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lmao the author specifically calls you, yes you, out in the post: > Talky free verse, prose poetry, or spoken word—while seemingly accessible—can also upset re

lmao the author specifically calls you, yes you, out in the post: > Talky free verse, prose poetry, or spoken word—while seemingly accessible—can also upset readers whose major exposure to poetry was through high school English. The absence of traditional markers they studied in class, like end-rhyme or meter, becomes instant evidence that something is “not real poetry” for this perpetually precocious crowd. I thought this was half sarcasm when I read it, but no, here you are, in the comments.

milesrout 2y ago
Yes I read the same post. What I said remains true. "Talky free verse" and "prose poetry" are misnomers. They aren't poetry. It has nothing to do with what I "studied in class". Words have definitions and "poetry" is meaningless if it means "anything written down at all".
- nickelpro 2y ago
  We've been searching for the bounds of art, poetry, and music, for millennia without any hope of definition or finality. Thankfully HN user milesrout figured it out. That's a load off my mind.
  - weregiraffe 2y ago
    You can't make people accept your point of view by being a snob. The poetry 99.99% of people are exposed to are song lyrics, and they have structure.
    - nickelpro 2y ago
      99.99% of people are exposed to math as multiplication tables, algebra, and geometry. I don't let that bother me when I need Fourier and Laplace, and I'm not interested in making others accept that there is more to these fields than what they learned in primary school. It's just very funny. I couldn't imagine being an adult and stubbornly insisting that you don't like the spaghetti because it's not how your mom made it for you and that's the only way spaghetti is supposed to be made. This sort of self-centered and yet entirely unselfconscious world view where you never question why you think such definitions and boundaries are fundamental truths, eternal and unbending.
      - taeric 2y ago
        I get your point, but I do have to ask what differentiates poetry from prose, in this definition?
        nickelpro 2y ago
        These are elements of genre, any taxonomy of human expression naturally escapes the ability to be concretely defined. You can no more give a succinct, definitive differentiation between prose and poetry than you can between Rock&Roll and Pop music, or between Modernist and Expressionist painting. To wit, you'll find there's a large amount of literature about "prose poetry", the most well known form being free verse. The idea being to capture or express some elements of poetry outside merely rhyme and meter. Which elements? How many are required to be considered "real" poetry? I can no more define that than Justice Stewart could define pornography [1]. This obsession with strict taxonomy is itself a shibboleth of the juvenile. What value does strict differentiation provide, if one exists at all? It is a poem because I deign it to be so, and my friends understand what I mean when say this thing I have made is a poem and that thing I have made is a short story. There are a set of characteristics these labels may imply (and such implications make them useful), but none are required, some may even be mutually exclusive. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
        milesrout 2y ago
        Even if we accept your claim that you can't draw hard boundaries (I actually strongly disagree), you can still draw boundaries. Words have meanings even if those meanings are a bit fuzzy. I don't care about the names of logical fallacies but your argument is fallacious: we can't draw a hard boundary, therefore anything qualifies. There are lots of things that clearly are not poems. Mona Lisa is not a poem. GCC is not a poem. Wikipedia is not a poem. There are also lots of things that clearly are poems. My claim is not that when you draw a hard boundary these things are technically not poems because they sit just outside the line, but that if you have any sort of boundary at all then they aren't even close. You say quite rightly that there are sets of characteristics that a label may imply. You don't need all of them, or any particular one, but you need something. Nothing about these "poems" is poetic. They have nothing in common with poetry. And no "evokes feeling" is not a characteristic of poetry, it is a characteristic of art generally. They might be art, but many written things exist that are not art, like short stories and novels. If I wrote a 70000 word novel and called it a poem, I would obviously be trolling, but by your logic there is no reason it couldn't be. That's just stupid. >It is a poem because I deign it to be so, Because to you deign it to be what? What do you deign it to be? You can't just say poem, I am asking you what you mean when you say the word poem. Circular answers will not be accepted.

milesrout 2y ago

Yes I read the same post. What I said remains true. "Talky free verse" and "prose poetry" are misnomers. They aren't poetry. It has nothing to do with what I "studied in class". Words have definitions and "poetry" is meaningless if it means "anything written down at all".

nickelpro 2y ago
We've been searching for the bounds of art, poetry, and music, for millennia without any hope of definition or finality. Thankfully HN user milesrout figured it out. That's a load off my mind.
- weregiraffe 2y ago
  You can't make people accept your point of view by being a snob. The poetry 99.99% of people are exposed to are song lyrics, and they have structure.
  - nickelpro 2y ago
    99.99% of people are exposed to math as multiplication tables, algebra, and geometry. I don't let that bother me when I need Fourier and Laplace, and I'm not interested in making others accept that there is more to these fields than what they learned in primary school. It's just very funny. I couldn't imagine being an adult and stubbornly insisting that you don't like the spaghetti because it's not how your mom made it for you and that's the only way spaghetti is supposed to be made. This sort of self-centered and yet entirely unselfconscious world view where you never question why you think such definitions and boundaries are fundamental truths, eternal and unbending.
    - taeric 2y ago
      I get your point, but I do have to ask what differentiates poetry from prose, in this definition?
      - nickelpro 2y ago
        These are elements of genre, any taxonomy of human expression naturally escapes the ability to be concretely defined. You can no more give a succinct, definitive differentiation between prose and poetry than you can between Rock&Roll and Pop music, or between Modernist and Expressionist painting. To wit, you'll find there's a large amount of literature about "prose poetry", the most well known form being free verse. The idea being to capture or express some elements of poetry outside merely rhyme and meter. Which elements? How many are required to be considered "real" poetry? I can no more define that than Justice Stewart could define pornography [1]. This obsession with strict taxonomy is itself a shibboleth of the juvenile. What value does strict differentiation provide, if one exists at all? It is a poem because I deign it to be so, and my friends understand what I mean when say this thing I have made is a poem and that thing I have made is a short story. There are a set of characteristics these labels may imply (and such implications make them useful), but none are required, some may even be mutually exclusive. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
        milesrout 2y ago
        Even if we accept your claim that you can't draw hard boundaries (I actually strongly disagree), you can still draw boundaries. Words have meanings even if those meanings are a bit fuzzy. I don't care about the names of logical fallacies but your argument is fallacious: we can't draw a hard boundary, therefore anything qualifies. There are lots of things that clearly are not poems. Mona Lisa is not a poem. GCC is not a poem. Wikipedia is not a poem. There are also lots of things that clearly are poems. My claim is not that when you draw a hard boundary these things are technically not poems because they sit just outside the line, but that if you have any sort of boundary at all then they aren't even close. You say quite rightly that there are sets of characteristics that a label may imply. You don't need all of them, or any particular one, but you need something. Nothing about these "poems" is poetic. They have nothing in common with poetry. And no "evokes feeling" is not a characteristic of poetry, it is a characteristic of art generally. They might be art, but many written things exist that are not art, like short stories and novels. If I wrote a 70000 word novel and called it a poem, I would obviously be trolling, but by your logic there is no reason it couldn't be. That's just stupid. >It is a poem because I deign it to be so, Because to you deign it to be what? What do you deign it to be? You can't just say poem, I am asking you what you mean when you say the word poem. Circular answers will not be accepted.