's important to you, which could be anything at all. It's liberating, like losing one's job can be liberating.

Ugh! No, this is a very bad thing. The result of this "liberation" will be a slew of "liberated" poems -- poems that have no interest to anyone apart from their authors. IOW: Imitation Bukowskis writing about the invigorating feelings experienced by them during their morning bowel movement.

Interesting....

[Will Dockery]

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the
poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up
the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of
experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly,
through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that
he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is
sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a
moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality,
saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way
that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the
convention of serious literature.

The change seems analogous to the displacement of painting by photography
as the best means of recording information. When our observable world was
expanded and made complete by photography, the role of painting, like
literature when it was displaced by tools to observe, underwent some
mission shift. It is no longer our primary way to record the world, but
comes with an obligation to invent new worlds. The good news is that
poetry is self-replacing.

That's a very good analogy. Another one, that I just thought of would be
cooks 200 years or so from now. Originally the occupation had a social
role - for the painter or poet, to transmit information - suddenly that's a
job being done, and they're on the bread line.

And you're right about the needed adaptation - the painter and poet have to
come up with "new worlds" that other people want to buy.

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted
audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as
Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social
function is not widely recognized or understood....

Now a poem can shrink to the size of a keyhole, or be the keyhole, no need
to frame for viewing. Let science pick our cotton.

Well, that's the good thing about not playing an important social role; it
means being able to write whatever's important to you, which could be
anything at all. It's liberating, like losing one's job can be liberating.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting take on the evolution of the role of the poet.

[ME]

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the
poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up
the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of
experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly,
through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that
he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is
sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a
moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality,
saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way
that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the
convention of serious literature.

The change seems analogous to the displacement of painting by photography
as the best means of recording information. When our observable world was
expanded and made complete by photography, the role of painting, like
literature when it was displaced by tools to observe, underwent some
mission shift. It is no longer our primary way to record the world, but
comes with an obligation to invent new worlds. The good news is that
poetry is self-replacing.

That's a very good analogy. Another one, that I just thought of would be
cooks 200 years or so from now. Originally the occupation had a social
role - for the painter or poet, to transmit information - suddenly that's a
job being done, and they're on the bread line.
And you're right about the needed adaptation - the painter and poet have to
come up with "new worlds" that other people want to buy.

Post by Dental River

Post by George J. Dance
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted
audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as
Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social
function is not widely recognized or understood....

Now a poem can shrink to the size of a keyhole, or be the keyhole, no need
to frame for viewing. Let science pick our cotton.

Well, that's the good thing about not playing an important social role; it
means being able to write whatever's important to you, which could be
anything at all. It's liberating, like losing one's job can be liberating.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Interesting take on the evolution of the role of the poet.

Which take are you referring to?
There’s several in the content you are responding to.
Just for clarification.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience.

Okay... so grand epics and philosophical poems like Homer's "The Illiad," Lucretius' "De rerum natura," Dante's "The Divine Comedy" and Milton's "Paradise Lost" give way to poems of personal experience like Sappho's "To an army wife, in Sardis," Ovid's "Amores," Petrarch's "Sonnets" and Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."

Post by George J. Dance
He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque.

So... as science and philosophy became more complete (apparently the ancient Greeks are considered "primitive" in Mr. Frye's estimation), poetry scaled down from epic to personal themes and became increasingly metaphor-laden and arcane.

But since personal poetry existed at least as long as philosophy and science, and has employed metaphor for just as great a length, Frye's theory is based upon a false premise and ultimately fails (at least in terms of cause and effect).

Not only have epic and personal poetry always co-existed, but the former have rarely been expressions of philosophy and science, but that epic poetry focused primarily on historical and religious themes.

Post by George J. Dance
He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.

Eliot is the point at which Frye's argument should begin, for it was Eliot who led the movement away from popular poetry to its academic offshoot. Eliot's movement was not predicated on the supposed maturation of fields of science and philosophy, but on the spread of education and the intellectual elitism of his academic upper class peers.

Post by George J. Dance
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....

Eliot's removing poetry from the popular to the academic realm was meant to achieve precisely that end: to restrict the poetic audience to the "cultivated" classes. This effectively killed off the art form.

The function of poetry had always been associated, not with science and philosophy, but with incantation and magic. Epics like Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Dante's "Divine Comedy" and Milton's "Paradise Lost" deal with the religion of their times (religion being of supernatural/spiritual origin rather than empirical), whereas love poems are a form of spellcraft designed to procure the affections of the love-object being addressed.

The loss of incantational/magical poetry was compensated for by the medium of popular song (which had often crossed over with poetry in the past). Poetry became the exclusive property of a small group of students and professors in university classrooms, while popular song became one of most defining factors of popular culture.

Post by George J. Dance
"With the twentieth century the tension between the desire to be popular and the necessity to be restricted in audience takes some grotesque forms. One thinks of Eliot, ending his Waste Land with a quotation in Sanskrit, yet speaking of the advantage, for the dramatist, of an audience that could not read or write; or of Yeats trying to bring drama to communities that often could hardly read or write, yet filling his poems with recondite Cabbalism. But the idioms of popular and serious poetry remain inexorably distinct. Popular poems tend to preserve a surface of explicit statement: they are often sententious and proverbial, like Kipling's "If" or Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" or Burns' "For A' That," or they deal with what for their readers are conventionally poetic themes, like the pastoral themes of James Whitcomb Riley or the adventurous themes of Robert W. Service. Affection for such poets is apt to be anti-intellectual, accompanied by a strong resistance to the poetry that the more restricted audience I spoke of finds interesting."

Tellingly, Frye's examples of popular poems date from the 19th and early 20th Centuries; as opposed to the modern (1968) times of which he writes.

Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

[Chafetz Chayim ha'Yehu'di]

On Sunday, April 14, 2019 at 9:59:41 AM UTC-7, PaederastScarlotti, like NaziQueene, plunders rather than analyses...

Shalom & Boker tov, everyone...FakeJewScarlotti's plagiarised screed has no place in an intellectual discussion of the evolution of various forms of poetry (not all in English). Not being a poet, but a documented white supremacist (his shtar giyur being a hoax), makes him a trojan horse christianist)...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
לעולם לא אשכח

IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Chafetz Chayim ha'Yehu'di
On Sunday, April 14, 2019 at 9:59:41 AM UTC-7, PaederastScarlotti, like NaziQueene, plunders rather than analyses...
Shalom & Boker tov, everyone...FakeJewScarlotti's plagiarised screed has no place in an intellectual discussion of the evolution of various forms of poetry (not all in English). Not being a poet, but a documented white supremacist (his shtar giyur being a hoax), makes him a trojan horse christianist)...

Do you have anything to add to the discussion regarding Northrop Frye's notes on the rift between popular and academic poetry, Pick?

Or do you just want to stamp your feet and whine?

[General Zod]

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

[NancyGene]

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

Zid, we don't believe that you have ever used the word "disavowed" in your life. Who wrote this for you?

[General Zod]

Post by NancyGene

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

Zid, we don't believe that you have ever used the word "disavowed" in your life. Who wrote this for you?

You must not read my poetry then.....

[NancyGene]

Post by General Zod

Post by NancyGene

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

Zid, we don't believe that you have ever used the word "disavowed" in your life. Who wrote this for you?

