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View Poll Results: do you consider yourself a poet? | |||
Yes, I consider myself more than just a singer. My lyrics are everything to me | 2 | 12.50% | |
No, I'm not that pretentious | 4 | 25.00% | |
Well, I consider myself both a singer/performer and a poet | 3 | 18.75% | |
No, I'm not that good. I try to write good lyrics though | 4 | 25.00% | |
My lyrics suck ass. Hell no | 3 | 18.75% | |
Voters: 16. You may not vote on this poll |
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06-26-2010, 08:54 PM | #11 (permalink) |
Partying on the inside
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 5,584
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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. |
06-26-2010, 08:57 PM | #12 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Oct 2005
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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... |
06-26-2010, 09:20 PM | #13 (permalink) | |
killedmyraindog
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Posts: 11,172
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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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06-26-2010, 09:32 PM | #14 (permalink) |
Still Crazy Nutso!
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: California, USA
Posts: 148
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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.
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06-26-2010, 10:05 PM | #15 (permalink) | ||||||||
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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. Quote:
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06-26-2010, 10:06 PM | #16 (permalink) | |
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06-26-2010, 10:23 PM | #19 (permalink) |
killedmyraindog
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Posts: 11,172
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For the record...
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06-26-2010, 10:40 PM | #20 (permalink) |
Still Crazy Nutso!
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: California, USA
Posts: 148
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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! |
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