Tfw you finally understand what makes a good poem

>tfw you finally understand it's not about writing a good poem but about writing a great unbound, independent creation which the masses may classify as a poem

this

Sorry but this was it

read the complete works of shakespeare then read the characters of shakespeare by Hazlitt and the invention of the human by bloom and shakespeares language by kermode and you will have an understanding of what literature can do and how to analyse it. There's probably a way easier way but that's how I did it and reading shakespeare is never a waste of time

but yeah I guess a more general recommendation would be to read critical works on authors you have read, essays also, just expose yourself to the kinds of thinking that critics use to analyse the text.

...

That's unironically better than most of the poems written by people on this board

Your issue is that you haven't read bad prose. Go to Wattpad right now and dig until you can't read for plot or character. As for good or bad prose, that's subjective; a writer's only hope is to have SOLID prose, writing that is effective - clear, concise, musical perhaps?

>go to wattpad right now and dig until you can't read for plot or character
That sounds like an intense torture method right there: your captor grooms you to be patrician when it comes to literature, and then forces you to read only wattpad fanfiction 24/7 in a dimly lit Serbian dungeon.

>it's when you take words out of a specific thematic field.

ex?

I would say when you consider the whole poem and LoG it's the truth, because it works in a grand framework of beauty. When you take the passage out individually it sounds kind of like normal advice.

better than rupi, sincerely

Wait hold on this is not bad

>tfw a 6 year old writes better poetry than you

Now im going to give you a really bad example, but let's say you'd be talking in your poem about purity or something simple and you would try to include nouns that relate to let's say birth, so you'd be using nouns like "carriage, sheets, newborn, milk, lullaby" whenever you could. Not literally of course, you'd make comparissons. I'm not a native speaker, but i hope i explained that's how you paint a coherent picture. Its so frustrating when the author's mind is all over the place, drawing in images from all sorts of themes all together just because they "fit the meaning best". You can of course break this rule if you're onto something great or if it's a completely associative poem. I tried to explain best I can, hope it helps

Children actually write very creative and compelling stuff, the only 'problem' is that what they're writing and what you're reading are separate entities.

In answer to OP's question. To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme and figures of speech, then ask two questions: 1) How artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered and 2) How important is that objective? Question 1 rates the poem's perfection; question 2 rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining the poem's greatness becomes a relatively simple matter.

If the poem's score for perfection is plotted on the horizontal of a graph and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness.

A sonnet by Byron might score high on the vertical but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great.

that's fucking bad ass

I unironically love it.

I'm not really into poetry. Could you put into words what it was you liked about it?

That was a disgusting movie.

That's actually quite good.

Good job Nael.

So you didn't like it?

Keats is dead so fuck me from behind

> tfw you finally understand what makes a good poem
>tfw this knowledge can't be explained

I'll re-up on this.

Tiger Tiger in a cage, all of heaven in a rage
This mortal frame restrains no more
And bursting forth a glorious roar: YES

So deep it felt like your mom's vag.

It's simple and emotive and uses very little language to get across a message. This brand of minimalism is popular these days

Sweden

The nigger
He destroyed his land
Yes
YES
The nigger is here

> muh white genocide

>tfw I always knew how to write beautiful poetry but refuse to share my secret because the more people with talent the less special the talented seem

>better than rupi

boy nothing gets past you

I do like this, but i feel like everyone is saying its better than it actually is, purely based off of age. If anyone on this board came out with this and posted it they'd receive a shit storm of criticism.

But yeah good shit little dude.

NO no i think you dont get this.

this

I remember when i first started reading Camus i would research the book i was about to start before even touching it. Research the book and the author. desu knowing what the author was all about is more important than researching the book.

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Prose is a tricky thing to judge because most of the time the prose itself is merely a vessel, even though there are times where you can appreciate a certain way the author had with words and how he tackled the task of putting to writing the subject at hand. But still, most of the time I think when people talk about "good prose" they are actually praising the author's approach to and use of themes and motifs in the book, rather than the actual prose itself.