You must not read my poetry then.....

Neither through your poetry, nor through your interview nor through your comments here do we see that you have demonstrated an extensive vocabulary or an in-depth understanding of words or poetry. You have never used "disavowed" before at aapc. However, we do see that word in articles about T.S. Eliot, so you must have copied it verbatim.

[ME]

Post by NancyGene

Post by General Zod

Post by NancyGene

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

Zid, we don't believe that you have ever used the word "disavowed" in your life. Who wrote this for you?

You must not read my poetry then.....

Neither through your poetry, nor through your interview nor through your comments here do we see that you have demonstrated an extensive vocabulary or an in-depth understanding of words or poetry. You have never used "disavowed" before at aapc. However, we do see that word in articles about T.S. Eliot, so you must have copied it verbatim.

NG, you know how jealous pissbum, dunce and zid are of your writing abilities.
You can write an exceptional, understandable and enjoyable piece of work in a day. And you don’t need to repost the same poem for decades begging for “comments and critiques”.
It’s very apparent that zid and pissbum have very little vocabulary skills.
And, Dunce mainly posts dead poets poetry or at least someone else’s poetry.

But, try as they might, they still can’t deflect from the the fact that you’re a better and more effective writer than all three put together.
Please keep sharing your work with us.
And I love the newest one on APC.

[NancyGene]

Post by ME

Post by NancyGene

Post by General Zod

Post by NancyGene

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

Zid, we don't believe that you have ever used the word "disavowed" in your life. Who wrote this for you?

You must not read my poetry then.....

Neither through your poetry, nor through your interview nor through your comments here do we see that you have demonstrated an extensive vocabulary or an in-depth understanding of words or poetry. You have never used "disavowed" before at aapc. However, we do see that word in articles about T.S. Eliot, so you must have copied it verbatim.

NG, you know how jealous pissbum, dunce and zid are of your writing abilities.
You can write an exceptional, understandable and enjoyable piece of work in a day. And you don’t need to repost the same poem for decades begging for “comments and critiques”.
It’s very apparent that zid and pissbum have very little vocabulary skills.
And, Dunce mainly posts dead poets poetry or at least someone else’s poetry.
But, try as they might, they still can’t deflect from the the fact that you’re a better and more effective writer than all three put together.
Please keep sharing your work with us.
And I love the newest one on APC.

Thank you, ME--that's very kind of you. Yes, Will, Zid, Dunce and FJ are jealous of the rest of us. They have no imagination, no originality, and no humor. They could not analyze their anus under threat of death.

We are encouraged that you love our latest poem. You also must keep on producing your poems, as it does take practice and work. All is not just inspiration.

[General Zod]

Post by NancyGene

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

Zid, we don't believe that you have ever used the word "disavowed" in your life. Who wrote this for you?

You are a stalking fool NG....

I wrote that.....

[General Zod]

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

That was my own original thought.... feel free to try and prove me wrong if you can.

But you cannot and will not.

[NancyGene]

Post by General Zod

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

That was my own original thought.... feel free to try and prove me wrong if you can.
But you cannot and will not.

That was your own original thought, pulled out of your butt--that "They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time?" On what are you basing that? If you did research, please give a citation: you were not there. You also have never used "disavowed" before. We are sure you meant to say "repudiated."

Zid, if you are concealing a brilliant, probing mind under the leaky tent, you are doing a good job of it.

[Will Dockery]

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

Some of Allen Ginsberg's collected thoughts on T.S. Eliot can be read here:

https://allenginsberg.org/2014/09/t-s-eliot/

“Eliot’s voice clanging over the sky/ on upper Broadway, “Only thru Time is Time conquered” -From “Journal Night Thoughts” by Allen Ginsberg

[General Zod]

Post by Will Dockery

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

They disavowed the Anti-Semitism of T.S. Eliot during that time....

https://allenginsberg.org/2014/09/t-s-eliot/
“Eliot’s voice clanging over the sky/ on upper Broadway, “Only thru Time is Time conquered” -From “Journal Night Thoughts” by Allen Ginsberg

Quite interesting and cogent.....

[George J. Dance]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience.

Okay... so grand epics and philosophical poems like Homer's "The Illiad," Lucretius' "De rerum natura," Dante's "The Divine Comedy" and Milton's "Paradise Lost" give way to poems of personal experience like Sappho's "To an army wife, in Sardis," Ovid's "Amores," Petrarch's "Sonnets" and Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."

I think you're not clear on the timeline Frye's talking about - which is my fault, because I thought it was a minor point and snipped most of the paragraph. Here's the whole thing, down to the sentence that I led off with:

When the poet has so central a relation to his society [knowledge transmitter], there is no break between him and his audience: he speaks for, as much as to, his audience, and his values are their values. Even if a professional poet, he is popular in the sense [186] that he is the voice of his community. Shakespeare, who is still essentially an oral poet, shows a similar identification with the assumptions of his audience. It is particularly this empathy between poet and listening audience that is broken by the rise of a writing culture. In a writing culture, philosophy develops from proverb and oracle into systematic concept and logical argument; religion develops from mythology into theology; magic fades out and is absorbed into science. All these speak the language of prose, which now becomes fully developed, and capable of a conceptual kind of utterance that poetry resists. It is the discursive writer or thinker who is assumed to have the primary verbal keys to reality; the norms of meaning become the norms of a prose sense external to poetry. As a result the poet becomes increasingly isolated in spirit from much of the thought of his time, even though he continues, as a rule, to be a scholarly and erudite person, aware of what is going on in the rational disciplines."

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance
He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque.

So... as science and philosophy became more complete (apparently the ancient Greeks are considered "primitive" in Mr. Frye's estimation), poetry scaled down from epic to personal themes and became increasingly metaphor-laden and arcane.

Well, no, the problem wasn't science and philosophy's development, but their medium, which increasingly became that of prose. Plato and Aristotle didn't even like poetry, much less write it. (You mentioned Lucretius, but I'm not convinced that is science, as opposed to just a poem about science like the Essays Poe et al wrote?)

Post by Michael Pendragon
But since personal poetry existed at least as long as philosophy and science, and has employed metaphor for just as great a length, Frye's theory is based upon a false premise and ultimately fails (at least in terms of cause and effect).

I think the problem is that you've interpreted Frye as talking about the modernist revolution, when he's talking about the shift from an oral to a written culture (which has happened at different times in different places). Understandably, since I hadn't given you the whole paragraph; and probably because of that phrase he used, "fragmentation of experience," reminded you of Eliot.

Post by Michael Pendragon
Not only have epic and personal poetry always co-existed, but the former have rarely been expressions of philosophy and science, but that epic poetry focused primarily on historical and religious themes.

Frye made the same point with respect to religion, that as it's changed from mythology to theology, its medium has also changed to prose; but again you'd have had no way of knowing that (save by actually clicking the link and reading the article) when you wrote your comment.

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance
He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.

Eliot is the point at which Frye's argument should begin, for it was Eliot who led the movement away from popular poetry to its academic offshoot. Eliot's movement was not predicated on the supposed maturation of fields of science and philosophy, but on the spread of education and the intellectual elitism of his academic upper class peers.

Post by George J. Dance
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....

