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Poetry / Prose / Whatever ...I just can't do it
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
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I realize it makes me a terrible person. Hell, I agree that it makes me a terrible person, the same way I look down on people who can't listen to music "that doesn't have words." But I just can't process it.
I picked Paradise Lost and all my enthusiasm went out the window when I opened to the first book and found it was in numbered lines. Of course, I started it anyway, but good god, my mind wanders like a kid stuck in church. I'm bad enough trying to properly digest verse without having to constantly corral my mind and focus. And have I mentioned that I'm a complete gimp when it comes to older english (I don't deal well with Shakespeare for the same reason)?
So do with this thread what you will. Shower me with insults or provide some kind of insight as to how to properly enjoy these types of works.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Ooooh... Paradise Lost is a really tough row to hoe.
I'm not the person to give alternate suggestions though.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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That won't stop me though.
Maybe Blake?
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: sic semper tyrannis
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maybe you're trying too hard... have you read any bukowski?
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one post closer to five stars
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Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: inside 128, north of 90
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βIn youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.
But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you.β
β Dorothy Parker
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status:
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Originally Posted by andi*pandi
β Dorothy Parker
If it rhymes I can usually absorb it. Strikes me as a crutch, though.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Standing on the shoulders of giants
Status:
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I'd be interested in knowing what provoked this thread.
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status:
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Originally Posted by mattyb
I'd be interested in knowing what provoked this thread.
It's in the OP.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Standing on the shoulders of giants
Status:
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Ahh, sorry, thought you had to read Paradise Lost at school or uni.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Louisiana
Status:
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This is why...and I probably shouldn't say this...but...
Maya Angelou's passing prompted absolutely no response from me.
I think part of it is that I was obligated to be appropriately devastated, if my social media feeds were any indication. I remember reading some of her work for a college course and thinking that it wasn't great, but I accepted that a lot of her influence was based upon her being a poetic voice for African-Americans during a tumultuous era.
I also find it preposterous that a person is able to list their occupation as "poet." It seems like it's not so much something you do as a job, but something therapeutic for hurting people. They write poetry because they need an outlet for their feelings, it feels so epic, no one understands them, etc.
There are exceptions (Keats, Frost, and a few others), but poetry mostly sucks.
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status:
Offline
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I wouldn't say Maya Angelou had meaning to me, but hearing her work, I could feel the rhythm and cadence to it, which gave it a great flow. I don't feel that here.
That and David Alan Grier's great impression on SNL.
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status:
Offline
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The wind. The rain. The fire.
The Butterfinger.
Did the Caveman know your delicious goodness?
Did the Mayan Priest exhalt in your buttery crunchiness?
Did the slothful Mastodon, upon his extinction, declare,
"Don't lay a finger on my Butterfinger?"
Oh, you finger of butter!
You proud confection!
Sugar brown roasted peanuts,
fructose, glucose, sucrose, lactose,
partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil.
Crispity, crunchity, peanut buttery--
I... give... myself... to... you.
Butterfinger.
Glad mantle of golden chocolaty hope upon my breast.
...
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