Hello all,
My name is Steve. I'll be teaching your Creative Writing and Popular Culture class for the next two weeks. We're going to be talking about poetry. For next class, I'd like you to follow the following three links and listen to the following sound clips. These are three contemporary poets (that is, poets alive and writing today) performing poems they've written:
Lisa Jarnot, "Moo is Om Backwards"
Rod Smith, "Ted's Head"
Alice Notley, "Woman With Antlers"
After listening, decide which one of these poets most challenges your understanding of what poetry is or should be. Then, post a comment and tell me why.
See you next Monday!
I would have to say that Rod Smith's poem "Ted's Head" seems to be the least like any kind of poetry that I have ever read or heard. To me it is just a guy explaining a story that isnt really all that interesting to begin with.
ReplyDeleteHi Ben,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your prompt response. But I'd like you to avoid, in your comment, discussing simply what you like or dislike about the poem. Rather, I'd like you talk about what your expectations or preconceptions of what poetry is and why this poem/poet challenges that.
Thanks!
Steve
"Moo is Om Backwards" really challenged my understanding of poetry since I previously thought that poetry was a large collective of different words and phases joined together. However, in this poem it seemed that the author was utilizing the same word over and over again in a stanza. Then, as the poem continued the words from previous stanzas would be brought in. After awhile, it appeared to me like a large jumble of continuous words in different patterns. At the end, I was just confused and lost. In my expectations of poetry, I always expected nicely flowing phrases and words that told a story to the reader.
ReplyDeleteMy view of poetry and works that fall into such a category is pretty broad, but I think Rod Smith's "Ted's Head" is the furthest variation. While it is a different experience hearing a poem read by its respective author, and reading it on your own, I think this poem disregards the fluidity and attention to meter and verse that the "Moo is Om Backwards" and "Woman With Antlers" possess (albeit only somewhat.) It seems like more of a stream of consciousness essay or something. Additionally, I would be interested to see how Smith's poem translates on paper. I think comparatively, it would look pretty different from most poems I am accustomed to as well.
ReplyDelete-Christine Mallari
I've encountered poetry similar to the clips above before but I find Lisa Jarnot's, "Moo is Om Backwards," to be least stimulating and comprehensible, poetically. There is a lot of repetition which is a common trait of poetry but the nonsensical sentence structure and meaning make it hard for me to interpret the poem in any significant way. I understand that many poems aren't intended to reveal a message or deeper meaning but "Moo is On Backwards" sounded more like a child's song or chant, rather than poetry.
ReplyDeleteAfter listening to all of the different poems, I found that "Ted's Head" was the farthest from what I would consider poetry. It seemed like a mere story or conversation that the author was reading, not a poem. However, I thought "Moo is Om Backwards" and "Woman With Antlers" followed more closely what I view as poetry. They both read with a rhythm and told a story. They were more similar to the types of poems that I have read in the past.
ReplyDelete-Sydney Gitelis
I would also have to say that "Ted's Head" was the one that challenged my understanding of poetry because to me, I think of poetry as flowing very smoothly, rhyming occasionaly and going into depth to make you think about a certain subject or idea. "Ted's Head" did not flow smoothly at all to me; it kind of just sounded like a guy having a conversation. I couldn't find myself thinking in depth about the clip, like poetry usually does.
ReplyDeleteDont mean to sound like a broken record but i found "Ted's Head" to be the least poetic. Obviously it made the most sense but their was no poetic quality to it. There was no type of meter to it, it just flowed along like a short story. Obviously there is no set of guidelines to poetry but this doesnt even come close to sounding poetic
ReplyDeleteTed's Head was my favorite poem and reading.I just really enjoyed the flow of it but at the same time it just sounded like something that happens everyday. I found it very easy to relate to and thats what i look for in poetry.
ReplyDeleteSorry to say it but I don't like poetry. Poetry has always seemed, to me, to never say or be about what is actually being said in the poem. It always seems to be an idea, thought, or comment expressed in the most abstract and diluted way. Why don't people just say what they are truly feeling? And when it comes to contemporary poetry, I am sorry to say, I always think of the pompous "rebels" pouring out their depressed soul in a coffee-shop, which all three poems remind me of. However, Rod Smith's "Ted's Head," seems to me what poetry SHOULD be. Tell a relatable story to get people in the right mindset and then at the end turn it on their face, or at the least make an analogy to it so we may understand. Perhaps I am being biased because Smith's was the only one that made true sense to me; the others I think I understand but it is still ambiguous. Smith's poem, on the other hand, seems to be not ambiguous at all; Ted's an idiot, Ted becomes the head or leader; America is run by Teds. "Ted's Head" would have to be the one that challenges my understanding of poetry, just like everyone else, because it is not what I think of what poetry is, but, again, I think "Ted's Head" is what poetry should be more like. The other two poems are what I feel most all poetry is, convoluted. But Smith's isn't; get the audience in the right mind then hit them with the main point, clearly.
ReplyDeleteWhen I listened, I felt that Ted's Head was the most challenging to my preconceptions of poetry. The reason for this is I think of poetry as having stanzas or breaks and some kind of rhythm. Not to say that ALL poetry is like that, but most that I am familiar with. Ted's head sounds more like an Essay than a poem, and perhaps it's more about how the writer (I assumed the clips were the writers) read the poem than how it is written (which is also how I've encountered most poetry).
ReplyDeleteI didn't feel any of the poems were necessarily bad because they were different (in fact, I thought they were all very good), but with Ted's Head, it just felt like it was from a different medium all together.
I think that Jarnot and Notley's pieces sounded more like poetry to me. They use rhythm and beat and string their language in a more poetic format. But I like Ted's Head because prose poetry is so different and challenges the way many people think of poetry. I like that because I tend to think of poetry as anything you want it to be. It can be a story, or a mix of sounds and words, or just consist of one line. There doesn't seem to be a wrong or right way to view/write poetry.
ReplyDeleteWhen I hear poetry I expect things like rhyming, and not a continuous storyline. That is why I found it hard to believe that "Ted's Head" is a poem. I felt like it was a short story you could tell your friend. If I were to listen to this not knowing it was a poem I would definitely guess it to be a story. The only thing that could define it as a poem to me is at the end when he relates what he just said to Americans, giving all the before mentioned a deeper meaning. Not to say stories can't have deeper meanings, but this feels different from how deeper meaning would be found in a story.
ReplyDeleteI tend to think of poetry as very broad and none of these poems seemed to stray too far outside what my brain would allow me to consider artistic creation. I do think that "Ted's Head" was probably the farthest from poetry in my mind. There are so many ways to write poetry but it almost always seems to have a spoken rhythm and although all those rhythms are different this poem seemed to just be a story.
ReplyDelete