for what is true to me, may be in your eyes flawed
one day it overwhelms my heart
the next, impales it
is it true when it's inconsistent
i want to find a truth, but i don't know where to start
you promise to show me, but i see only deception
for an instance i believe
until i crash and burn
for how would you know, with a heart like yours
i want to believe in truth, but i don't know how to start
when each promise ends in despair
i've been disillusioned
and mislead by the master
naive enough to fancy you it's angel
~caught in the shadows of a lie~
8 comments:
Hm. Well, I know it's a matter of preference, but why don't you write in structured verse? Free verse is very difficult to work into proper poetry. It seems to be a great fad these days, I know, and yet I think it removes a lot of what makes poetry so powerful by nature.
I think even if you go free verse you must retain a pattern of line length. Else, what makes it seperate from prose? As such, I would admonish slightly more stricture in form. After all, poetry is not a freedom of expression, as many take it to be (that is in fact the province of prose), but expression constrained to an order. It is a layering of patterns not only in themes but in the very tune of the words. Whether that be trochaics or iambics (which I favour), or even dactyls, anapests, or whatever you like. But the greater the pattern, the more the poetry.
This is a great mistake, I think, in the modern conception of poetry: that it is meant to be a free expression of the heart. Quite the opposite, in fact! It is a constrained expression of the heart. Like when our race has built monuments in the sands... we take the raw expression of nature and make order out of chaos. That is the human spirit: to make order. This is what poetry should be: an attempt not to freely express the heart, but to organize it within the strictures of the human wit and spirit.
This has been lost in the last century, I think. However, I believe the tide is returning to a new formalism in poetic style.
However, too much patterning can become problematic as well. For example, I would suggest varying the initial lines of each stanza... that is, keeping the same meaning, but altering the words. That removes repetition, but retains the force.
Then again, I speak from the older tradition. Sorry if I'm harsh, but writing, and poetry, is my art, and I felt compelled to speak.
Poetry (I believe) does not lose its power any more then it loses its meaning...if not written within the constraints of ages past...I do say i have to disagree with your view that poetry can't be a free expression of one's heart, mind or soul...
Music has been drastically changed over centuries upon centuries of musicians that changed the way music was played to better reach the people and generations at hand...we would have run out of innovative ideas 100s of years ago when Gregorian Chant was 'in'...so why not let art forms change and reinvent themselves...when music breaks that AABB or AABBA rhyme pattern it really says something...art is art and should be used as an outlet for the soul...and freely express what one has to say
LadyC i understand where you're coming from i think...truth is the one value most important to me...and i haven't been seeing that for a long time...but i do know...know that your poetry and writing has always touched me in a profound way...always remember that
Free expression, however, is not art, it is merely expression. Art requires the human will to constrain something. This is not a change in preference which, as you point out, naturally occurs, but is rather a change in the fundamental principle of what makes a thing what it is. If we remove the strictures upon poetry, what is it? How can it remain 'poetry' when the very definition of such is that it follows some regular pattern? Now whether this is precise metrical patterns and rhymes (as are favoured in English), tonal and stress variations as in Greek, or the rhyming of ideas seen in Hebrew poetry doesn't matter. The one lasting trend is that it is constrained to a pattern.
Music might have changed, yes, but you're mistaking your analogy. The preferences might have changed, but it retains the order of melody and of beat. To write poetry without measures is to write music without melody. Now no matter how much music has changed, that has remained constant. Likewise, no matter which metre or which ryhme are in favour, such things must stand in poetry to classify it as poetry.
For let me ask you, cannot prose be a free expression of feeling? Because I have written things of vast feeling within prose - even more intense than my poetry - and yet it is not poetry. Why? Because it must be constrained. It must be organized as to a pattern. Free verse, however, can work, but it requires an immense understanding of subtler rythms.
In short, though, 'art is art' is simply not the case, and is a flawed concept, and depreciates its purpose and existence. Art is far more meaningful than a mere expression - for mere expression is what animals, too, are capable of, and indeed requires no skill but only intuition. But it is the ability to organize thought that makes us human. And in that capacity, art is our highest achievement, as it allows us to organize what is chaotic into the orderly. After all, is this not what language is? An organization of pure thought? In a sense, poetry and art are a fulfillment of that same progression. To wish to remove those constrains is a desire to return to an anarchic or primitive age before such organizations of civilization were set upon us.
As I've heard it said once, the concept of 'art for art's sake' can only exist in a culture where art has ceased to teach us anything, and becomes merely a pretty addition. I refuse to let poetry become that.
In short, if you freely wish to express yourself, write prose. That's what it's there for. But poetry, by true definition (and not the popular view of it), must have some fashion of order to it. Even free verse must have that. I am not saying art must be stagnant... I am saying it must remain art. You can reinvent the wheel often, but go too far, and suddenly it's no longer round, and you no longer have a wheel. That's the problem. In your endeavour to renew you cannot change the fundamental aspect of something and call it the same thing, can you?