Eliot's removing poetry from the popular to the academic realm was meant to achieve precisely that end: to restrict the poetic audience to the "cultivated" classes. This effectively killed off the art form.
The function of poetry had always been associated, not with science and philosophy, but with incantation and magic. Epics like Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Dante's "Divine Comedy" and Milton's "Paradise Lost" deal with the religion of their times (religion being of supernatural/spiritual origin rather than empirical), whereas love poems are a form of spellcraft designed to procure the affections of the love-object being addressed.
The loss of incantational/magical poetry was compensated for by the medium of popular song (which had often crossed over with poetry in the past). Poetry became the exclusive property of a small group of students and professors in university classrooms, while popular song became one of most defining factors of popular culture.

Post by George J. Dance
"With the twentieth century the tension between the desire to be popular and the necessity to be restricted in audience takes some grotesque forms. One thinks of Eliot, ending his Waste Land with a quotation in Sanskrit, yet speaking of the advantage, for the dramatist, of an audience that could not read or write; or of Yeats trying to bring drama to communities that often could hardly read or write, yet filling his poems with recondite Cabbalism. But the idioms of popular and serious poetry remain inexorably distinct. Popular poems tend to preserve a surface of explicit statement: they are often sententious and proverbial, like Kipling's "If" or Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" or Burns' "For A' That," or they deal with what for their readers are conventionally poetic themes, like the pastoral themes of James Whitcomb Riley or the adventurous themes of Robert W. Service. Affection for such poets is apt to be anti-intellectual, accompanied by a strong resistance to the poetry that the more restricted audience I spoke of finds interesting."

Tellingly, Frye's examples of popular poems date from the 19th and early 20th Centuries; as opposed to the modern (1968) times of which he writes.
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience.

Okay... so grand epics and philosophical poems like Homer's "The Illiad," Lucretius' "De rerum natura," Dante's "The Divine Comedy" and Milton's "Paradise Lost" give way to poems of personal experience like Sappho's "To an army wife, in Sardis," Ovid's "Amores," Petrarch's "Sonnets" and Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."

When the poet has so central a relation to his society [knowledge transmitter], there is no break between him and his audience: he speaks for, as much as to, his audience, and his values are their values. Even if a professional poet, he is popular in the sense [186] that he is the voice of his community. Shakespeare, who is still essentially an oral poet, shows a similar identification with the assumptions of his audience. It is particularly this empathy between poet and listening audience that is broken by the rise of a writing culture. In a writing culture, philosophy develops from proverb and oracle into systematic concept and logical argument; religion develops from mythology into theology; magic fades out and is absorbed into science. All these speak the language of prose, which now becomes fully developed, and capable of a conceptual kind of utterance that poetry resists. It is the discursive writer or thinker who is assumed to have the primary verbal keys to reality; the norms of meaning become the norms of a prose sense external to poetry. As a result the poet becomes increasingly isolated in spirit from much of the thought of his time, even though he continues, as a rule, to be a scholarly and erudite person, aware of what is going on in the rational disciplines."

I'm not seeing how this changes the parameters of his argument... it will probably require additional passages to clarify its meaning contextually.

As it stands, he still seems to be connecting a conceptual downsizing in the scope of poetry with an analogous rise in philosophy and science... all three of which co-existed in Ancient Greece (basically, from the beginning of recorded history).

The passage does, however, clarify that he is citing a line between poetry and prose; and gives the impression that this division came about after Shakespeare's day.

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance
He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque.

So... as science and philosophy became more complete (apparently the ancient Greeks are considered "primitive" in Mr. Frye's estimation), poetry scaled down from epic to personal themes and became increasingly metaphor-laden and arcane.

Well, no, the problem wasn't science and philosophy's development, but their medium, which increasingly became that of prose. Plato and Aristotle didn't even like poetry, much less write it. (You mentioned Lucretius, but I'm not convinced that is science, as opposed to just a poem about science like the Essays Poe et al wrote?)

Plato and Aristotle's use of prose supports my stance: that philosophy and poetry coexisted from the dawn of civilization. Offhand, I can't think of any philosophical work that was composed as a poem.

"De rerum natura" is science in poetic form. The translation I've read was a literal one, which abandons the rhyme and meter, and ends up reading very much like a science textbook. While it does show that poetry once tackled the topic of science, it was pretty much a one-time-only deal.

I can't recall any pre-Shakespearean scientific tomes (apart from the writings of the alchemists, which passed for science in their day, but are now relegated to the heading of "mysticism"). But, since I can't recall any other scientific poems, I don't believe the advent of written science affected the course of poetry.

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Michael Pendragon
But since personal poetry existed at least as long as philosophy and science, and has employed metaphor for just as great a length, Frye's theory is based upon a false premise and ultimately fails (at least in terms of cause and effect).

I think the problem is that you've interpreted Frye as talking about the modernist revolution, when he's talking about the shift from an oral to a written culture (which has happened at different times in different places). Understandably, since I hadn't given you the whole paragraph; and probably because of that phrase he used, "fragmentation of experience," reminded you of Eliot.

The shift from oral to written culture began around 2,600 BC; and Western Civilization's shift took place somewhere between 750 and 400 BC.

If Northrop is arguing (much as Robert Graves does in "The White Goddess") that prior to the advent of written culture, poetry held one of the highest positions in popular culture as both a sacred and magical form of language (Graves even goes so far as to propose that poetry *created* language with each word originally being a "poem"), but that the rise of philosophy and science (in Ancient Athens) relegated it to the position of a secular art form, then I have no objections to his statement.

If, however, he is claiming that this shift occurred *after* Shakespeare's day (post-1616), then I think he is sorely mistaken.

And, based on the quoted passages you've provided so far, I believe that the oral-to-written shift he is talking about is not one of culture in general, but in the field of science and that he is referring to the Age of Enlightenment (1685-1815). This era was certainly not conducive to poetry, and its greatest poets maintained a religious/spiritual/mystical stance (Donne and Marvell). I've never been a fan of Pope.

I suppose one could argue that the Age of Enlightenment made it impossible for poetry to ever be considered as a form for philosophical or scientific treatises again... but I must still maintain that apart from Lucretius, it had never really been used to either of those ends.

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Michael Pendragon
Not only have epic and personal poetry always co-existed, but the former have rarely been expressions of philosophy and science, but that epic poetry focused primarily on historical and religious themes.

Frye made the same point with respect to religion, that as it's changed from mythology to theology, its medium has also changed to prose; but again you'd have had no way of knowing that (save by actually clicking the link and reading the article) when you wrote your comment.

I hadn't realized that the link provided the text of entire essay. I just clicked on it and... who was E.J. Pratt? That's a rhetorical question, as I've just Googled him as well; it is, however, intended to show my total lack of recognition for his name. Of course the answer is that he's a Canadian poet, and... few of these have left much (or any) impress on American literature or culture.

He does say that Pratt (through his poetry) "takes on so many of the characteristics of the poet of an oral and pre-literate society" and compares them with "the earliest English poetry" (which I would take to be around the 10th Century). He then traces the oral tradition back to Homer, whose epics related a mixture of legend, history and religion (much like the Old Testament of the Bible).

However, our discussion isn't over where Pratt fits into the poetic scheme of things, as of precisely what era/shift Frye is referring to. Which raises a large, and possibly unresolvable problem in the context of the complete essay: Frye isn't discussing the history/development of poetry (or even the poetic ramifications of the shift from oral to written society), but the writings of E.J. Pratt. His references to Home, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, etc., aren't done to establish a timeline on the topic of poetry, but to place Pratt's poetry in relation to that of other poets.

