Do You Write Poetry?

[Nam]

My turn! My turn!

I could not hope more to breathe
in each luminescent aura

Ummm... "luminescent aura". Reminds me of a blissful feeling.

where wind carries leaves beyond
each silhouette of your form

Sounds like two people outside at night (thus the silhouette part)

It could be the happiness growing
like the leaf to the root

Leaf to the root. Sounds perverted. Like the guy has a hard on for the girl.

or the touch of a lip upon a lip

Kissing?

upon the single wave salted in
             rivergreen eyes

They're at a beach or by a river maybe, and she has green eyes?

like tears wiped from the face
   gazing upon the autumn sun

Maybe they're virgins, and it's their first time. Just a guess.

gently slipping into the womb
   of the earth

Sounds like he penetrated her.

I could not hope more to breathe
in each whisper you echo in my heart

Love. He's in love with her. How sweet.

where the wind carries us beyond
the silhouette of the moon

Dude, Nam is a pervert. He wrote about two people having sex on the beach at night for the first time. But at least they're in love so while still a pervert, he's a sweet pervert.

That's my take.

-Nam

[Siz]

Thank you, Nam. You make it sound like you're not actually sure yourself with your explanations.

I guess some poetry is just personal; not so much about communicating ideas to another person but about putting a personal thought onto paper (so to speak). Not necessarily for the appreciation of the public.

[Nam]

Thank you, Nam.

I guess some poetry is just personal; not so much about communicating ideas to another person but about putting a personal thought onto paper (so to speak). Not necessarily for the appreciation of the public.

I don't know what you're on about. I just gave my interpretation.



-Nam

[Siz]

Thank you, Nam.

I guess some poetry is just personal; not so much about communicating ideas to another person but about putting a personal thought onto paper (so to speak). Not necessarily for the appreciation of the public.

I don't know what you're on about. I just gave my interpretation.



-Nam

Interpretation? Didn't you write it?! Or were you just chanelling?

I was just giving you the benefit of the doubt. Was that misplaced?

[Nam]

Here's a poem that's personal and from a period in my life 10 years ago. A favorite amongst many of my readers:

personal exchange of information that is lethargic and weak

The qualities which a man seeks in his beloved are those
characteristics of his own soul, whether he knows it or not.

                                                                          -Plato



there's music in the background,
piano keys hitting softly
  touching every thought
that is displayed
          beneath my
fingertips within the hours
before I took more than
the pills    more than
  the regret
of the drink I wished not to
salivate
    beneath the
ember-smell
of the morning that woke
me to dreams of wanting something
more than myself and only
thinking of    you

I wrote you
    a letter that I
had not sent
  never would
or the inclination
to

I wrote you
  another book
felt
  you between the
pages
of each tear
I cried
            there was something more than me
            there was something more than
you
            it was more than just a touch
            more than
a look
            it was simple and elegant
                  I could feel more than
            your hand
on my heart
on my
chest
            loving me
too

yet not
      you never did
            I
never did
         
            I held on to the locket that
            disappeared in the fields
            the love that I felt  wasn't real
            or I hoped and dreamed
            each tear was just recognition
                    or definition
                    of something
            anything

I can see you standing    once again
in the library, the lights out, the darkness
estranged from itself
  I can see you standing    once again
holding on to me      not letting go
  pure happiness
      love
that exists  and not just said





I cried last night    I didn't want to
yet  did
is that personal enough for you      or must
I shed more tears      must I tear
my dreams in front of you and show you the
anguish I feel in compulsory reflection

"I have loved and lost..." and loved again
and never again    and envied others
no jealousy has bled me
  just fuckin' envious letters in bottles
  thrown out to sea
  age broken in turmoil and all other
  drowned apathetical distinctions


  I am the man with a soul who doesn't
  know where his is at

  out to sea
  or beneath the water held in my eyes


  I am the man with a heart who doesn't
  know where his belongs

  beneath the leaves
  or out to sea on the ship that sails expectantly



I cried last night
  tears down my cheeks
and onto my pillow
I didn't wipe them away
  I wanted to feel them

I wanted to feel...








David Garrett Arnold
March 09 2006

Nam

[Siz]

Hold on. Can we clear up the previous mess before engaging with another...?!

[Magdalena]

Thank you, Nam.

I guess some poetry is just personal; not so much about communicating ideas to another person but about putting a personal thought onto paper (so to speak). Not necessarily for the appreciation of the public.

