Would you help me get into poetry please...

Would you help me get into poetry please? I've been fascinated with poetry after reading a little bit of The Book of Disquiet. I like stuff that has that really dense poetic language, the metaphorical language. I remember writing my own poetry before, when I was very disturbed and going through depression, it was visual metaphors were coming out of my sub conscious mind and I didn't know what I was going to write, but I just wrote and I was amazed at what came out about 2 or 3 times in my life. I like that sort of poetry, which is very abstract. I'm also a big pessimist, love dark philosophical stuff, horror, but I also love beauty, extreme beauty. Idk if prose poetry would necessarily always be better, but I have yet to find any of that rhyme and meter poetry that really sounded good to me.

Other urls found in this thread:

amazon.com/gp/product/0872863425/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A29G165BTNNM2Z
amazon.com/Fernando-Pessoa-Co-Selected-Poems/dp/0802136273/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465871746&sr=1-1&keywords=pessoa poetry
disquiet.com/thirteen.html
u.pomf.is/arwgeb.pdf
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_maturity
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Read the motherfucking sticky

Yeah, there's a poetry chart, but it tells me nothing about what I might like. I am also a big book buyer, I often buy a book or two that's recommended to me every time I make a thread on this forum.

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>regularly making rec begging threads
looks like it's time to commit suicide

Read T.S. Elliot, he is overrated but not bad.

4chanlit.wikia.com/poetry
literally wiki, open the link it's not a chart

I started with Keats and Shakespeare and they quite hooked me, to the point where now I am becoming less and less interested in novels. Read the romantic poets because they are the closest to what most people think poets are. You're absolutely going to have to read the greeks sometime, but don't start right away because you will be reading a translation and all the lyrical beauty is pretty much lost. Also don't read some bullshit book about rythm, rhyme or how to read poetry, just pick it up and figure it out yourself.

I have absolutely no interest in reading the proper way to do poetry. I'm sure if I read enough poetry that I'll eventually have an idea in my head of how poetry is supposed to be constructed. I imagine that will happen once I read enough poetry and really gain the 'feel" for the poems.
I am literally soaking in your fucking tears.

op whatever you do dont listen to this guy hes obviously a fuckin retard

suicide is about abstract as it gets

go on a poetry website and read 100 poems

search more into the ones you liked

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>Pessoafag makes ANOTHER book of disquiet recs thread

Why are you being mean to me?

because you're spamming the board with rec begging threads for a shitty /r9k/ book

dont be sad pls

I actually wasn't the one spamming the board, I already told you that there's two copy cat threads about pessoa and this is only the second thread I made about him this whole week. I actually am interested in getting into poetry when I made this thread, but I didn't foresee that there would be people making duplicate threads of mine, I'm almost positive they're just trying to shit post. Please don't be mad at me.

...

bump. going to bed.

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>I have absolutely no interest in reading the proper way to do poetry.

So what exactly do you want our help with? Just read poetry if that's what you want.

yeah I wanna know what poetry

Read Ezra Pound's The Cantos. Good start.

We can't tell you what you'll like. I suggest an anthology like Harold blooms or norton, assuming you're looking for English poetry.

I also suggest you at least learn at least a little about poetry, like meter and classical forms.

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kys

What the hell are you bumping for, you've been answered.

Idk, because I'm looking for recommendations. Preferably stream of consciousness style poetic prose.

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I did this elsewhere with someone else so I don't mind doing it here with you either. Read the following poems and tell me which you preferred and why.

- Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
- George Herbert, "Love (3)"
- John Milton, "When I Consider How My Light is Spent"
- Alexander Pope, "The Dying Christian to his Soul"
- John Dryden, "Hidden Flame"
- William Wordsworth, "Nutting"
- John Clare, "I Am"
- Tennyson, "In Memoriam", Canto 54
- W. B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"
- T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

getting yourself into a very specific and limited type of poetry isn't really getting into poetry

Pessoa was primarily a poet, you know? Read him, there are a few good translations of his poetry.

The Book of Disquiet is a modernist work, so check out the Americna Modernists:
T.S Eliot
Ezra Pound
Wallace Stevens
Hart Crane
etc.