But has that other guy said, the easiest way to appreciate good prose is to read bad prose, go read some shitty YA novel and see how quickly you notice the difference in prose quality. If you're on here and read books that are reccomended here it's easy to take good prose for granted, because, all memes aside, authors that get talked about here are at the very least considered to be "good", as in, they are experienced and respected in the craft of writing prose and everything they write is at the very least competent. And since prose quality is such a technical thing, trying to write prose yourself is also a good way to appreciate the fine details of good prose.

theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/-em-dead-poets-society-em-is-a-terrible-defense-of-the-humanities/283853/

theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/-em-dead-poets-society-em-is-a-terrible-defense-of-the-humanities/283853/

>the invention of the human
is this worthwhile? i read his "best english poetry" and was really turned on by it, but "in the shadow of a great rock" was really lazy and not worth it.

i could use a little help with shakespeare, but i'm not sure if bloom is the one to see me through.

FALSTAFF
A
L
S
T
A
F
F

The shameless simplicity of it is actually pretty refreshing when it seems that all minimalist poets always try to hide themselves behind a veil of sophistication. It seems to me that the current prevailing attitude towards minimalism is one of "simplicity isn't simple", and this 6 year old just fucking stumbles into the most pure simplicity through sheer childishness.

Also that second YES caught me off guard.

had you not known the author was a 6 year old, you would have discarded his poetic effort faster than a McDonalds employee disposes of her soggy tampon on her lunch break

this 100%

>implying "age 6" isn't a brilliant metatextual device and a part of the poem itself

let me try again

tiger in

a

cage

NO more

beautiful

No, not really. There's something about the childlike simplicity of the poem that makes it refreshing, regardless of the authors age. It's refreshing to see something go for simplicity in a sea of pretentious "poets" trying so hard.

>Yes
>YES

fuck me, this is brilliant

>yes
>YES
positively Joycean

It was the first one of those three that I read, and the worst, but I would still consider it worth reading for reasons I'm not sure I know how to articulate - the most important bit of advice would be that you are allowed to skim somewhat - I have realised after reading TIOTH and The Western Canon by Bloom that when he says things like "Iago is the clear forerunner of Dostoyevsky's nihilists and Milton's Satan and McCarthy's Judge" he will do so repeatedly in a way that makes you think he is going to expand on these things, but he won't, and that's because he doesn't have his work edited and probably because he doesn't have the space in a 800 page book to fit that in (and highly likely he doesn't have the creative faculties to lay it out in a coherent manner for the intelligent layman anyway). Just read what he has to say and try to absorb the way he approaches the work.

One of the best things, actually, about TIOTH and to an extent Kermode's Language, is that it serves in some ways as a mystery novel about what the fuck Shakespeare actually did in his life. How did a middle class man get a 26 year old woman pregnant when he was 18, then turn up as a slightly above average playwright 15 odd years later, then grow to become the greatest writer that ever lived, all while being a brilliant businessman. And what sort of a man was it who after composing the greatest body of work known in all literature, went back to live in Stratford, not writing, ostensibly not doing anything of significance for three years until he died - this the same man who ten years earlier created King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra in a 14 month period? Why did a man who despite being more involved in the theatre than any of his contemporaries and showed clear knowledge of the nature of literary immortality in his sonnets, made no discernible attempt to preserve copies of his work for posterity?

This sort of stuff may sound sentimental or nonliterary, but it's sprinkled very loosely through the work and makes for a fascinating refrain and really helped me to understand the magnitude of what Shakespeare accomplished. Plus of course, if you are yet to read a critical companion (I wouldn't say that's exactly what these are but you get the idea) then I can assure you Bloom is a worthwhile read even if only to let you absorb the critical mindframe by osmosis.

And yes, I can assure you a certain overweight knight will be mentioned at least once.

>calling poets pretentious
woah user that's a very unpopular opinion you have there

that's quite pretentious of you to say.

you're not wrong though. I think he just picked the wrong word. contrived simplicity that masks 'I'm smarter than what I appear to be' is quite annoying in poetry.

