Freebase Dali

I generally write lyrics that mean something to me and catalogs some important part of my life in a way that lets me exercise some kind of creativity. Regardless of whether it's poetic, creative, or crap, I don't go into it with a definition in mind nor do I care. I write what I like. It's great when someone can relate to what I'm saying, but as far as whether someone thinks it should fit some kind criteria or not, it doesn't affect me in the least because I don't do it for anyone but myself.
I think that if your motive is to please everyone else, then you're not being true to yourself and your words won't hold much personal weight. While I agree that there are certain attractive methods of literary implementation, I think the author's motive shouldn't be based on meeting those imposed standards, but instead, be based on the emotional content and the intent presented in the piece.

Write what you want to write. If you aspire to be some great poet, then learn how to do that. But if you simply want to express your emotions creatively, then just do what comes natural to you.
If anything, the real poetry involved in the whole thing is not the meeting of a standard, but the ability to reach even one other person emotionally. The words don't have to be fancy to do that.

bungalow

or to give a contemporary example, what about a songwriter like joanna newsom? these are the lyrics to her song 'emily' from the album ys;

The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow
Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport over the pharaoh
A little while later the Pharisees dragged comb through the meadow
Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?

There is a rusty light on the pines tonight
Sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow
Down into the bones of the birches
And the spires of the churches
Jutting out from the shadows
The yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks and the bale and the barrow
And everything sloped like it was dragged from a rope
In the mouth of the south below

We've seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey
We thought our very hearts would up and melt away
From that snow in the night time
Just going
And going
And the stirring of wind chimes
In the morning
In the morning
Helps me find my way back in
From the place where I have been

And, Emily - I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever,
In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky'd been breathing on a mirror

...


are they less poetic (or less poetry) because they are set to music and sung? william blake's songs of innocence and songs of experience were meant to be sung as well (and therefore songs) and I don't think anyone would argue that 'ah, sun-flower' is not a poem;

Ah, Sun-flower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done:

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.


i think blake's poem also says something towards big3's claim that rhyming is for 'simpletons' in poetry...

TheBig3

I thought someone would do something like this. The truth is, lots of well liked and very talented poets rhymed. That being said, they reflected a moment in time. That moment isn't today.

This will be the last thing I write on this subject because I can already smell the ****-tacular "well technically you can" horse**** that permeates the I-told-you-so youth of modern America.

If you want to defend the dorm-room trash that thinks Dave Matthews and Robert Plant were poets, thats your choice. Be aware that thats who you'll now hold company with. Don't be pissed when you're judged accordingly.

People who think songwriters can be poets are largely in this grouping.

1. They are the same people who think Charles Shultz and Stan Lee are "painters."

2. They could give a **** less about poetry, they just want to increase their stature as they grandstand to young co-eds. Being a poet to most acoustic-slung dip****s has 0 to do with being William Blake, it has everything to do with getting pussy, and having said pussy blow them in another medium.

"oh my god you're such a poet"

Let me ask you a question. How often do you think any poet considers themselves a "songwriter." How many songwriters consider themselves speech writers, or orators? I'm not making a point here, I'm just asking. I've never met one. If you have great for you, but the assumption that being one linguistical laborer makes you equatable to all other skills because "hey man its all English" means you don't know what you're talking about.

What play-write have you ever heard refer to themselves as a "poet." English is a living, complex language. Poet has several meanings, and things can be "poetic" without them being poetry. And I'm willing to give an inch on what is and isn't a "writer" of any stripe.

But I know a self-congratulating line when I see one. And this is one of them. The fact that Bungalow bring up Robert ****ing Burns - like that's what the OP or anyone else who brings up this ridiculous topic had in mind - is contrarian bull****. I mean if you were going to make the claim, you'd have a much better shot with Leonard Cohen. At least he's a popular songwriter.

its an insult to great works and, as I've said earlier, that's your decision. But you're setting things up to allow every a-hole with a hard-on for jam-folk artists to parade around with their feathers out to proclaim their something more than a 3-chord joke of an act.