I have stopped reading at Section II, because it discusses specific Pratt poems, none of which I'm familiar with.

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance
He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.

Eliot is the point at which Frye's argument should begin, for it was Eliot who led the movement away from popular poetry to its academic offshoot. Eliot's movement was not predicated on the supposed maturation of fields of science and philosophy, but on the spread of education and the intellectual elitism of his academic upper class peers.

Post by George J. Dance
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....

Eliot's removing poetry from the popular to the academic realm was meant to achieve precisely that end: to restrict the poetic audience to the "cultivated" classes. This effectively killed off the art form.
The function of poetry had always been associated, not with science and philosophy, but with incantation and magic. Epics like Ovid's "Metamorphoses," Dante's "Divine Comedy" and Milton's "Paradise Lost" deal with the religion of their times (religion being of supernatural/spiritual origin rather than empirical), whereas love poems are a form of spellcraft designed to procure the affections of the love-object being addressed.
The loss of incantational/magical poetry was compensated for by the medium of popular song (which had often crossed over with poetry in the past). Poetry became the exclusive property of a small group of students and professors in university classrooms, while popular song became one of most defining factors of popular culture.

Post by George J. Dance
"With the twentieth century the tension between the desire to be popular and the necessity to be restricted in audience takes some grotesque forms. One thinks of Eliot, ending his Waste Land with a quotation in Sanskrit, yet speaking of the advantage, for the dramatist, of an audience that could not read or write; or of Yeats trying to bring drama to communities that often could hardly read or write, yet filling his poems with recondite Cabbalism. But the idioms of popular and serious poetry remain inexorably distinct. Popular poems tend to preserve a surface of explicit statement: they are often sententious and proverbial, like Kipling's "If" or Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" or Burns' "For A' That," or they deal with what for their readers are conventionally poetic themes, like the pastoral themes of James Whitcomb Riley or the adventurous themes of Robert W. Service. Affection for such poets is apt to be anti-intellectual, accompanied by a strong resistance to the poetry that the more restricted audience I spoke of finds interesting."

Tellingly, Frye's examples of popular poems date from the 19th and early 20th Centuries; as opposed to the modern (1968) times of which he writes.
Historically, Eliot's upper class elitism was countered in the mid-20th Century by the equally intellectual snobbery of the bohemian autodidacts led by Ginsberg; and in the latter half of the century, by barely-literate representatives of the Bukowski school (the great unwashed).

[Will Dockery]

Post by Michael Pendragon
Of course the answer is that he's a Canadian poet, and... few of these have left much (or any) impress on American literature or culture.

A major exception being Leonard Cohen, of course.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon
Of course the answer is that he's a Canadian poet, and... few of these have left much (or any) impress on American literature or culture.

A major exception being Leonard Cohen, of course.

I was talking about Canadian *Poets,* Will.

The major exception with Canadian *Poets* is Bliss Carman, of course.

Cohen was a folk singer.

[Will Dockery]

Post by Michael Pendragon
Cohen was a folk singer.

No, a poet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels

"His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen "restrained praise".[11].."

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon
Cohen was a folk singer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels
"His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen "restrained praise".[11].."

Yes, you've posted this Wiki quote before.

And I have likewise shown you that he was not particularly well-known/successful as a "poet" until after he set his lyrics to music and became a folk singer.

[Will Dockery]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon
Cohen was a folk singer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels
"His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen "restrained praise".[11].."

Yes, you've posted this Wiki quote before.
And I have likewise shown you that he was not particularly well-known/successful as a "poet" until after he set his lyrics to music and became a folk singer.

How well known Leonard Cohen was isn't important.

The fact remains that Cohen was a poet at least a decade before becoming a folk singer.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon
Cohen was a folk singer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels
"His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen "restrained praise".[11].."

Yes, you've posted this Wiki quote before.
And I have likewise shown you that he was not particularly well-known/successful as a "poet" until after he set his lyrics to music and became a folk singer.

How well known Leonard Cohen was isn't important.
The fact remains that Cohen was a poet at least a decade before becoming a folk singer.

All aspiring songwriters think they're poets, Will. Look at yourself.

[Will Dockery]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels
"His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen "restrained praise".[11].."

Yes, you've posted this Wiki quote before.
And I have likewise shown you that he was not particularly well-known/successful as a "poet" until after he set his lyrics to music and became a folk singer.

How well known Leonard Cohen was isn't important.
The fact remains that Cohen was a poet at least a decade before becoming a folk singer.

All aspiring songwriters think they're poets, Will. Look at yourself.

That wasn't Leonard Cohen's history, though.

[m***@gmail.com]

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels
"His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen "restrained praise".[11].."

Yes, you've posted this Wiki quote before.
And I have likewise shown you that he was not particularly well-known/successful as a "poet" until after he set his lyrics to music and became a folk singer.

How well known Leonard Cohen was isn't important.
The fact remains that Cohen was a poet at least a decade before becoming a folk singer.

All aspiring songwriters think they're poets, Will. Look at yourself.

That wasn't Leonard Cohen's history, though.

Yeah, Will... it basically was.

[Will Dockery]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

Anyone from Jim Morrison to Johnny Cash to Jewell can get their poetry published, Will.
But (outside of fan clubs) they remain singer-songwriters who also write poetry.

Unlike those you name, Leonard Cohen was a poet for a decade before becoming a folk singer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels

Post by Michael Pendragon
"His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen 'restrained praise'..."

:)

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

Anyone from Jim Morrison to Johnny Cash to Jewell can get their poetry published, Will.
But (outside of fan clubs) they remain singer-songwriters who also write poetry.

He was an unsuccessful wannabe poet and wanna be folk singer.

His folksinging is what caught on. And his "poetry" soon revealed itself to be song lyrics in search of a melody.

[Will Dockery]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

Anyone from Jim Morrison to Johnny Cash to Jewell can get their poetry published, Will.
But (outside of fan clubs) they remain singer-songwriters who also write poetry.

He was an unsuccessful wannabe poet

Hang on to your delusions... heh.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

Anyone from Jim Morrison to Johnny Cash to Jewell can get their poetry published, Will.
But (outside of fan clubs) they remain singer-songwriters who also write poetry.

He was an unsuccessful wannabe poet

Hang on to your delusions... heh.

How many copies did his poetry sell *before* his folk album came out?

[General Zod]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

Anyone from Jim Morrison to Johnny Cash to Jewell can get their poetry published, Will.
But (outside of fan clubs) they remain singer-songwriters who also write poetry.

He was an unsuccessful wannabe poet

Hang on to your delusions... heh.

How many copies did his poetry sell *before* his folk album came out?

A poet is not judged by the $$$ sign Pendragon.....

[Coco DeSockmonkey]

Post by General Zod

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

Anyone from Jim Morrison to Johnny Cash to Jewell can get their poetry published, Will.
But (outside of fan clubs) they remain singer-songwriters who also write poetry.

He was an unsuccessful wannabe poet

Hang on to your delusions... heh.

How many copies did his poetry sell *before* his folk album came out?

A poet is not judged by the $$$ sign Pendragon.....

Success is.

