Prose just can't measure up to poetry

Poems are so much better than novels, plays and even movies. Thought?

I'll ignore the shitty bait and instead ask: how can one learn to appreciate poetry? I don't feel like I "get" anything from reading classics poets like Yeats, Whitman, or whomever.

Only Williams Whitman and Crane are better than the movies as O'Hara always sez

All of the greatest poets would strongly disagree with this. There's no "better" when it comes to forms of art.

>Thought?
Thought is also good.

Eventually something will tickle your soul. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Sometimes you just need to find the right poet. Don't bother trying to learn all the different methods and devices poets use at the start - I tried that, it put me off poetry because I was going in too technical. Then I found Housman and fell in love with his poetry, and it snowballed from there.

I guess it's shoddy advice, but that's the best I can say. Dig until you find your man.

>I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

No, that helps. Part of the issue is that it can be fairly intimidating to try and even understand what some poets like Crane are even writing about. But I'll keep at it. Do you have any recommendations?

Poets sometime set out to make a clear message, and often that can be picked up generally speaking. For me, I take poetry as I, not the poet, understand and see it. That's how I enjoy poetry. I am thankful for the poet for writing it, and if I enjoy it enough I'll research it - but my reading is my reading, and I'll do as I please. That's my approach, and that's how I appreciate poetry.

I'm not sure I can recommend any to you without knowing you. As I said, A.E. Housman is my favourite because I'm English, and his poetry appeals to my beliefs and view of the world - pessimistic namely. There is also the option of buying Bloom's anthology and looking through to each poet that you think you may like to read a taster. But there are also poets like Eliot, Emerson, Milton, Marvell and so on that I like. There are usually threads on here about poetry - browse through or even surf the web for poets you think may appeal to you.

I gotta agree. The fact that so many on this board elevate prose style in fiction above all while poetry remains under-discussed is a testament to how pseud we all are

I believe that a lot of poems draw from knowledge of the poet's life, so it's pretty tough to relate to keats and shit when you're not a irishman from a couple hundred years ago, so if you say that keats is your favorite you're just lying.

>The pairing of the mortal and the mundane
>You do so many meaningless things in your life and you may die during any one of them

Those words came to me as I was watching Louis "cuck" C. K. doing a bit on coping with the death of grandma

I thought they were cool enough, but then again I'm not done being a little bitch with my existential crisis

keats, yeats, whatever

Counterexample: Joyce.

I consider Joyce to have been the greatest 20th century poet, though he wrote not in verse.

I don't like poetry unless it rhymes.

Fite me irl

>".
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>"."

explain this

It's a common convention to only use an opening " when you have carriage returns in a quotation, then finally close the quote out at the very end.

Crane is fairly dense. Perhaps try Phil Larkin or Robert Frost. Both write fairly simple, straight, unadorned poems (which in Frost's case, almost always have a double meaning). There's a coursera course called Modern American Poetry aimed at beginners. It doesn't cover much in the way of your traditional structures (e.g. sonnets) but it's cosy and a nice intro.

I'm almost ashamed to be suggesting this, but don't be afraid of reading Tao Lin or some dinky local hipster rag. There's a lot of crap, but the poems are usually quite straightforward and there's a few gems here and there.

He is right. You will eventually find a poem that you like. Read it multiple times, and then read more from that poet.

Some people hate on him, but I really like Allen Ginsberg. Many of his poems are accessible and just nice to read. Try these from Allen:

In back of the real
Sunflower Sutra

and for longer works:

Howl
Kaddish

The fact that he wants people to read his work aloud to hear rhythms and rhymes means that he did write in verse.

Finnegans Wake and Waves are prose poems.

that's fair, but that means you dislike a lot of great poets great works.

Didn't Faulkner say that?

Also true. I guess my wording was wrong. Thanks for pointing that out without being an asshole. You da best

I'm calling bullshit.

Writing a novel is creating a world.

Writing a poem is just expressing a thought; when people are moved by a poem it is because they harmonize with the truth in that thought. (Poetry is a big circlejerk)

>you can churn out poems faster than you can novels. If you are a shitty writer, both will be equally shit.

>At every fuck I gave you your shameless tongue came bursting out through your lips and if a gave you a bigger stronger fuck than usual, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of your backside. You had an arse full of farts that night, darling, and I fucked them out of you, big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little merry cracks and a lot of tiny little naughty farties ending in a long gush from your hole. It is wonderful to fuck a farting woman when every fuck drives one out of her. I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. It is a rather girlish noise not like the wet windy fart which I imagine fat wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty like what a bold girl would let off in fun in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also.

>ywn write with such grace