Words mean a lot more than the dime-store abortion turned out by most artists. It goes beyond the insult to poetry, poets, and the labor they put in to call songwriters poets, its an insult to the English language.

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thomasracer56

Let's face it, in my perspective, if one makes both poems and songs, then you can consider him/her both, but a song is a song and a poem is a poem, and the most instrument a poem has gotten is a harp, and those days are centuries past. Enough said. The answer is if their writings are that flexible, then call them that if you want.

bungalow

you should have thought someone would do this, it was an obvious retort to your silly claim. who are you to say what poetic devices have merit at this moment in time and which don't? or why should anyone regard your opinion seriously anyway? there are people composing great poetry all over the world and some choose to rhyme their poems, some choose to rhyme some of their poems, some choose to rhyme some of some of their poems, some choose not to rhyme...for you to make definitive statements like 'rhyming is for simpletons' or 'rhyming is for simpletons at this moment in time' and say that some method of composing is inherently better than another is ridiculous---so well done on anticipating the call-out.

what makes rhyme so unlearned (or unskilled) to you anyway? rhyme done well, like any other device, serves its purpose in a poem and often highlights the beauty of your dear, dear english language. if the way blake crafted words was beautiful in his time, why wouldn't it also be beautiful in our time? i would be impressed with any modern poet who uses rhyme and our language as wonderfully as blake.

what a shame this discussion can't continue because you have pegged my entire attitude and viewpoint with a four word epithet. i guess you will have to forgive me for having the last word.

well i don't fall into either of those groups and don't think dave matthews or robert plant are poets. not sure where that lands me on your spectrum, not sure i care.

who cares how the artist would label his or herself? and if they were writing poems that are songs, and are meant to be sung, why would they also object to being labeled songwriters? is there some negative connotation to the word 'song' that i'm unaware of? not all poets are songwriters, not all songwriters are poets, there simply exist people who write songs that are also poems (or poems that are also songs) and semantically it is fair to label these people both poets and songwriters--and where it is applicable, the work they create both poems and songs. and i didn't equate those various forms of language manipulation. you are the one who is implying that me allowing for the existence of people who are both songwriters and poets leads down some deterministic path where john yoo is considered a dramatist.

again, who cares how they refer to themselves. shakespeare is both a poet and a playwright, however.
i agree. what's your point? there are times when the arts overlap.

i'm sorry that my reference to a songwriter-and-poet in a thread concerning songwriters-as-poets was too self-congratulatory for you--at least it provided you a way to sidestep my larger point about robert burns. he existed then, and i'm sure there is some burns-obsessed scottish mimic in aberdeen writing poems that are songs, or some songwriter inspired by blake writing songs that are poems.

i'm not calling songwriters poets as a blanket statement. i'm not making any blanket statements, and me allowing for songwriters-as-poets among the things i can conceive does not inevitably knock every domino from speechwriters-as-novelists to the complete degradation of the english language. quit being so dramatic.

bungalow

well, the song 'emily' i posted earlier is set to harp (and 2005 is hardly centuries past) and the songpoems of robert burns are just that, songs and poems and at the same time.

thomasracer56

I'm not talking about songs on harp, I'm talking about poems on harp. POEMS ON HARPS WERE IN THE MIDDLE AGES WHEN THEY HAD EPIC POETS. No epic poets that are famous here today.

bungalow

BUT THE SONG 'EMILY' FROM 2005 IS ESSENTIALLY AN EPIC POEM, SET TO HARP!! crazy stuff

TheBig3

For the record...

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thomasracer56

WIKI SAYS HE'S A POET/LYRICIST, HE DOESN"T WRITE SONGS!!!
My initial post was that poetry doesn't get instrument other than harp. I don't hear of poets with guitar or trumpet.

Robert Burns on WIKIPEDIA!