Poetry.

[cosmicfolklore]

@Sam Gamgee it has some punctuation, but...

Me, Myself and I

I LOVE MYSELF
With all my flaws
In my Beautifulness,
In my mistakes,
In my weakness,
In my darkness.
I love myself, because I am worth it.
I am a high power person who can move mountains with my love, thoughts and dreams
I am good, kind, funny, full of life and love, contagious with my explosive energy
Some things may be equally essential but nothing is more important than loving oneself
And at this moment the love I have for myself goes above and beyond.
It could reach the end of the universe if I just unwrap it
I love me in my inane, craziest, sanest, beautiful twisted, darkest and funniest way
I love me in a way that no one does
I love me in my fullest woes
I am everything that I can and will be
I am frightfully proud of my flaws and proudly wearing them as no one is perfect
This is the start of a new journey to me
The journey of love and self acceptance
The journey to fully embrace and value my own self
I allow myself to fall in my stupidest and biggest way, just to get back up and catch my breath again
Failure will not stop me but make me stronger
I am fully seeing me and smiling at my imperfected and distorted reflection
Hugging myself so tightly, refusing to let go
The more I am spending time with me,
The more and more my love grows
Is it bad for my health ? I do not think so.
It’s true, I am better, happier, more free, powerful, at peace
The sun is shining on me
I don’t need no help to be beautiful, ‘cause I’ve got me
I’ve got that uncontainable light from within me
I am smoldering a treasure, sharing laughter, joy and sadness with myself
I have learnt the phases of myself
So distant from that little insecure girl I used to know
As I allow her opinions to matter
I have accepted her difference
Her different kind of beauty, I have learned to love
This feeling of wholeness, self acceptance, comfort and love, is liberating
I wrap myself around my contorted and beautiful else to form a ME
As I am, Raw and Real​

 

[mso489]

"Modern" poems go way back. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Hart Crane, T.S. Eliot, Yeats. If you want forms, go to Fred Chappell, though you have to know your prosody because he doesn't do the thumpety-bump sonnet or label his quatrains or villanelles. But he's mastered them all, and gone beyond.

However, I too dislike a lot of the poetry that flies in some reputable and renowned publications, where I'm thrown into a thicket of language to, in effect, write my own poem, which I'd be happy to do without their help.

I like a poem that seems cogent and coherent that reveals its intricacy as you go. Frost does that all the time. He sucker punches the reader -- first you think the point is obvious; then you see it is something else; and then you see that neither "conclusion" is the point, and you start thinking. Which is Frost's point. "Mending Wall" fools everyone, in its sequence of realizations. Most people go for the obvious, or the second most obvious, and completely miss the point(s).

 

[autumnfog]

I think metric rules are a straight jacket for writing.
Very much prefer Charles Bukowski's style.
Rhythm and power rather than rhyme.

 

[mso489]

Much free verse observes its own fairly rigorous forms -- lineation, line length, internal and slant rhyme, stanza length, diction/word choice, etc. Writing forms can tease out ideas and language that would otherwise not surface, and some current poems written in forms you barely recognize as such, so cleverly are the forms executed.

But it's true, forms that call attention to their meter and rhymes are often poorly done and awkward.

Dylan Thomas did some wonderful formal poetry, in which he (to steal his own image) danced in his chains like the sea.

 

[Sam Gamgee]

"Modern" poems go way back. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Hart Crane, T.S. Eliot, Yeats. If you want forms, go to Fred Chappell, though you have to know your prosody because he doesn't do the thumpety-bump sonnet or label his quatrains or villanelles. But he's mastered them all, and gone beyond.

However, I too dislike a lot of the poetry that flies in some reputable and renowned publications, where I'm thrown into a thicket of language to, in effect, write my own poem, which I'd be happy to do without their help.

I like a poem that seems cogent and coherent that reveals its intricacy as you go. Frost does that all the time. He sucker punches the reader -- first you think the point is obvious; then you see it is something else; and then you see that neither "conclusion" is the point, and you start thinking. Which is Frost's point. "Mending Wall" fools everyone, in its sequence of realizations. Most people go for the obvious, or the second most obvious, and completely miss the point(s).

I heard someone say once that modern poetry is only enjoyed by those who write it. Same goes for books written by professors and only read by other professors. The vulgar term for this would be a circle-jerk.

 

[mso489]

Considering the non-commercial image of poetry, you'd be amazed at the sales on some of the better-known contemporary poets. The few and the lucky are right up there with the bestseller authors. Most of the prestige publishers bring out magnificently produced collected works by the major people (as seen by the current generation of arbiters).

It's true that many poets are only well-known in writing circles (jerks or not). My only objection is new poets who write more poetry than they read. Now that's a problem.

Art in general requires the efforts of thousands to bring to the surface the few and the best, cruel as that is. And some are missed and surfaced only posthumously or not at all. John Donne was never published during his life, and I think Emily Dickinson had one poem published.

 

[Sam Gamgee]

My only objection is new poets who write more poetry than they read. Now that's a problem.

Same goes for music. There are so many albums being released and no way to even come close to digesting any of it in a meaningful way. I actually enjoyed music a lot more back when I had to pay for it. One, we value things we pay for; and two, buying one record at a time gave me the chance to fully get to know the music. Now it’s all just background noise. Part of the curse of too many options.