The point of contention is whether Cohen was considered a poet prior to his success as a singer.

[General Zod]

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

Anyone from Jim Morrison to Johnny Cash to Jewell can get their poetry published, Will.
But (outside of fan clubs) they remain singer-songwriters who also write poetry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels

Post by Michael Pendragon
"His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen 'restrained praise'..."

:)

Cohen is one of the greatest poets of our times.....

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by General Zod

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

Anyone from Jim Morrison to Johnny Cash to Jewell can get their poetry published, Will.
But (outside of fan clubs) they remain singer-songwriters who also write poetry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels

Post by Michael Pendragon
"His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen 'restrained praise'..."

:)

Cohen is one of the greatest poets of our times.....

Shut up, Todd.

[Will Dockery]

That's such a silly way of judging someone, Nancy G, but that's you.

Don't ever change, babe.

😀

[NancyGene]

Post by Will Dockery
That's such a silly way of judging someone, Nancy G, but that's you.

How would you suggest we judge someone on a writing group? Would it make sense to judge them by their vocabulary and writing ability, along with their interpretation and comments on poems? Using those criteria, Zid has not achieved the minimum qualifications.

[George J. Dance]

Post by NancyGene
How would you suggest we judge someone on a writing group?

By their contributions. If, for example, their sole contribution to "discussions" like this is to divert attention from them by making bogus allegations of plagiarism against the people they don't like, I'd judge them to be a troll, and judge the best response would be to tell them to fuck off.

So, fuck off, troll.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by George J. Dance

Post by NancyGene
How would you suggest we judge someone on a writing group?

By their contributions. If, for example, their sole contribution to "discussions" like this is to divert attention from them by making bogus allegations of plagiarism against the people they don't like, I'd judge them to be a troll, and judge the best response would be to tell them to fuck off.
So, fuck off, troll.

But that is not what happened, Dunce.

NancyGene pointed out that Did's comments were the result of a Google search.

Did continually posts the results of searches he does regarding the various subjects here. I'm sure he believes that he is being helpful and positively contributing to the conversation.

But his search results rarely has any direct bearing on the topic at hand, and only serve to interrupt the progression of the discussion. And, if any of us needed to refresh our memory on the works or life of Eliot, or any other topic, we are all capable of doing our own Google searches.

In short, there is a reason why I have been quoting Bojack Horseman's catchphrase of "Shut up, Todd!"

[General Zod]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance

Post by NancyGene
How would you suggest we judge someone on a writing group?

By their contributions. If, for example, their sole contribution to "discussions" like this is to divert attention from them by making bogus allegations of plagiarism against the people they don't like, I'd judge them to be a troll, and judge the best response would be to tell them to fuck off.
So, fuck off, troll.

But that is not what happened, Dunce.
NancyGene pointed out that Did's comments were the result of a Google search

Nancy G. was wrong though because my comment was from personal knowledge....

You can feel free to try and prove me wrong if you want to but you will not be able to....

[General Zod]

Post by George J. Dance

Post by NancyGene
How would you suggest we judge someone on a writing group?

By their contributions. If, for example, their sole contribution to "discussions" like this is to divert attention from them by making bogus allegations of plagiarism against the people they don't like, I'd judge them to be a troll, and judge the best response would be to tell them to fuck off.
So, fuck off, troll.

And N.G. is definitely lying about me on that accord since I plagiarized nothing and nobody....

Let that fool offer some proof.....

[NancyGene]

Post by General Zod

Post by George J. Dance

Post by NancyGene
How would you suggest we judge someone on a writing group?

By their contributions. If, for example, their sole contribution to "discussions" like this is to divert attention from them by making bogus allegations of plagiarism against the people they don't like, I'd judge them to be a troll, and judge the best response would be to tell them to fuck off.
So, fuck off, troll.

And N.G. is definitely lying about me on that accord since I plagiarized nothing and nobody....
Let that fool offer some proof.....

There are others, but see:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jun/07/poetry.thomasstearnseliot
"The poem 'Sweeney Among the Nightingales' disavows the anti-semitic fantasy of Jewish conspiracy."

There is no way in hell that Zid uses "disavows" in his own writings. He can hardly make it past "out."

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by General Zod

Post by George J. Dance

Post by NancyGene
How would you suggest we judge someone on a writing group?

By their contributions. If, for example, their sole contribution to "discussions" like this is to divert attention from them by making bogus allegations of plagiarism against the people they don't like, I'd judge them to be a troll, and judge the best response would be to tell them to fuck off.
So, fuck off, troll.

And N.G. is definitely lying about me on that accord since I plagiarized nothing and nobody....
Let that fool offer some proof.....

No one said you plagiarized anything, Todd.

NancyGene merely noted that you'd merely copied some of the words turned up in a typical Google search.

"Disavowed" does strike one as being outside of your vocabulary.

[General Zod]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by General Zod

Post by George J. Dance

Post by NancyGene
How would you suggest we judge someone on a writing group?

By their contributions. If, for example, their sole contribution to "discussions" like this is to divert attention from them by making bogus allegations of plagiarism against the people they don't like, I'd judge them to be a troll, and judge the best response would be to tell them to fuck off.
So, fuck off, troll.

And N.G. is definitely lying about me on that accord since I plagiarized nothing and nobody....
Let that fool offer some proof.....

No one said you plagiarized anything

Good because they would be lying.....

[Will Dockery]

Okay, Nancy G, keep up the great work.

😊

[Will Dockery]

True, read what Zod wrote and show where and if it was swiped.

Nancy G. seems to be bullshitting again.

:)

[Will Dockery]

In fact, I would like to read more, if the Beat Generation poets did specifically disavow Eliot, as I have not read that.

[Will Dockery™]

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....
"With the twentieth century the tension between the desire to be popular and the necessity to be restricted in audience takes some grotesque forms. One thinks of Eliot, ending his Waste Land with a quotation in Sanskrit, yet speaking of the advantage, for the dramatist, of an audience that could not read or write; or of Yeats trying to bring drama to communities that often could hardly read or write, yet filling his poems with recondite Cabbalism. But the idioms of popular and serious poetry remain inexorably distinct. Popular poems tend to preserve a surface of explicit statement: they are often sententious and proverbial, like Kipling's "If" or Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" or Burns' "For A' That," or they deal with what for their readers are conventionally poetic themes, like the pastoral themes of James Whitcomb Riley or the adventurous themes of Robert W. Service. Affection for such poets is apt to be anti-intellectual, accompanied by a strong resistance to the poetry that the more restricted audience I spoke of finds interesting."
from "Silence in the Sea" (E.J. Pratt lecture, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1968)
http://northropfrye-thebushgarden.blogspot.com/2009/02/silence-in-sea.html

Interesting read. Reminds me of the time I fucked some skank ho while my wife was crying and starving in the next room.

[Will Dockery]

Obsess much, forging troll?

[Will Dockery]

Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Will Dockery
Leonard Cohen was a published poet for a decade before moving to music, that is a historical fact.

Anyone from Jim Morrison to Johnny Cash to Jewell can get their poetry published, Will.

But (outside of fan clubs) they remain singer-songwriters who also write poetry.

[Will Dockery]

No, Cohen was quite successful.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Will Dockery
No, Cohen was quite successful.

Not until after he became famous as a singer.