Sorry if I am harsh, but I must be a guardian of my Art. I see its changes over the last four thousand years, from Homer to Ovid to Shakespeare and onward, for all that... the fundamental spark is the human desire to make order out of chaos. Let us not revert from that! Let us never make it merely an outlet for mood, but a true child of the human spirit. For was it not by music, by poetry, that Amphion refounded the citadel of ancient Thebes, and the trees followed in the train of Orpheus? Chaos into order. That is the foundation of all our Arts. Let it never be forgotten.
And further, my apologies again to the mind of the blonde if I sound too harsh. But as my nature is one teaching, I cannot but help speaking when I have admonitions ready upon my lips. Nor does my spirit allow an easy retreat on matters I hold dear. But if anything is to your displeasure, disregard it; and if anything I have said is beneficial, look on that.
I have only wanted to stand for what I consider the spirit of my own art. Apologies if my zeal drove me to bellow too thunderous words from a Typhon's uncouth mouth.
Dear Mr Greek Mythology
i think it's time for you to move on. Move on from this girl that broke your heart and move on from your traditional, restricted ways of thinking.
1) This girl was obviously not the girl for you since she did not love you back. Get out there and find someone who loves you back. remaining fixated on this girl is going to get you nowhere, and you WILL forever be stuck in a barren, unattractive field. Living in the past is sad, pathetic and lacking potential.
2)nobody likes a stiff. free, easy going, people are the ones we like to be around. When you start pushing your traditional, limited opinions on others, they're just going to get annoyed and they'll move on... maybe that's why this long though-out (yet failed) relationship didn't last- she had no room to breath or live!
sorry if that sounds bitchy, but you're not exactly swimming in tact either
p.s. a good teacher isn't one who is always telling someone that they're wrong, it's using what they do have or know to figure out a way to make it right. Just because you feel you have a 'nature for teaching' doesn't mean you're a good one or should be teaching. Sometimes it's better to control some of your natural urges
(Nb. I've broken the myth references of my names... but each is apt to what I say, as is this one.)
What’s this? I am speaking of verse, not my earlier comments. Alright, now I feel compelled to answer, directly as to what I think and feel and with no dissembling falsity fashioned over it. And apologies if it’s not short. My nature has no command over brevity.
Firstly, I’d temper your comments about living in the past as being sad and pathetic. Are you not yourself? You posts definitely imply it. You have a lot of venom for things in your past that you’ve plainly not gotten over... perhaps the reason is that you have tried to move on without really dealing with the past and making it a part of yourself? See, that’s the problem of this ‘moving on’ mentality... it’s just a slight shroud to cover up the matter, but it’ll come back to haunt you. So much for that advice... it never works.
You are assuming I’m treating this as a woman would. But I’m not. Every woman I’ve ever talked to has assumed that looking back and living in the past, as they name it, is sad, or pathetic, or some such rot. But when it has served as my greatest inspiration, muses dwelling in the wastes of lost love and all that, how can it be called in any way lacking potential, when it can get me nowhere... indeed, how can it be barren?! It is the most fertile ground of inspiration, and has been since before words were ever put to a page. See, consider, is it better to be fixed on finding someone for the purpose of a dull happiness, or to take fortune’s blows with a laugh and live life attuned to a sharp melancholy? Everything I have ever seen and known speaks against what you say. It gets me nowhere? It is the bloody foundation of my art! Why, without this glancing back we’d have no Petrarch, no Dante, not half of Catullus or Shakespeare!
For myself, at this time, all I can really say to the next is 'move on to what?' Women as a whole have become disinteresting. And your fashion of commentary only entrenches it. To speak so much of ‘moving on’ and such a trivialization of the matter (whilst still clinging to an outward show of seriously regarding love) exemplifies the very reasons I would consider myself better alone. If women can only love with their feelings, as seems to be the case, then I’ll have none of it, indeed I would consider myself a wretch to have found it. Unlike your view which needs something back to validate it, I will love halt of reward. Hoping, yes, but expecting nothing. Like God loved the children of Israel no matter how much they strayed. If He’d not looked to the past, we’d be eternally damned. Now tell me, is God sad and pathetic, too? Or am I not doing right in taking Him as an exemplar?
So much for the first part.
Nobody likes it when people are stiff? Yes, and that’s why they end up crying when the ones they do like to be around inevitably break their hearts. Well, I like being around the stiff ones. When women mature finally and they realize that the fun and easy going guys really aren’t going to be good for them lifelong, then they turn to the more stiff sort. I myself don’t have any patience for women who look for these ‘fun’ traits, as it were. And I’m in no wise hypocritical. I don’t have much regard for fun and easygoing women myself. I find them terribly disinteresting and shallow of spirit, actually. And if I’m not going to find anything deeper I reject the matter entirely.
