| Author | Message | ||
| Andrew Dufresne
Senior Member Username: beachdreamer Post Number: 3059 Registered: 01-2006 |
Interesting. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=238328 Out of the quarrel with others, we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves poetry.--Yeats | ||
| LJ Cohen
Moderator Username: ljc Post Number: 11721 Registered: 07-2002 |
Interesting article. And speaking of bad poetry, I was looking thorough an old box of my writing going back nearly 30 years to junior high school. I don't know whether to scan the stuff for posterity--at least to prove that one *can* get better, or that when you start out that bad, it can't get any worse, or burn it all the next time we light a fire in the fireplace. This stuff is record settingly awful. Truly dreadful. And, true confessions: deep down in that box are handwritten pages and pages of Star Wars fan fiction. From 1977. The summer the movie came out. I was 13 years old. And obsessed with Star Wars. I think my friends and I went to see the movie over 20 times. I think I'd rather face wild dogs than look through the journals and notebooks in that musty old box again.  ljc Once in a Blue Muse Blog "Chop Wood, Carry Water" | ||
| Nancy Lazar
Senior Member Username: lazarus Post Number: 6134 Registered: 10-2005 |
I like this journal. I got a few copies at the Dodge Poetry Festival last year. Thanks for reminding me about it. The idea of bad poetry didn't really capture my interests. I'm still trying to figure out what good poetry is. - Laz | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 7188 Registered: 05-2006 |
In the simplest sense, Nancy, good poetry has a pull on you that urges you to come back to it. Some bad poetry also asks you to come back to it -- but only to scoff, mock or laugh. * * * * * ljc, the "bad writing" of your youth is a tribute to the growth of your literary skills. Treat it like the first clumsy steps on your first skis. * * * * * Ad, thanks for the article! Fred I may not be here tomorrow . . . so this is for today. |