[Hieronymous Corey]

Maybe you can help me. I still don't understand
the distinction being made between serious vs.
popular poetry. I know serious; what it means to
write seriously, and how to be successful as a
serious writer, but I have never been popular.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
Maybe you can help me. I still don't understand
the distinction being made between serious vs.
popular poetry. I know serious; what it means to
write seriously, and how to be successful as a
serious writer, but I have never been popular.

Although the label, "Serious Poetry," makes it appear to be a distinction between poetry on "serious" subjects and "Light Verse," I see it as a distinction between "Popular Poetry" and what I derogatorily refer to as "Academic."

Popular poetry is poetry that has a mass appeal. "The Tyger," "The Raven," "The Face on the Barroom Floor," "Casey at the Bat," "Little Orphant Annie," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," etc., are examples of poems that had a wide appeal and became part of the popular culture of their day. The were accessible to the working classes and (something that is practically unthinkable today) could be understood when read before an audience.

"Serious Poetry" is the stuff that's found in University-based poetry journals, and is of interest only to English professors and pseudo-intellectuals. It requires the assistance of a dictionary and encyclopedia (or the internet) to make sense of the 10-cent words and often obscure cultural/historical references. The use of "Serious" to describe it implies that it requires a great deal of time and effort to understand while reflecting the intellectual snobbery of the classes it appeals to.

Similarly, "Popular Poetry" is looked down on by the intelligentsia, who view the working classes as poorly educated, uncultured rabble.

Your poetry, for the most part, falls somewhere in between the two: it's too full of metaphor and symbolism to be readily accessible, yet not intellectually pretentious enough to appeal to the Academic snobs.

[Hieronymous Corey]

That actually makes a lot of sense to me, Michael. Thanks.
I was never popular in school. I was a serious student, and
successful in so far as I did well academically, but not popular
with classmates. I don't have any old school chums or military
buddies that I keep up with. I suppose I'm just not personable
that way. In any event, I appreciate your response. Thanks,
again. So, on an unrelated topic, got any ideas for lunch? I've
been doing housework all morning, and I'm fricking famished!

[Will Dockery]

"Hieronymous Corey" wrote in message news:22a574bd-7aaa-42f1-b541-***@googlegroups.com...

Is the way Usenet attributes you, so I was using theirs.

[Hieronymous Corey]

So you're just second handing Usenet? Okay, got it.

[George J. Dance]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
Maybe you can help me. I still don't understand
the distinction being made between serious vs.
popular poetry. I know serious; what it means to
write seriously, and how to be successful as a
serious writer, but I have never been popular.

Thanks for trying to get us back to the subject, HC - I'm glad someone wants to give that some attention. Let me cut the whole thing down to that.

What he's calling "serious" poems "convey [their] "meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement becomes increasingly opaque" - there's more to them than meets the eye, and a reader has to figure that out. While what he's calling "popular"
poems "preserve a surface of explicit statement" - WYSIWYG

[Hieronymous Corey]

LOL

[General Zod]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
Maybe you can help me. I still don't understand
the distinction being made between serious vs.
popular poetry. I know serious; what it means to
write seriously, and how to be successful as a
serious writer, but I have never been popular.

Serious poetry is the more academic style....

Popular poetry would be more like Robert M. Drake.....

[General Zod]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
Maybe you can help me. I still don't understand
the distinction being made between serious vs.
popular poetry. I know serious; what it means to
write seriously, and how to be successful as a
serious writer, but I have never been popular.

You must be joking....

[Will Dockery]

Sure, no argument there, "Hieronymous Corey".

What I dispute is Michael Pendragon's ignorant statement that Leonard Cohen
was "not a poet".

[Hieronymous Corey]

Why put my name in quotes? I couldn't find the quote you attribute to Michael.

[Will Dockery]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
No, Cohen was quite successful.

Not until after he became famous as a singer.

No, Cohen was successful enough to publish several books of poetry before recording any music:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen

"Leonard Cohen's first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book [...] his next book, The Spice-Box of Earth (1961), which was the first book that Cohen published through the Canadian publishing company McClelland & Stewart. The Spice-Box of Earth was successful in helping to expand the audience for Cohen's poetry, helping him reach out to the poetry scene in Canada, outside the confines of McGill University. The book also helped Cohen gain critical recognition as an important new voice in Canadian poetry. One of Cohen's biographers, Ira Nadel, stated that "reaction to the finished book was enthusiastic and admiring. The critic Robert Weaver found it powerful and declared that Cohen was 'probably the best young poet in English Canada right now.'... Cohen published the poetry collection Flowers for Hitler (1964), and the novels The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966)... Beautiful Losers received a good deal of attention from the Canadian press and stirred up controversy because of a number of sexually graphic passages.[11] Regarding Beautiful Losers, the Boston Globe stated "James Joyce is not dead. He is living in Montreal under the name of Cohen." In 1966 Cohen also published Parasites of Heaven, a book of poems..."

Leonard Cohen did not record music until 1967.

[Hieronymous Corey]

Okay, so Cohen was successful enough to publish several books of poetry before
his music, but didn't really become popular until after. Is that a fair statement, or no?

[George J. Dance]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
Okay, so Cohen was successful enough to publish several books of poetry before
his music, but didn't really become popular until after. Is that a fair statement, or no?

No. Cohen became a poetry star - appearing on CBC (Canada's only TV network in those days), reviewed in the most presitigious mags and papers, touring, and last but not least selling books - in Canada with /The Spice Box of Earth/, his first commercial book in 1961.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by George J. Dance

Post by Hieronymous Corey
Okay, so Cohen was successful enough to publish several books of poetry before
his music, but didn't really become popular until after. Is that a fair statement, or no?

No. Cohen became a poetry star - appearing on CBC (Canada's only TV network in those days), reviewed in the most presitigious mags and papers, touring, and last but not least selling books - in Canada with /The Spice Box of Earth/, his first commercial book in 1961.

"In Canada" being the operative words.

[Hieronymous Corey]

So you're saying he was as popular
a poetry star as he was a singing star?

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
So you're saying he was as popular
a poetry star as he was a singing star?

Or that his pre-singing fame popularity extended to the U.S.?

[George J. Dance]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
So you're saying he was as popular
a poetry star as he was a singing star?

Not at all - there's a much bigger audience for music than poetry. But he was successful with the latter years before the former had heard of him.

[Hieronymous Corey]

So you're saying he was a successful poet before he became more popular as a singer? Isn't
that essentially what I said that you said wasn't a fair statement? Where's the disagreement?

[George J. Dance]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
So you're saying he was a successful poet before he became more popular as a singer? Isn't
that essentially what I said that you said wasn't a fair statement?

Where's the disagreement?

Well, when you said he "wasn't really popular," I thought you were saying he wasn't a successful poet. But he was popular, as much as a poet can be said to be, with both adoring critics and fans who bought /Spice Box/. By the time I got to high school in 67, there were even poems from /Spice Box/ on the curriculum.

[Hieronymous Corey]

I was attempting to make a distinction between success and popularity.

[General Zod]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
So you're saying he was a successful poet before he became more popular as a singer? Isn't
that essentially what I said that you said wasn't a fair statement? > Where's the disagreement?

Yes Leonard Cohen is one of the Giants of poetry....