I don't know what you're on about. I just gave my interpretation.



-Nam

Interpretation? Didn't you write it?! Or were you just chanelling?

I was just giving you the benefit of the doubt. Was that misplaced?

That's what I'm talking about! There's sooooooo much mystery around poems! I hate it! It's like they, the poets, know sooooo much more than you! He is so smart, and you can't figure it out! It's like an exclusive club where only the "poets" are allowed and they write, and write, and from far away they watch you read their stuff and, "Our ignorance amuses them!"

[Crow]

That's what I'm talking about! There's sooooooo much mystery around poems! I hate it! It's like they, the poets, know sooooo much more than you! He is so smart, and you can't figure it out! It's like an exclusive club where only the "poets" are allowed and they write, and write, and from far away they watch you read their stuff and, "Our ignorance amuses them!"

Did you not study literature in school? It is a huge part of that, read a piece of literature and analysis it, often line by line. It is about reading comprehension, having an opinion on the words written, and expressing them in a coherent manner rather than getting the exact intention of the author.

[Nam]

Thank you, Nam.

I guess some poetry is just personal; not so much about communicating ideas to another person but about putting a personal thought onto paper (so to speak). Not necessarily for the appreciation of the public.

I don't know what you're on about. I just gave my interpretation.



-Nam

Interpretation? Didn't you write it?! Or were you just chanelling?

I was just giving you the benefit of the doubt. Was that misplaced?

That's what I'm talking about! There's sooooooo much mystery around poems! I hate it! It's like they, the poets, know sooooo much more than you! He is so smart, and you can't figure it out! It's like an exclusive club where only the "poets" are allowed and they write, and write, and from far away they watch you read their stuff and, "Our ignorance amuses them!"

Thanks for insulting me. Let's forego the fact I spent 10+ years critiquing works to make those who want to be poets better at being so. The 50,000+ works spanning 3-4 poetry websites I took the time out of my busy life to critique means nothing from a comment like yours.

Fuck you very much.

-Nam

[Magdalena]

I don't know if you're talking to me, Nam, but I don't think I insulted you. Please tell me where I did. I think I was trying to compliment you. You probably know something, I don't. That's what I tried to say. I can read, I understand what I read, but I don't understand poetry, yours or anyone's. That's my problem, not yours, is it?

[Magdalena]

That's what I'm talking about! There's sooooooo much mystery around poems! I hate it! It's like they, the poets, know sooooo much more than you! He is so smart, and you can't figure it out! It's like an exclusive club where only the "poets" are allowed and they write, and write, and from far away they watch you read their stuff and, "Our ignorance amuses them!"

Did you not study literature in school? It is a huge part of that, read a piece of literature and analysis it, often line by line. It is about reading comprehension, having an opinion on the words written, and expressing them in a coherent manner rather than getting the exact intention of the author.

Crow, please leave me alone right now, I want to talk to the poet, not you.

[Siz]

That's what I'm talking about! There's sooooooo much mystery around poems! I hate it! It's like they, the poets, know sooooo much more than you! He is so smart, and you can't figure it out! It's like an exclusive club where only the "poets" are allowed and they write, and write, and from far away they watch you read their stuff and, "Our ignorance amuses them!"

Did you not study literature in school? It is a huge part of that, read a piece of literature and analysis it, often line by line. It is about reading comprehension, having an opinion on the words written, and expressing them in a coherent manner rather than getting the exact intention of the author.

Dissecting a piece of literature line by line is EXACTLY to establish the intention of the author. Only then can you give a reasoned opinion of the piece. This does presuppose that the author did, actually, intend a meaning to each and every line. Where that is in question the exercise is futile - just like assigning meaning to a splot of paint that many try to pass off as 'Art'. If Nam is unable to offer a definitive meaning behind his own words - each and every one of them - then I am insulted and angered that he is inviting me to read and invest thought on analysing his work on which he has not, himself, invested any thought.

In response to what Mags wrote, I get the impression that amateur authors of poetry choose words and phrasing solely because they sound 'poetic' and not because they actually mean anything. The fact that some quality poetry is non-literal and somewhat inaccessible is a useful smokesceen for lazy, vacuous writing - giving the impression of poetry but with no substance. The author, shallowly smug at his own poetic genius, blames a reader's lack of comprehension on literalist obtuseness or literary incompetence. Do you remember ever as a little kid making little illegible scribbles on a piece of paper pretending to do grown-up writing? That's what this reminds me of.