>T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
I only read the first couple lines of this, but this is the most readable and enjoyable poetry I've read of all of those. I had no fucking clue what shakespear was saying, I sort of enjoyed the tennyson one and I liked the john milton one, even though I don't think I gathered the meaning, I liked the style.

thank you

French symbolist poetry, it fits your idea of horror/extreme beauty. I'd say read Baudelaire first since it fits best with your description. Mallarme is a softer more refined poet if you don't enjoy Baudelaire. Season in Hell by Rimbaud also is suited to what you described.

also, do you know the best translation of his poetry? I was going to get this one amazon.com/gp/product/0872863425/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A29G165BTNNM2Z

I've been recommended Richard Zenith's translations amazon.com/Fernando-Pessoa-Co-Selected-Poems/dp/0802136273/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465871746&sr=1-1&keywords=pessoa poetry

Here's a website where you can compare translations of a Pessoa poem: disquiet.com/thirteen.html

Who did the translation of the Book of Disquiet that you read?

I didn't realize there were multiple translations. I have the richard zenith edition. It's rather hard to read, but I recognize the beauty in the writing. I'd love to get the same book by a different translator and compare the two translations.

alberto caeiro
wallace stevens
rainer rilke
walt whitman

Oh, also maybe try Rainer Maria Rilke. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is the most beautiful work of prose I've ever read.

I ordered this recently and I have it on my shelf. Really looking forward to reading it.

I think that I am going to buy the complete t s elliot poems. That was seriously awesome, what I read from that post above. Also going to check out some of these posts too Thank you everyone

Hey man, it's good to find you again!
I'm the Brazilian guy that bought an old version of the Norton anthology because of your recommendation.

The book still hadn't arrived, but I did find something great, a full scan of the 5th edition, with OCR and bookmarks. It's absolutely fantastic.
Tell me if you're interested and I'll upload it for you.

Also, let me say that your "method" of reading poetry is very nice. I'm enjoying my books way more reading randomly than I did reading one book continually. Thanks again, friend!

A little worrying that you didn't understand any of the Shakespeare at all, especially since sonnet 18 is not particularly hard. Look up some analysis of it somewhere on the internet (it's probably the most famous poem in the entire language, so shouldn't be hard to find) and see if you like it more after that. The other poems you picked out didn't really have very much in common so it's hard for me to detect what it is that you liked about them. Maybe you could help me out here?

Oh hello again, glad to hear you're enjoying the Norton. I already own the 5th ed. in a paper copy so no need for the scan. And yeah, the systematic approach to reading poetry becomes laborious and unenjoyable very quickly. It's much better to stay light on your feet and allow yourself to be guided by your own whims. What new discoveries have you made?

Ah, yeah. Sorry. I will take some more time to look at the poems. I felt a little bit rushed when I looked at them and I admit that I didn't take enough time to analyze what I really thought about them.

I haven't read much of the anthology, I'm focusing on learning a little bit about verse right now because I feel I know too little.

I've been looking at the Veeky Forums "Meter, Form, Structure, and What it Means to You" recommendations and was disappointed to see that 3 out of those 5 books weren't available for downloading. But today I finally found a digital copy of John Hollander's "Rhyme's Reason", so I'm very happy!

It was uploaded on Bib today. I don't know if you have access so, would you like a link of this one?

I don't have that book so would love a link, if it's not too much bother for you. Do also have a look at the essays at the back of the Norton on the subject of versification and poetic syntax, as well as the one called "The Game of Interpretation", which is a kind of how-to template for thinking and writing about certain poets.

But just as a side note, make sure you avoid getting too bogged down with technical concerns about meter, rhyme, syntax, form, etc. These kinds of things are important but they should always come in second place. The crucial thing is that your response to a poem should be genuine, unforced and personal; by loading yourself up with theory in advance you may end up overwriting precisely those natural instincts which should serve as your guiding lights. Every good reader should cultivate these natural instincts; unfortunately, it is a common error to do the opposite, and drive them underground by a too strict adherence to technical concerns. I hope you won't fall into this trap: being able to scan a line is definitely useful, but it is no substitute for that genuine and unpretentious receptivity which the best readers possess.