I'm calling a particular type of poets pretentious, retard; the poets who only use poetry as an intellectual wankfest where they spew a bunch of obscure words and convoluted phrases onto a piece of paper. And slam poets, but that's a different thing entirely.

wow, thank you for taking the time to write all this, user.

the thing i love most about bloom's "english poetry" is that he has the audacity to make statements such as "all poets since wordsworth owe him the largest debt, even if unconsciously" and let those stand on their own merits. since i respect his opinion on certain things (not as a tastemaker, though), i take those statements as somewhere between a "fallacy towards authority" and self-evidently true; the truth of such statements will either resonate with me instantly, or they won't. it seems that, given your iago example, he continues writing in this fashion.

as for the other two, would you recommend kermode over hazlitt? also (tangentially), i've been looking for a publisher of critical companions worth a damn—for instance, i know what "crime and punishment" means to me, and i can discuss it in a very personal manner, but it's difficult to articulate the work's importance or experience without directing it back to me, the reader. ideally, such a collection of essays would allow me to combine my own experience with expert opinion.

i know what to read and how to read it, i just want to learn how to speak about it. thanks again, user

The first two lines and the last one are almost like an haiku where the poet is merely observing nature, but then the kid interjects in the events with an outpouring of his own emotion at seeing those events in the most ridiculously simple way you can possibly imagine. Good shit

The fact that he's 6 excuses some things like not capitalizing a proper noun and the second line sounding kind of awkward, there's obviously a higher expectation for posters on this board in that respect. What he hits on that most writers can't do even with practice is the sentiment. He could definitely produce something worthwhile if he learned how to command the language without losing the emotion and imagery he put into this. I have a book of poems from my grade school lying around somewhere and it's filled with roses are red and people using each letter of their name as the first letter of an adjective to describe themselves.

Yeah I love the same thing about Bloom's authoritative declarations - I expect one day I'll hate it in the same way that he said he read Fearful Symmetry by Frye a hundred times when he was young and yet you couldn't pay him to read Frye today, but I don't mind that, because for where I, and probably you and probably most people on this board are at in their understanding of literature, we still benefit just by proclamations from stupidly well read people in order to tell us where to go next.

I like Kermode over Hazlitt in that it addresses specifically how Shakespeare's writing changed, whereas Hazlitt is essentially another introduction to the plays like TIOTH (I mean obviously it has a bigger focus on the characters supposedly, but I imagine with Shakespeare all general introductions end up being about the characters). I mainly read the Hazlitt to get an idea of what Shakespearean thought was like 200 years ago, I'm pretty sure it's not that long but felt very long to read and I had to read it on the computer, which I hated, but there's no denying it's a major work on Shakespeare.

As to the how to convey your thoughts thing - I have found it really is just a case of reading the thoughts of great critics (and maybe philosophers though I've only recently looked into that, I'm really just a pleb at philosophy and anyone who hasn't seriously studied it academically who tells you they're not a pleb is almost certainly bullshitting) and developing your understanding of critical thought, and take notes or at least paraphrase what you've learned. I would say write a page or two of thoughts every time you finish reading something - its a great way to force yourself to think with focus and to develop your understanding and ability to set out your thoughts. Also take a few short poems or pieces of prose and analyse the fuck out of them on a close reading scale to see how all the elements fit together and harmonise/oppose each other - this is a great way to develop an artistic sense which is important for reading even if you don't want to write. Developing your aesthetic intuition really is essential.

hard to tell. could very well be an accident. someone should certainly have a sit down with the little guy and see where it came from.

Shakespeare can't have been actually Shakespeare. It's all so strange.
>he just went back home and never wrote another play ever again
It makes no sense at all.

it gives me a rallying cry, I'm rooting for the tiger and he wins! hurray!

this guy gets it
the next step was obviously posting that poem on a taiwanese underground professional literary critic board

Really good.

explains me thoughts perfectly well. I hate the kinds of things that glorify the idiocy of weak teachers and celebrate how inspiring they are simply because they don't suck as much as those who are even worse.

This is a new level of delusional. thanks user

He knew he ended litetature, there was nothing else to be done.

