[Matt Q]

Also, if you're will to get a little archaic, there's the verb 'to sparble', meaning to scatter, to disperse, to rout; and the verb 'to jarble' meaning to wet, to bemire.

If anyone can make it work, you can John.

-Matt

[Ed Shacklee]

Those are fabulous words. For enjambed lines, you could also use contractions: garb'll, barb'll, and yarb'll, which as I've just learned, is a dialectical variant of herb.

Ed

P.S. But I think we've strayed a little ways away from Janice's original questions: What is American poetry? What is UK poetry?

[Jerome Betts]

And to take us even further away, Matt's mention of barbels or piscine whiskers reminded me that I was not long ago charmed to discover that there is an eel-like flat-headed bearded freshwater fish called a burbot, no mere misprint for a turbot with long bony tubercles on its body, itself no mere misprint for turbit, a domestic pigeon of stout build with a neck frill . . . Hurry up and write that piece, John, the suspense is unhinging us.

Sorry, Janice, you were saying . . . ?

[Janice D. Soderling]

Actually, I wasn't saying. I was muttering--about intentions and the best laid plans and so forth.

If the wild bowler thinks he bowls,
Or if the batsman thinks he's bowled,
They know not, poor misguided souls,
They too shall perish unconsoled.

I am the batsman and the bat,
I am the bowler and the ball,
The umpire, the pavilion cat,
The roller, pitch and stumps and all.

That, as also Andrew Lang knew, is the difference between American and UK poetry.

As Oscar Wilde said (despite attributes to Shaw and Churchill) "England and America are two countries divided by a common language."

Carry on, Jeeves. I am grazing new pastures.

[Quincy Lehr]

The problem with this question, perhaps, is that is too broad, given increases in lifespan, access to education, ease of publishing something that doesn't took awful at low cost, etc.--all of which one can only really bemoan at the risk of being a Thunderdouche. I do notice that I'm liking Irish political poetry better than its American equivalent right now (perhaps due to a welcome absence of American liberalism and some actual socialists in the mix giving the place an actual political spectrum), which isn't to say that there isn't plenty of dog$#!t over there, too. But with literally thousands of trade-published books coming out in the U.S. every year, I miss most of what comes out. So do you. And you. And you. Throw in a day job and a personal life, and I read a few magazines, maybe twenty-five new collections of poetry a year, and whatever Jeff Holt forwards out of the Raintown slush, with the occasional curled-lip glance over to the Poetry Foundation's newest-latest. Which is a small fraction of what there is.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Yes, it is an open-ended question--I was thinking that would give room for a variety of thoughts. And so it did, from Bozo to Breaking News.

On the other hand, at present count the thread has had 2055 hits, so maybe 2000 shy poetasters are lurking nearby.

Or maybe 2000 chicken farmers can surf but can't spell "poultry".

[Janice D. Soderling]

The depressing thing is that this wasn't a General Talk thread, but a Musing on Mastery, where poetry people are rather expected to step forward and say intelligent and inspiring things about the finer points of prosody.

But it should probably be moved to GT now. Though some did take the questions seriously and I thank you.

You know who you are so stand tall.

This can slide now.

[Ed Shacklee]

Well, I’ll try to make at least some amends for our barbling and warbling, and give my two cents about modern American poetry. Looking for good poetry has always been like looking for needles in a haystack; but though I suspect that needle production is humming along at a normal rate, the haystack is immeasurably larger; and, in fact, it isn’t really much of a haystack any more.

You can’t go to The New Yorker or Poetry these days and expect to find the best poems reliably collected for you, and if there are worthier journals out there – I think there are – they have very limited distribution. If there is an honest to gosh “Best of” anthology of modern American poetry out there, the common reader of poetry would be hard put to find it among all the other anthologies with their own agendas and protégés to push.

For the new reader of poetry, what this means is that you either have to know or have been taught by a skilled needle finder, or you have to get lucky and come across a few needles on your own, or else it’s likely you’ll just give up, having found little or nothing that excites you.

I see a lot of free verse with plain spoken, minor epiphanies, and a lot of hipper-than-thou obscurity, sneering and otherwise; but that might say less about the prevalence of that kind of verse among those writing poetry today than it does about the tastes of prominent editors -- they may have drawn an admiring crowd, for a while, but there were only a couple of tailors responsible for the emperor's clothes, as I recall.

So I would say that modern American poetry seems timid – in the sense that the same sort of treacly stuff keeps getting elevated, for no reason I can see – and diffuse, when viewed as a whole. But, while it affects the reception of poetry, the whole probably doesn’t matter that much in terms of writing poetry. There are good poems being written, just as there have always been, and that heartens me.

Best,

Ed

[Ann Drysdale]

Deleted the post.

[Stephen Hampton]

Physical biological death reseeds and regenerates new life, on the planet. Not sure what spiritual death, may, or may not do. I suspect that either one may be good, bad, beautiful, or ugly; depending on timing and circumstances.

A bird called warbler, warbles ---- think that could rhyme with marbles ---- if only it were a recognized word ---- Some do get lost, confused old birds ---- or so I've heard, I always leave a trail ---- so other old birds may follow, or not ---- and I may follow back, or not.

Also, I'm not sure what poetry is, to most others, in US, UK, etc; however, I mostly know what it is to me ---- but please don't ask me to explain. I'll let mine, speak for itself, as it is GBBU

sincerely,
stevie