[Susan Vaughan]

I have a thought about Eratosphere's lack of emphasis on serious light verse, especially on serious but what I might call non-scholarly light verse.

I recently posted the light "Scary Arnie" (decidedly non-scholarly) in a FunExcise thread which invited our attempts at the kind of poem commenting on other artworks. "Arnie's" far from a masterpiece, but I got to thinking I'd like to get some critique to see if I could improve it.

Problem was, I feel pretty confident I would not find the kind of focus I think such a poem needs on any of E's current boards. Frankly, at least to me, none of our critiquing forums seem to place much value on non-academic, again if that's the right type of word, humor. It isn't as if any attempt at comic verse is banned, but my impression is that such stuff isn't valued, enjoyed or encouraged here as much as that which conveys a solemn, mopey, wistful, or otherwise sort of semi-tragic perspective. Personally I suspect it was all this gloom and doom that killed off the Tipsy Muse

Seriously, I understand that contests and awards are not always practical options but it was wonderful to see such a clear and concrete message (the Tipsy Muse competition) that yes, making poetry readers laugh is a special and worthwhile achievement and we'll make a big deal out of it and maybe even pay you for it!

(In fact, I think that encouragement helped bring out in me one of my finer and definitely more fun poems -- if anyone recalls, a sort of take-off on those ghosty guys in "A Christmas Carol" which won the first Tipsy Muse competition.)

Obviously I am leading to the thought, how about Eratosphere adding another forum, "Specifically Light Verse" or something like that? (preferably -- call me a populist or doofus if you must -- one whose guidelines would outright prohibit postings whose humor depends on the reader being an expert in some form, era, or example of literature normally not introduced until graduate school I suspect such a forum should be metrical only in order to lessen the risk of lowering the bar, since as a rule the metrical side seems to attract our best poets and critics.)

Any thoughts? I suppose the key question is (aside from staffing, webpage-changing, administrative type type challenges), can Eratosphere potentially offer something better than what's being done elsewhere in the posting/critiquing of light verse, or at least as good?

[Glen]

I suspect such a forum should be metrical only in order to lessen the risk of lowering the bar, since as a rule the metrical side seems to attract our best poets and critics.

Or, a mandatory I.Q. test, and Mensa membership card.

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Gack, if you qualify for Mensa and hold an advanced degree, can your light verse still qualify as non-scholarly?

I just posted "The Flytrap" over on the Deep End, got some great commentary and suggestions, including one to send it to the editor of Light Quarterly. I wouldn't consider the poem scholarly, apart from perhaps being a bit geekily Victorianesque. And I've posted much sillier things there and gotten lots of good comments.

And a pile of the poems in R.S. Gwynn's "Fat Puppy" thread over at the deep end are certainly light verse as well. Certainly mine is.

Chris's "Paradise Soiled," aside from being brilliant, is also mock epic. Scholarly in that it helps to be familiar with Milton and the revolt of heaven to get some of the jokes, but academic geekery to my mind is more accessible than, say, cowboy poetry or hip-hop, which each require a harder to acquire bit of ethnography to understand.

I'd have commented on "Scary Arnie" if it had come across my plate, but honestly, given the thumbs up I've been seeing on light verse in the Deep End, I don't see the problem. Or at least not the prejudice, apart from the basic tradegy that good tragedy is almost always better regarded than good comedy, because, well, it's tragedy, and you need to give a consolation prize to all those mournful dead people.

[A. E. Stallings]

On the contrary, I think light verse is very much appreciated here, and gets good and useful comments on Deep End or wherever. Many of our members, including myself, publish regularly in Light, and indeed Tim and Carol edited a whole section of one of their issues, all from work of Sphereans. Almost all of our moderators are practitioners of light verse. Sam Gwynn is a widely-acknowledged master.

Much verse falls somewhere in between "light" and "heavy"--light verse often has a serous side and serious verse can have a sense of humor. The skills involved in either are the same--writing good poetry. A separate board would, if anything, to me look like light verse was not as respected and had to be put in a ghetto of its own.