I hope everyone is just being ironic when they praise this immaturity.

Says the facebook fuckstain

Nope

Beautiful poetry user.

Every single person who's saying this is great is literally just projecting over the fact that a six year old wrote this. There's no form, no meter, no rhythm. You have an unintentionally clever idea which is neatly self contained, and that's all it has for it. And I say unintentionally because there is no meaning here, the kid probably likes tigers and wrote about being happy one escapes from (imprisonment) the zoo or circus or whatever. But you're pompous minds are implementing all your own understanding and thoughts over what is simply childhood innocence. And age does not make a great poem. Being a kid--innocence--does not make a great poem. The poem and the authorial intent make a poem good. And this is just a very lose 'poem' a child wrote. I'd say the kid shows potential, but only if it were carefully explained to him why.

Get over yourselves.

>There's no form, no meter, no rhythm

Stopped reading after this.

>>implying "age 6" isn't a brilliant metatextual device and a part of the poem itself

Oh yeah, you're probably one of those modern, free-form poets who puts line breaks inbetween every syllable because, it like, totally emphasizes the emotion in a simple way. And I wouldn't get it because I'm a hack.

Was I in the ballpark? Some 21 year old kid in the internet age of 21st century knows best about a classic art form surely.

I read you say that before. The kid did not write this knowing he was a six year old and that the fact would then contextualize and solidify the poem. He was a six year old who wrote about a tiger getting free because he's a six year old.

But you're probably just happy you got to use the term 'metatextual device'.

And double checking the meaning of 'metatextual', it's an INTENTIONAL method used by THE AUTHOR to enhance or juxtapose with other text within their text. It's more like allusion. Not the authors age being stated as an informational snippet included by the publisher. It has nothing to do with authorial intent.

>Oh yeah, you're probably one of those...

Nope.

On behalf of all genuine literary critics

Stay indoors user.

Keep reading 'intelligent' poems written by six years olds. You'll be a hit at family dinners if you ever show up to them.

I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.

I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.

I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt-

Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth-
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.

Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?

Heaven gives it glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.

One of my favorites.

Fantastic poem, very pleasant.

>But you're probably just happy you got to use the term 'metatextual device'.

wew lad, nice projection there. it was a mere joke. and can you not imagine a world in which one would derive merit from a metatextual reading of that poem. sure, the kid's writing was most likely driven by a trivial expression, but can one not enjoy accidents?

Words.

Unfortunately, that's also what makes a bad poem, so my enlightenment hasn't gotten me all that far.

There's no projection. It was clearly a stretch to call it that which means he just wanted to call it that. There is nothing wrong with enjoying accidents. It's not like I'm blind to what you're saying, I see it to. But the reality is it was an accident and not really worth the praise it got. Good for the kid, hopefully he does something with it and hopefully he was told why it really is considered good. But it just goes to show that the world is going soft for the worse.

This is actually really helpful. Thanks!

Because you know damn well if someone wrote the same thing at twice his age, it'd get a c for effort and he'd probably not want to write. The 12 year old could have had the same intent, same meaning and same everything and just because he's older, it wouldn't be as good.
What I'm trying to show you is the logical rift there. Things can be accidentally good. But this isn't, this is an average poem by a six year old that was blown out of proportion by hipsters and contrairians.
The ONLY other way this would receive praise is if a very famous and now dead poet wrote it (title, pseudonym and age, and all).

Nobody is saying its Shakespeare

Its just better than most stuff here.

Thanks, OP. I did notice that about literature, as far as setting tone. Like the words 'children,' 'offspring,' and 'brood' can all mean the same thing, but they have different connotations. Like children make you think of humans, offspring of nature, and brood of pests.

>Ctrl+f
>sincerity
>0 results

I'd agree with this. My brother wrote a completely hilarious story by accident at around the same age, but his writing ability is otherwise horrible and he'd never be able to replicate the results of his incoherent mind.

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>There's no form, no meter, no rhythm
How do people this stupid still exist?

Yeah believing traditional values of poetry are still important makes me retarded. Yikes.