[Magdalena]

.....
In response to what Mags wrote, I get the impression that amateur authors of poetry choose words and phrasing solely because it sounds 'poetic' and not because it actually means anything. The fact that some quality poetry is non-literal and somewhat inaccessible is a useful smokesceen for lazy, inane writing - giving the impression of poetry but with no real substance on analysis. The author sits back, shallowly smug at his poetic genius and blames a lack of understanding on the reader's literalist obtuseness or literary incompetence. Do you remember ever as a little kid making little illegible scribbles on a piece of paper pretending to do grown-up writing? That's what this reminds me of.

It all goes back to what you said at the beginning, doesn't it?

Don't let them make you think that you're to blame for not getting it, Mags. If they can't connect the failure is all theirs... if it even makes any sense at all to the author.

When I was in 3rd grade, about 500 years ago,    in El Salvador, we studied poetry. I remember many poems and poets from Latin America. Even 550 years later I still remember, Ascensión, by Alfredo Espino. I must have been 8 years old, but I remember it, I remember what it made me feel, it was beautiful. The poet describes what he sees from the summit. It's like a beautiful painting, I can see what he sees, clearly, he was able to make me feel the cool wind in my hair. 

Not everyone can do that. I agree with you, maybe, the sentence "sounds 'poetic'" but that's not enough, the whole thing has to connect, from beginning to end.

[Nam]

That's what I'm talking about! There's sooooooo much mystery around poems! I hate it! It's like they, the poets, know sooooo much more than you! He is so smart, and you can't figure it out! It's like an exclusive club where only the "poets" are allowed and they write, and write, and from far away they watch you read their stuff and, "Our ignorance amuses them!"

Did you not study literature in school? It is a huge part of that, read a piece of literature and analysis it, often line by line. It is about reading comprehension, having an opinion on the words written, and expressing them in a coherent manner rather than getting the exact intention of the author.

Dissecting a piece of literature line by line is EXACTLY to establish the intention of the author. Only then can you give a reasoned opinion of the piece. This does presuppose that the author did, actually, intend a meaning to each and every line. Where that is in question the exercise is futile - just like assigning meaning to a splot of paint that many try to pass off as 'Art'. If Nam is unable to offer a definitive meaning behind his own words - each and every one of them - then I am insulted and angered that he is inviting me to read and invest thought on analysing his work on which he has not, himself, invested any thought.

In response to what Mags wrote, I get the impression that amateur authors of poetry choose words and phrasing solely because they sound 'poetic' and not because they actually mean anything. The fact that some quality poetry is non-literal and somewhat inaccessible is a useful smokesceen for lazy, vacuous writing - giving the impression of poetry but with no substance. The author, shallowly smug at his own poetic genius, blames a reader's lack of comprehension on literalist obtuseness or literary incompetence. Do you remember ever as a little kid making little illegible scribbles on a piece of paper pretending to do grown-up writing? That's what this reminds me of.

I'm not an amateur. I'm not only published worldwide, I've been paid for it on occasion. I do not interpret my work for people, nor do I go to poetry houses (cafes, slams) and read my work in front of people because I write it for them to read it, understand it in their viewpoint (or not), like it or not like it at their leisure. I feel if I, as the writer, have to explain everything I write to the reader then I fail as a writer. However, people who do not understand what is written have no business reading it to begin with. That makes them illiterate in the whole form itself.

I don't read something and say, "I don't get it" and then blame the author for not explaining it afterward. It isn't their job to explain it. I also don't say, "Well, I didn't understand it but I like it." That's nonsensical and stated by a lot of illiterate people in concern to poetry. And when I say "illiterate" my meaning is sort of like dyslexia. Like with me I have Dyscalculia. I don't blame the problem, or who came up with the problem for my disability to solve them.

One attempts to take things line by line. And that's with anything. Unless you have a disability like I do with math then it isn't that you do not understand it's that you don't want to understand. I would love to understand math but I don't. And not from a lack of trying it just is nonsense to me. Nonsense not by choice.

What's your excuse?

-Nam

[Siz]

So, you're saying that if at first I don't understand something I have no business reading it? Well, that puts a fair few scholars out of business doesn't it?! Fuck me, what a stupid thing to say!

Nam, you have just validated everything I wrote and insulted your entire audience.