No reason not to throw the light stuff in the Deep End. (Hoping it will float...)

cheers,

Alicia

[Chris Childers]

Yes, I agree with the others. There was actually a discussion a while ago as to whether light verse gets a better response here than comparable "heavy" verse, since if all you're trying to do is make someone laugh, and you do, the poem's a success, while if you make him think at the same time, that's an added bonus; the less ambitious a poem seems at first, the less a reader expects or demands from it. If you want your Arnie poem to be critiqued, (and it seems you do,) I'd say put it in metrical; we don't generally critique in FunExcise threads as far as I'm aware.

By the way, we have some very good writers of light free verse here, too, like Fred Longworth, whose poems are always entertaining and witty.

Chris

[Carol Taylor]

I'm not sure what you mean by non-scholarly light verse, Susan. Do you mean light as opposed to scholarly, or non-scholarly light as opposed to scholarly light? A poem may be both light and serious, but even if it is simply fun with no serious overtones at all it can still be written well and critiqued seriously.

If I didn't post light verse in Metrical or Deep End I'd hardly post at all, since that's most of what I write. My Sally Said was posted recently to Deep End, resulting in recommendations to and acceptance from Iambs & Trochees. I'll have to check out Scary Arnie to see why you don't think it would get useful critique on one of the existing forums.

Carol

[Lightning Bug]

I would agree with the poet, A.E. Stallings, Susan. I have received very well-considered and helpful review on some very silly poems posted on Metrical, and I would also worry that a Light Metrical forum would have lower standards. It's not a bad thing to be better than you need to be. Finally, if there were such a forum but I wanted to post a half comic/half serious piece on one of the "upper boards", I would hate to think there would be TWO forums that might tell me I don't belong there.

Now, if you could post there in ADDITION to the post limit on the other boards, THAT would be a different story. ;O.)

- Bugsy

[This message has been edited by Lightning Bug (edited September 18, 2003).]

[Susan McLean]

Susan,
I have to agree that I don't see the problem. Many of the regulars here regularly post light verse to either forum, and I think it gets at least as much attention and appreciation as the more serious poems. As an actor once said,"Dying is easy; comedy is hard." Most of us here know that.

Susan

[Susan Vaughan]

Wow, a solution for which there is no problem! Quite a feat, if I do say so myself

Thanks to all for careful comments and mostly well-taken points. (But Glen, I fear you were reading too fast? I was making the -- purely rhetorical, of course -- suggestion that the overly scholarly or IQ contest winners or whatever among us might be EXCLUDED from this "comic ghetto," as Alicia colorfully phrased it, I guess basically because of my own mostly pitifully low-brow tastes

Thanks to Kevin, Alicia and others for also pointing out the number of "light" postings or posters I may have missed out on. There's so much here to discover that along with my own time pressures it seems I often must take a hit-or-miss approach to finding the work I'd most like to read and comment on. Maybe that's why I'd so like to have the funny stuff "flagged" since it's usually my favorite!

To clarify, Carol, I definitely meant "non-scholarly light" as opposed to "scholarly light" (and NOT "light" as opposed to "scholarly," which I would think is an utterly false dichotomy.) I may have caused confusion by adding "serious" in front of the "non-scholarly" part -- I was trying to emphasize I was still of course referring to our usual standards of well-crafted poetry, making good use of all the tools available to us and showing a basic command of blah blah blah, you know.

Also to clarify -- no, I wasn't expecting "Arnie" to be critted in FunExcise; I know that doesn't happen there. But I've decided I would like to ask for feedback now from the many here who are so skilled at both light and serious, as I have been well reminded. Guess I'll post him in Metrical to take his lumps. Thanks again for these responses, I appreciated it.

[Roger Slater]

Our own Mike Juster is the "Featured Poet" in the current Light Quarterly, by the way, and I believe his recent sonnet in the Paris Review was also of the "light" variety. Our own Rhina wrote an essay on Mike's poetry in the same issue of Light. And I can think of at least a dozen Spherians who have published in LQ, often poems that were originally posted here.

But I do know what you mean when you sense a prejudice against light verse. I believe I once heard Mike say that he was advised to limit the light verse in his manuscript if he hoped to win an award, and he did so and it worked. This despite the fact that he is one of the best light versifiers around. Though the folks around here know that unserious verse is serious, I think there are many editors who aren't as enlightened, as it were.

But please, do post some light verse!

[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited September 19, 2003).]