"You plagued me like the moon. I knew you were bound by old laws of suffering and obscurity. I am fearful of the cripple's wisdom. A pair of crutches, a grotesque limp can ruin a stroll which I begin in a new suit, clean-shaven, whistling. I envied you the certainty that you would amount to nothing. I coveted the magic of torn clothes. I was jealous of the terrors I constructed for you but could not tremble before myself. I was never drunk enough, never poor enough, never rich enough. All this hurts, perhaps it hurts enough. It makes me want to cry out for comfort. It makes me stretch my hands out horizontally. Yes, I long to be President of the new Republic. I love to hear the armed teenagers chant my name outside the hospital gates. Long live the Revolution! Let me be President for my last thirty days."

-Leonard Cohen

[Hieronymous Corey]

Cohen was good, but for my money Frederick Morgan was better.

THE STEP

From where you are at any moment you
may step off into death.
Is it not a clinching thought?
I do not mean a stoical bravado
of making the great decision blade in hand
but the awareness, all so simple, that
right in the middle of the day
you may be called to an adjoining room.

[General Zod]

Post by Hieronymous Corey
So you're saying he was as popular
a poetry star as he was a singing star?

He was as important in his day....

[George J. Dance]

Post by General Zod

Post by Hieronymous Corey
So you're saying he was as popular
a poetry star as he was a singing star?

He was as important in his day....

Notice how the goalposts keep moving. Pig Pen's original claim was the old one that Cohen wasn't a "real poet," just a singer who'd put out a couple of chapbooks of poetry that only his fans bought (like Jewel or Michael Jackson).

Now the claim is that he wasn't "really popular" as a poet, ie not as popular as a pop singer. By that criterion, no poets, ever, have been "real poets".

I remember just a few months ago, not long after Lady M and I had seen 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' hearing on the radio that the Queen song of the same name had just topped one billion sales on download. There are no poets, and never have been any poets, who sold a billion (or were even ready by a billion for free0. So, if that's the criterion for a "really popular" poet, there are no "really popular" poets.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by George J. Dance

Post by General Zod

Post by Hieronymous Corey
So you're saying he was as popular
a poetry star as he was a singing star?

He was as important in his day....

Notice how the goalposts keep moving. Pig Pen's original claim was the old one that Cohen wasn't a "real poet," just a singer who'd put out a couple of chapbooks of poetry that only his fans bought (like Jewel or Michael Jackson).

Why do you lie so much, Dunce?

My claim has always been that Cohen is s folk singer and *not* a poet.

Further, I have always asserted that his success as a poet has always been a by-product of his success as a singer.

This does not mean that he is poet. It means that he is a popular folk singer who publishes his song lyrics as "poetry," and that his "poetry" books are bought by his fans who like him as a folk singer.

IOW: He is a phony poet. The same holds true for the likes of Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison and Jewell. They are not real poets. They are singer-songwriters with artsy-fartsy pretensions who palm their song lyrics off on their fans as "literature."

Post by George J. Dance
Now the claim is that he wasn't "really popular" as a poet, ie not as popular as a pop singer. By that criterion, no poets, ever, have been "real poets".

I suppose you're making the spurious argument that no traditional poet has ever been as popular a Michael Jackson, therefore (according to your false interpretation of my statements) there were never any poets.

When are you going to learn that creating, and subsequently refuting, "straw men" arguments is immediately seen by others for what it is -- a lonely old man talking to himself in front of a mirror.

Back in the days before the phonograph was invented, popular singers had smaller audiences than popular poets for the simple fact that poets could reach wider audiences through various forms of printed media whereas singers were limited to live performances.

Poets like Byron, Shelley, Keats, Browning, Barrett-Browning, Coleridge, Burns, Scott, Longfellow, Poe, Emerson, Whitman, Kipling, Swinburne, Tennyson, et al., became known as poets solely on the basis of their talent (at writing poetry).

Phony poets like Cohen, Dylan, Morrison, et al., are simply cashing in on their popularity as singers to exploit the printed media as another means of self-gratification.

Post by George J. Dance
I remember just a few months ago, not long after Lady M and I had seen 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' hearing on the radio that the Queen song of the same name had just topped one billion sales on download. There are no poets, and never have been any poets, who sold a billion (or were even ready by a billion for free0. So, if that's the criterion for a "really popular" poet, there are no "really popular" poets.

Apples and oranges, Dunce (or, another spurious form of the pseudo-logic we've come to expect from you).

You might just as well argue that no record has ever sold anywhere near as well as milk which sells 9,750,560,000 gallows per year in the US alone.

Poetry is a "dead language" today. Pretending that singer-songwriters are poets only debases the form. It's the commoner side of the rabble/elitist split that currently dominate the poetry market. As with Aristotle's "Golden Mean," we are left with two extremes, neither of which constitute "good" or even "proper" poetry, while true poetry (the Golden Mean) has been relegated to the status of a literary artifact.

[Chafetz Chayim ha'Yehu'di]

On Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 10:43:22 AM UTC-7, FakeJewMikey's ESL is showing...

Shalom & Boker tov...Pesach Sameach...FakeJewMikey plagiarised this entire screed which is riddled with sophomoric tantrums, cyberlibels against editor/publisher/translator George Dance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
לעולם לא אשכח

IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark

[Will Dockery]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance
Notice how the goalposts keep moving. Pig Pen's original claim was the old one that Cohen wasn't a "real poet," just a singer who'd put out a couple of chapbooks of poetry that only his fans bought (like Jewel or Michael Jackson).

My claim has always been that Cohen is s folk singer and *not* a poet

And your claim has been shown to be wrong time after time, Pendragon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels

" His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book [...] in 1957, working various odd jobs and focusing on the writing of fiction and poetry, including the poems for his next book, The Spice-Box of Earth (1961), which was the first book that Cohen published through the Canadian publishing company McClelland & Stewart. The Spice-Box of Earth was successful in helping to expand the audience for Cohen's poetry, helping him reach out to the poetry scene in Canada..."

That was Leonard Cohen the poet, a full decade before he recorded his first album as a folk singer.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by George J. Dance
Notice how the goalposts keep moving. Pig Pen's original claim was the old one that Cohen wasn't a "real poet," just a singer who'd put out a couple of chapbooks of poetry that only his fans bought (like Jewel or Michael Jackson).

My claim has always been that Cohen is s folk singer and *not* a poet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Cohen#Poetry_and_novels
" His first published book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956), was published by Dudek as the first book in the McGill Poetry Series the year after Cohen's graduation. The book contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20, and Cohen dedicated the book to his late father.[11] The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book [...] in 1957, working various odd jobs and focusing on the writing of fiction and poetry, including the poems for his next book, The Spice-Box of Earth (1961), which was the first book that Cohen published through the Canadian publishing company McClelland & Stewart. The Spice-Box of Earth was successful in helping to expand the audience for Cohen's poetry, helping him reach out to the poetry scene in Canada..."
That was Leonard Cohen the poet, a full decade before he recorded his first album as a folk singer.

Why do you keep evading the point, Will?

I'm a published poet. Dunce is a published poet. Your poetry has even been published in the local listings magazine you worked for (sans pay). Big fat hairy deal.

Cohen's poetry books did not make so much as a single ripple in the U.S.

His popularity as a singer created an interest in his poetry.

Had he not become a popular singer, his poetry would have been forgotten entirely.