It's no bother at all. I'm actually glad I can "repay" you a little for the great advice you gave me.
Here it is: u.pomf.is/arwgeb.pdf

As for the theory stuff, I know you're completely right. I'm only searching for a little of this knowledge because I have almost none, and I think some will help me get more out of the poetry I read. And I've been on Veeky Forums for a long time, so I know everything that comes from here has to be taken with a grain of salt. I don't fall for things like "you have to read all the Greeks" and "you have to read this in Sanskrit", so you bet I won't fall for "learning all the theory first" either.
But it's good advice, so thank you.

Also, my book just arrived! Hooray!!!
And even though it's the shorter version, it has a little something on prosody too at the end. This book is amazing.

hmm. I've tried twice to read these. I wish that these were more about cool esoteric shit. I don't really care that much about love and hate religion to be frank. I'm not gonna lie, it's a bit difficult to read these too.

bump. I am going to bed.

They are a little challenging but some effort should see you through them. I was hoping you'd read those poems more for their art than their subject matter. They represent quite a wide range of genres, eras and styles. Excluding love (sex) and god as subject matter will quite badly reduce the amount of poetry you can read: goodbye Dante, Milton and Petrarch, for instance. But maybe you could specify what you mean by "cool esoteric shit" and I can make some better recommendations for you.

Thanks a lot for the link, I'll have a look through it this afternoon. And please do let me know how you get on. I'm curious to see how your tastes develop. I don't come to Veeky Forums so often but will probably lurk whatever poetry threads I happen across. Or leave me an email or skype or something, if you'd like. Best of luck!

You can reach me at [email protected].
I would like to keep contact with you too. So please send me an email whenever you can, so that I know you saw this message.

I recently bought Poetic Designs and Rhyme's Reason, but I'm having a ton of difficulty understanding which words and which parts of words are stressed and unstressed. Do you have any advice on that? The books don't really treat it very well, and I feel like it's incredibly important for discovering what the poem's form is.

Try these:
William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief"
W.B. Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium"
Wallace Stevens, "Idea of Order at Key West"

>William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence"
well, william blake has way more "esotheric shit" than "auguries..."

auguries are basically like coleridge's ancient mariner

>He prayeth best, who loveth best
>All things both great and small;
>For the dear God who loveth us,
>He made and loveth all.

both of those poems are very pretty but their meaning and morale are simple

for esoteric stuff it would be be better to read something like his prophetic books

>Sotha and Thiralatha, secret dwellers of dreamful caves,
>Arise and please the horrent fiend with your melodious songs.
>Still all your thunders golden-hoofed...

if you're not the person who's the person your replying to replied to please make that clear.

This is a massive question so I can't really satisfy you entirely but I'll do my best. To quite a large extent it's a matter of experience; the more you read the more this ability comes naturally to you. But that answer doesn't help you much for now, so here's a technique you can try if you're having trouble with a particular word. Read it out loud to yourself, stressing different syllables each time. You'll hear that some of these pronunciations sound strange and wrong. For instance, take the word "hypothesis". If you try to read this out loud as hy-po-THES-is, you will hear that it obviously doesn't sound right. On the other hand, if you read it out loud as hy-POTH-e-sis, this sounds correct: so you can tell where the stress should be.

This method is useful for individual words but not really for lines at a time. For this -- and I am speaking now from personal experience purely -- I have found that it often helps me actually to try to _unfocus_ the ear rather than to focus it. Poetry is read, but it's also listened to: so try to hear a poem like you would a piece of music, and simply allow the music of the lines to strike your ear with their natural cadence and rhythm. For instance, take this famous line of Keats:

>Thou wast not born for death immortal bird

If you read it out loud to yourself you will hear that there's a natural da-DAM da-DAM da-DAM da-DAM da-DAM going on here. "thou WAST not BORN for DEATH im-MOR-tal BIRD". So the foot is iambic. You can hear that it has a lilting, pleasant cadence, one which is easily readable and doesn't jar on the ear at all; it has a continuous and easy rhythm, which drives the reader forward without either hurrying him or slowing him. Compare it with this line from the same poem:

>Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Here, by contrast, you can hear that the pace of the line slows down considerably right at the end. Purely metrically, what's going on here is that every syllable including "few" and thereafter is stressed. This line is not easy to read; it is not euphonious or musically pleasant; it makes you slow down and focus on every word individually. Which is, of course, precisely the point. By stressing all of these words describing the misery and sadness of old age, that state is thereby made to seem all the more unpleasant; the line is as jarring as the state it describes. Looking back to the previous line, it makes sense that the musicality of the iambic pentameter should apply to the "deathless" nightingale, but it would obviously be inappropriate here.