Look, to be honest, I’ve long outgrown caring what people think of me. If they like me, fine, they value me for truth and for the fact that I really do care - even that lost girl still values me for that. When I give my heart I give it, but I won’t be a flatterer or panderer to someone’s mood. If they want to go chasing after feelings and all, fine. I can only say so much to guard them. In truth, the relationship failed because she followed this same bloody advice you are trying to give me right now. She ‘moved on’ from someone and it came back to haunt her. So much for that, eh? And what, now I am to do the selfsame thing myself? Wouldn’t that be wise. So no, no it wasn’t for that that it broke... I never sought to master her in any way whatsoever, but be her companion and helper as much as I could.
Anyway, you needn’t worry about approaching me with tact. I have a surfeit of passion, in that I get annoyed easily, but it passes by quickly. I like the storms as much as the sun is all. Lasting offense is not something I take easily, but you may have to endure self-explanation if you challenge me. Nevertheless, it is better council to speak what is true rather than hide it behind niceties. I always speak directly and of my heart. After all, it was your disparagement of men and their lack of commitment that drove me to write on your blog in the first place. You were complaining about their shallowness and inconstancy and, in my turn, I felt compelled to point out that I have seen the selfsame thing of women, to the pitch that I doubt a woman’s ability to truly love. Anyway, I’m about to get far more tactless in my next comment.
Regarding moving on from the traditional constricting ways - I assume you mean the poetry. I must ask... why? You are making the assumption that the old and the restrictive is bad, but if you’re just base assuming that, your buying into a common thought in the modern world (and rather akin the old sin of Eden, eh?) But that’s been the battlecry of the humanists and atheists for a century now. Give me a valid contradiction rather than just a ‘move on because people don’t like it if you don’t.’ I’m not going to give up on principle I think is right just to be liked and popular. You really must ask yourself why you consider ‘limited’ to be bad. After all, I don’t suppose you think moral limits are bad. Look again over my argument for the cause of blank verse and what not against free verse. Attack my argument, not my premise.
*sigh* And then you’ll likely say ‘this sort of intensity women don’t like’. This may be, but I’ve given up pandering to them and their wishes. I am the person who I am. And I am true and genuine, with deeprunning thoughts, I am at turns a scientist and an artist and a poet, deep care and devotion are within my heart, but I am not guided by emotion... all this to be outweighed by mere feelings of levity? Well, if that’s the case, if that is indeed how women think (and you seem to say they do), then I am rather glad that I am alone. If all their hearts are for the seeking of those who make them feel good at all times, well, I cannot offer that, nor have they anything to offer me. If they want to seek their men who are easygoing, let them dare that sunflight... but they’ll have no right to weep when their hearts are broken in the pursuit of those who by nature are flighty because of that light demeanour. You see my conclusion? It is not because I have some one in my history holding me chained. I admit to love her, but that holds even if I love someone else, because true love cannot die, nor is it jealous. But I see none other that I would wish to be with, that would be to my benefit or interest. Not because she constrains me, but because there’s just nothing there that fits me. And I am well with that. But a passionate heart as mind cannot go nowhere, so what is still left of that damned emotion flits to the dear past. For come doomsday I hold to the commitments I made her. But women... you see that in literature, and you swoon calling it beautiful; you see it in life and you call it pathetic. Stick with the literature. It’s the better advised.
PS
No, a teacher does not only declaim, yet if you’ll look back, not only did I do far more than just say someone’s wrong, but I never actually said that. All I ever said ‘maybe it’s this’ and ‘by my experience.’ Be careful before you make such judgements. Why, weren’t you complaining how you can’t find the right relationship? Did I I not offer advice in the fashion of foreswearing it? Was this not a solution as to how to make it right? And as for the matter of verse, oh, surely I’m entitled to take the stand of tradition there... and to add, if you read my arguments, it’s not just a bare opinion, but a thought out philosophical position. The point is, on both grounds I was giving viable advice. On one, stand separate from the desire to have someone (because you sounded needy) and the other, to perhaps write more ordered fashion of verse, for the reasons I outlined. What in all of this was done by nay-saying halt of advice? Or are you jumping to conclusions regarding my character as a method of counterattack?
Nb. My comments regarding being a teacher are due to the prevalent commentary of others, who consider my advice quite valuable, and who see me as having a teacher’s characteristic. No need to school me on what being a teacher entails... although, I must point out, one of the greatest of teachers, Socrates, got on people’s nerves because he did not offer solutions, but only showed how wrong their own views were.
Do not, however, take it personally. I am arguing ideals, not against you per say. Your posts just gave me reasonable grounds upon which to speak. In particular the matter of poetry. This is an important discussion and contemplation. I am of the old school because, well, because of the arguments I outlined in my first paragraph. I would still challenge you to tell me what makes poetry distinct from prose if you lose the metre. Honestly, I would much prefer to discuss that thread rather than the other. That one just stresses me out a tad too much.
I must say that as a 'light and easy-going- guy i'm very stressed out by the fact that i'm nothing more than a heart-breaker...if only i could find the right frosty pole to stick up my ass then everything would be ok...
i must concur that i see your point good sir but as much as you've tried to keep your argument completely unbiased it's come through with a venomous taste i must say...i'd say there is a point of compromise between you and HPSA...you just need to see it
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