Cohen's poetry doubles as his song lyrics -- much as your poetry does double duty as your song lyrics.

He became popular as a singer-songwriter because his poems were basically song lyrics waiting to be set to music. Just as (on the extreme end of the talent scale) your poetry is unreadable gibberish in its printed form, but works much better when set to music and sung.

You are a singer-songwriter with poetic pretensions.

Cohen was a singer-songwriter with poetic pretensions.

Dylan is a singer-songwriter with poetic pretensions.

Why? Because you're all egotists who believe that poetry is a "higher" and more elitist form of art than popular song, and you want to be included in the pantheon of great poets.

Well, too fucking bad.

You're not poets. You're singer-songwriters. If you win any recognition in that field, be happy with it.

[Will Dockery]

That's just another of Pendragon's obsessive agendas, to attempt to degrade
the image of Leonard Cohen as much as he can.

[Will Dockery]

There are many ways to judge success in poetry, such as in the case of Leonard Cohen, quality of the work.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Will Dockery
There are many ways to judge success in poetry, such as in the case of Leonard Cohen, quality of the work.

IOW: Cohen was relatively unknown in the U.S. until after his success as a folk singer.

Of course 6 months from now, you'll have forgotten all about this and will make the same tired claims all over again.

[Will Dockery]

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
There are many ways to judge success in poetry, such as in the case of Leonard Cohen, quality of the work.

IOW: Cohen was relatively unknown in the U.S.

As are most poets in the U.S. since there's not a big market for poetry here.

[ME]

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
There are many ways to judge success in poetry, such as in the case of Leonard Cohen, quality of the work.

IOW: Cohen was relatively unknown in the U.S.

As are most poets in the U.S. since there's not a big market for poetry here.

So most poets in the U.S. are relatively unknown in the U.S.?
Pissbum, you really should put some of your post/responses in your ‘draft’ files. And then revisit and reread them, before posting.

[General Zod]

Post by ME

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
There are many ways to judge success in poetry, such as in the case of Leonard Cohen, quality of the work.

IOW: Cohen was relatively unknown in the U.S.

As are most poets in the U.S. since there's not a big market for poetry here.

So most poets in the U.S. are relatively unknown in the U.S.?

Yes they are, Robet M Drake is a current exception.

[Me]

Post by ME

Post by Will Dockery

Post by Michael Pendragon

Post by Will Dockery
There are many ways to judge success in poetry, such as in the case of Leonard Cohen, quality of the work.

IOW: Cohen was relatively unknown in the U.S.

As are most poets in the U.S. since there's not a big market for poetry here.

So most poets in the U.S. are relatively unknown in the U.S.?
Pissbum, you really should put some of your post/responses in your ‘draft’ files. And then revisit and reread them, before posting.

Bump to deflect did’s deflection.

[General Zod]

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....
"With the twentieth century the tension between the desire to be popular and the necessity to be restricted in audience takes some grotesque forms. One thinks of Eliot, ending his Waste Land with a quotation in Sanskrit, yet speaking of the advantage, for the dramatist, of an audience that could not read or write; or of Yeats trying to bring drama to communities that often could hardly read or write, yet filling his poems with recondite Cabbalism. But the idioms of popular and serious poetry remain inexorably distinct. Popular poems tend to preserve a surface of explicit statement: they are often sententious and proverbial, like Kipling's "If" or Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" or Burns' "For A' That," or they deal with what for their readers are conventionally poetic themes, like the pastoral themes of James Whitcomb Riley or the adventurous themes of Robert W. Service. Affection for such poets is apt to be anti-intellectual, accompanied by a strong resistance to the poetry that the more restricted audience I spoke of finds interesting."
from "Silence in the Sea" (E.J. Pratt lecture, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1968)
http://northropfrye-thebushgarden.blogspot.com/2009/02/silence-in-sea.html

Outstanding write-up...................

[General Zod]

Post by George J. Dance
"As the structures of philosophy and science become more complete, the poet retreats from large-scale cosmological and epic themes summing up the learning of his time, and partakes of a growing fragmentation of experience. He tends more and more to convey his meaning indirectly, through imagery and metaphor, and the surface of explicit statement that he shares with other writers becomes increasingly opaque. He is sometimes difficult to read -- Eliot even suggests that difficulty is a moral necessity for writers of his time -- and above all, originality, saying things in one's own way instead of simply saying them in the way that they have always been said, becomes accepted as part of the convention of serious literature.
"This means that the serious poet is likely to have a restricted audience of cultivated people -- "fit audience find, though few," as Milton said of Paradise Lost -- and that the importance of social function is not widely recognized or understood....
"With the twentieth century the tension between the desire to be popular and the necessity to be restricted in audience takes some grotesque forms. One thinks of Eliot, ending his Waste Land with a quotation in Sanskrit, yet speaking of the advantage, for the dramatist, of an audience that could not read or write; or of Yeats trying to bring drama to communities that often could hardly read or write, yet filling his poems with recondite Cabbalism. But the idioms of popular and serious poetry remain inexorably distinct. Popular poems tend to preserve a surface of explicit statement: they are often sententious and proverbial, like Kipling's "If" or Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" or Burns' "For A' That," or they deal with what for their readers are conventionally poetic themes, like the pastoral themes of James Whitcomb Riley or the adventurous themes of Robert W. Service. Affection for such poets is apt to be anti-intellectual, accompanied by a strong resistance to the poetry that the more restricted audience I spoke of finds interesting."
from "Silence in the Sea" (E.J. Pratt lecture, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1968)
http://northropfrye-thebushgarden.blogspot.com/2009/02/silence-in-sea.html

Good read thanks G.D.

[Will Dockery]

The only real correction I would make to what you posted is that Leonard Cohen was a poet for many years before becoming a folk singer.

[Michael Pendragon]

Post by Will Dockery
The only real correction I would make to what you posted is that Leonard Cohen was a poet for many years before becoming a folk singer.

So what?

I published my first poem 31 years ago.

I self-published my first poetry collection 9 years ago.

I could become a folk singer tomorrow, cut a best-selling album six months from now, and win a Grammy the following year.

If my poetry book suddenly started selling *after* my having become famous as a singer, would that make a successful poet who later found fame as a singer-songwriter?

The litmus test is simply to remove my singer-songwriter career from the equation and see what we're left with... a pair of self-published poetry books that no one's ever heard of and that with my death shall fade like Prospero's insubstantial pageant and "leave not a rack behind."

Take away Cohen's success as a recording artist and what have you got? A typical candidate for AAPC.

[Chafetz Chayim ha'Yehu'di]

Post by Will Dockery
The only real correction I would make to what you posted is that Leonard Cohen was a poet for many years before becoming a folk singer.

Will...FakeJewMikey has been 'outed' several times over the years for being a white supremacist, and his gothicrap 'poetry' was exposed for just what it was (recapitulations of the work of actual poets; there are other words for plagiarism, but this will do). No reputable poetry venue will touch his crap. Now, he's prancing about, saying he could make music, win a Grammy, etc. etc. It's all delusional.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
לעולם לא אשכח

IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark

[Will Dockery]

My only argument is the fact that Leonard Cohen was a poet years before he
became a folk singer.

[Hieronymous Corey]

Okay, so like I said, Cohen was successful enough
to publish several books of poetry before his music,
but became more popular when he started singing.