The reason I mentioned all of that, by the way, was to reaffirm what I was saying earlier: that understanding of metre and the other technical components of poetry is important, but only insofar as it furthers an actual understanding of the text. There's not much point in simply knowing a line is iambic or trochaic or whatever. But if you are able to relate that knowledge to the actual goings-on of the poem, as I have done with the Keats, you'll see that it helps you form a genuine understanding of what you're reading. There are many moving parts to a poem: understanding them individually is pointless; it's when you see how they work together that you can truly understand the text.

Thanks a lot, man. Here's another question for you, from the second line you provided from Keats:

How can you tell if a monosyllabic word is stressed or unstressed? Your example with breaking up "hypothesis" sounds great, but what do you do for "few" and "sad" and "last"?

There's no real answer to this, it depends on context. These words could all have been unstressed if used differently. In this case you can tell they are meant to be stressed from the way they're arranged in the line, almost as a list. If you try reading the line iambically -- "a FEW sad LAST grey HAIRS" -- you'll hear that it sounds absurd; it's way too fast and clearly doesn't strike the right note.

This is what I mean about unfocusing the ear. There's no fool-proof method which will always get you the right answer, but if you unfocus the ear and simply let the line impact upon you, you'll hear the stresses stand out naturally.

I'm thrilled to read the last line you said there. I feel like I'm missing out a lot when reading poetry because I can't just look at it for a moment and say "ah, yes, that is iambic pentameter" or anything like that, even though I hear that music and feel the impact of it.

Yeah, exactly. A lot of people have their natural poetic receptivity ruined by very bad English teachers who load them up with technical jargon, and as a result they read poetry with this prejudice that they must have something very clever like "oh that's onomatopoeia" or "oh that's antimetabole" to say about it. In reality this impedes understanding more than it helps. If you are able to look at a poem and have some kind of intuitive personal response to it, then you've got the valuable part down; everything else can be learned. It is better to be able to feel the metre of a poem without knowing the name for it than it is to know the name for it without being able to feel it. Ultimately, of course, the ideal is that you can do both. But I definitely feel that technical matters should come second.

Yeah, no. Read more.

See mathematical maturity. Same concept.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_maturity

Very interesting, hadn't heard of this but it's exactly spot-on. Thanks.

Awesome. Thanks a lot pal

Get the Norton Anthology of Poetry and/or The Best Poems of the English Language and see which poets you like.

I actually got the norton anthology of poetry and modern poetry on hard back.

Hmm. To expound on what I mean, maybe something surreal and abstract and dream like and dark? but it's also not in yet. I just ordered it a few days ago.

>maybe something surreal and abstract and dream like and dark?
Sounds like you should be hunting down Poems for the Millennium vol 1-3

this is load of shit, most english teachers ignore anything technical for the most part because it's not crucial to the curriculum. I would know, I actually teach.

furthermore, you're preaching your opinion as some sort of guideline; "intuitive reception" or whatever the fuck you're on about isn't always what poetry's about, that's like saying poetry is about your feelings and emotions. and beside that, much of the time you can't "receive" anything from the poem without understanding what's going in underneath the words, ie the metre form structure and so on.
you can watch a game of football and think "haha sick, that dude just smashed that dude" when someone gets tackled. yeah, great genuine response that provoked an emotion from you. but then you have no idea why it happened or what its purpose is, you just saw some fuck get his brains rumbled.
suppose if you're fine with reading for "feelings" then putting the technical side behind is acceptable, but just know you're going to miss a lot and you're not getting the full experience. knowing what's going on lets you appreciate it even more, and makes reading much more enjoyable similar to knowing the rules of a sports game, even if metre etc arent rules but tools.

definitely gonna get these. thank you.

I don't know where you are from, but I do know how most English teachers operate in my country; and because I've spoken to a lot of people who tell me the same thing about their experiences, I know that what I have said about how English is often taught isn't based on nothing. I'm sorry that you're so bothered by the relatively elementary advice that I have given, but if what you got from all of my posts was "interpretation = feelings derp", then you've clearly understood little of what I'm saying. I am not arguing that an emotional but unthinking response is the end result of interpretation; quite the opposite, I am saying that this is the starting point. It is the right starting point, but nevertheless a starting point. Because the people I am responding to have said that they are themselves quite new readers of poetry I felt this was the right advice to give.

