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eddietay
Singapore
5 Posts |
 Posted - 01 May 2005 : 09:18:06
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FWIW, just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading QLRS and appreciate the high quality of content. I particularly enjoyed the poems by Tsin Yen "Permission to Write" and "What are you, eighteen?".
They're my favorites - erm, this may sound excessive, but I read them a couple of times last night and logged in this morning again to reread. I like the way s/he balances immediacy with intellectual finesse without appearing to try too hard ... this sounds vague I know but the impression I have is that the poems are spontaneous and smart without being smart-alecky?
I always thought American poetry to be excessive (Wallace Stevens: too cerebral, Ginsberg/Kerouac: too ... erm, excessive) but I realised that without them, (esp the Beat Generation) poems like these, I suspect, could not have been written. Reminds me of something from TS Eliot, that each new work revises our perception of what went on previously - it changes the literary tradition for the reader. So, for me, these 2 poems taught me something abt American poetry - I'll be mulling thru' the American poets in the library in the next few days. Any recommendations, Tsin Yen?
Which leads me to the 2nd half of the post in the hope of generating a discussion: what/who are some of your favourite poems/poets and why? And if you write, how do they influence your writing? Likewise, who are the poets that you steer clear of, and why?
In relation to this, which are some of your favourite poems/short stories posted here and why? And, dare I ask, which are some of your non-favourite poems/short stories, and why do they not work for you?
Cheers,
Eddie |
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Hsien Min
Singapore
49 Posts |
Posted - 12 May 2005 : 19:18:49
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Hi Eddie,
I'd forwarded the link to Tsin Yen and I think she could have been thinking of replying when the site went on the blink for our server migration... so anyway, thought I'd chip in...
As the editor who selected the poems I do evidently rather like the poems, and agree with your assessment. Her combination of finesse, breadth of intelligence and apparent ease, packaged in a very assured voice, isn't easy to achieve - although having worked with younger writers I would venture that the generations after ours seem to have a better handle on this style. (Besides the Americans, I'd reference Anne Carson as well... and it occurs to me some other contemporary women writers but I'll leave the field to more qualified commentators.)
Thanks for the kind words on QLRS.
Cheers,
HM |
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tweedlesinpink
7 Posts |
Posted - 04 Sep 2005 : 01:20:20
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This is really dragging up an old post, but since no one's replied to the second half--
I think one of my favourite poets must be Dylan Thomas. I know some people think his works are fairly empty once you get past the surface obscurity, and that his stuff is written out of "booze and talent", but his ability to capture the sound of reality fascinates me.
He wrote once in one of his essays, "Read the poems you like reading. Don't bother whether they're important, or if they'll live. What does it matter what poetry is, after all?...All that matters about poetry is the enjoyment of it, however tragic it may be. All that matters is the eternal movement behind it, the vast undercurrent of human grief, folly, pretension, exaltation, or ignorance, however unlofty the intention of the poem."
And yes i think that is what attracts me to his work! His lyrical portrayal of death, of life, of fading (faded) youth is lovely, cutting, and intangible. I know people like Plath, or Hughes, or Eliot, for a range of reasons, but to write a 'play for voices' like Thomas did in "Under Milk Wood" with such unerring accuracy is, for me, more powerful than doing intellectual calisthenics.
Dylan (oh we're on first name terms now ;p) again, "You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it technically tick, and say to yourself, when the works are laid out before you, the vowels, the consonants, the rhymes and rhythms, 'Yes, this is it. This is why the poem moves me so. It is because of the craftsmanship.' But you're back again where you began. You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words."
And for that sane reason EM Forster really gets me going. Sharp, sharp, beautiful. (: |
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alf
Singapore
92 Posts |
Posted - 04 Sep 2005 : 02:03:45
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quote:
I know people like Plath, or Hughes, or Eliot, for a range of reasons, but to write a 'play for voices' like Thomas did in "Under Milk Wood" with such unerring accuracy is, for me, more powerful than doing intellectual calisthenics.
Dylan (oh we're on first name terms now ;p) again, "You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it technically tick, and say to yourself, when the works are laid out before you, the vowels, the consonants, the rhymes and rhythms, 'Yes, this is it. This is why the poem moves me so. It is because of the craftsmanship.' But you're back again where you began. You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words."
Interesting that you don't consider Plath/Hughes etc to also be speaking from the mysterious emotional centre that DT talks about, nor that DT's own theory and practice of poetics is itself a form of intellectual calisthenics |
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tweedlesinpink
7 Posts |
Posted - 04 Sep 2005 : 08:54:48
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| Maybe it's just that i don't feel for their poetry, and therefore i don't see the emotional core. There are people who would strangle me for saying that. (: Of course, i generalise. There are poems that i enjoy by Hughes--'The Thought-Fox' is one--and poems by Thomas that i don't find so lovely. But in the end it's all about taste, right? Taste. |
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eddietay
Singapore
5 Posts |
Posted - 08 Sep 2005 : 00:53:50
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I love Dylan Thomas too: "Though lovers be lost love shall not; / And death shall have no dominion." I remembered that line from _Beauty and the Beast_ way back when I was a kid.
And I like Plath and Eliot too, for different reasons, but not so for Hughes. Actually, I quite agree with the bit on taste. I had a discussion with a friend who absolutely hated Plath. He hated Plath because he found her poems hysterical and excessive. I love Plath's poems for that very same quality...
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
...
I have 3 pet ideas about liking certain poets:
1) Sometimes I wonder if it's the case where we like poets with a little bit of sophistication whom we just happened to understand. It's like empathy, identification and ego trip (the fact that we can understand something sophisticated) all at once.
2) That certain poets write in the way we would if we were writers. Technical considerations aside, it's just that subjective "oomph".
3) That we can actually outgrow reading certain poets. And certain other poets whom we think we dislike, we begin to like in later years. |
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"What are you, eighteen?"/what makes good poetry?