The things you have singled out -- metre, form, structure -- are significant only insofar as they produce an effect; this effect can often be appreciated without knowing the words for it. Sensitivity towards these things is the most important thing. I agree that a full understanding of poetry is possible only with a technical awareness. But it must proceed from the other; on its own, the people who know the words for things without being able to identify how they contribute to an overall understanding of the text are not skilled readers and make for sorry critics (and even worse poets). Because a lot of people are taught that their personal response must be secondary to a formal metrical analysis, I have sought to correct this mistake.

I don't believe you really are a teacher, because anyone who misread my very straightforward posts as saying one should "read for feelings" could not hope to make sense of something more complex, like a poem, and so has little business teaching others. Is it not clear from when I wrote that "everything else can be learned" that there is indeed more to be learned? I can tell from your post that you are a very silly and stupid person. I won't be able to reply to this post because I have to travel, but I have to say that I very much hope that nobody takes your opinions seriously.

Sorry I can't do much for you; I had to respond to this clown, but I see others have already given you suggestions and I hope you enjoy them.

Is there gonna be sick esoteric stuff in these, or is it just gonna be a bunch of inoffensive academic stuff?

you've said absolutely nothing except "you can get it without knowing it", it's awful advice. you're putting the horse before the wagon, and i hope to god nobody listens to you when you say learning how poetry works shouldn't come first.

and, im actually amused how clueless you are when you talk about the education system. American education focuses almost entirely outside of metre and so on in poetry, occasionally you'll get a lesson on iambic pentameter in Shakespeare, that's as far as it goes if it goes that far. please don't pretend you know about this.

anyone sincere about getting into poetry will learn it before they "dude just perceive it", anybody tricked by that will stick to bukowski so im not worried about dissuading them or you

I'm totally with the other guy. He gives advice, explains his points and gives examples. You, on the other hand, are just a dick.

i wrote the wiki buddy

fucking wow m80

btw, i wrote the bible

if im a dick it's because i deal with 30 new chucklefucks a day who think they're an authority on what i spent my life doing and they like to approach with the idea that they know what they're talking about when in reality they haven't even been alive long enough to have read half of what they should've.

Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands
>Wordsworth, to the spade of a friend

Maybe that's true, maybe not (you might even be a dog, as far as I'm concerned).

What I'm sure of is that the guy you're calling this and that is absolutely not a "chucklefuck-whatever". He is a poetry aficionado that understands that people have to begin somewhere on their readings, and because of that, gives good, fitting advice.
While you in comparison is just a shitposter that has something of value to offer, but certainly didn't to this moment.

like i said i dont care if you want to start reading poetry with not knowing how to read poetry, more power to you if you just want to jack off. im just letting the ones that don't know that you're full of shit

Anyone know of an anthology of non-English poems (not specific to one language but has little or no English poems)?

You know I'm not him, right? Because if he was here he'd be kicking your ass violently.

Anyway, say what you want. He gave us great advice, you gave us shitpost. Not that hard to decide whose opinions hold more value.

But do you want an anthology of foreign poetry translated to English, or in their original language? Because I think the later would be quite hard to find.

you aren't likely to find a conglomeration of poems from different languages in one volume, if that's what you're asking, since very few people would be interested in one. if you google around you'll find some contemporary ones, but those are mostly left-leaning projects made in an attempt to be progressive. might be something you'd like, im guessing otherwise.

i can give you some recs for german anthologies and chinese ones though

oh no please dont beat me in a bout of online warriorship, the last thing i want is to have my virtual ass kicked in a battle of Veeky Forums wit and wisdom.

fuck off monkey, if you want actual help reading poetry read the wiki. otherwise go back to your "perceiving" and stop wasting my replies
4chanlit.wikia.com/poetry

Translated to English.

>left-leaning projects made in an attempt to be progressive
I'm looking for classical poems from other languages.

It's unfortunate there isn't any such anthology from what I kind find.

Maybe you could waste your fantastic replies on another thread, then.
You know, those DFW threads don't bump by themselves.