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  #61  
Unread 01-07-2018, 10:41 AM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Walter,

Thank you. I do understand all that perfectly well. And as a social media phenomenon she's spectacular. But everyone on this thread, not just me, has been discussing the merits of her printed book of poems: their worth or their potential as a catalyst for poetic expression in her readership. So really you agree with me: as a writer she has little talent. I would love to live in a world where she was a social media phenomenon and a genuinely good writer. Is that too much to ask?

Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 01-07-2018 at 10:44 AM.
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  #62  
Unread 01-07-2018, 10:45 AM
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Andrew Mandelbaum Andrew Mandelbaum is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Orwn Acra View Post
To maybe help Mark articulate his thoughts, at the risk of reading them totally wrong, I will point out that there are many, many Instagram poets who write exactly like Kaur. Her talents are not in literature but in marketing, in which she is kind of ingenious; literature is one of the three media by which she markets herself, the other two being her doodles and her Instagram posts. Since all of us here are interested in literature, we are speaking mainly of her poems, but I think to criticize her poems as if they were literature, instead of merely medium, is to miss their point rather spectacularly.

Maybe it is like a calligrapher who writes dreadful poems not because he cares about poetry, but because he needs something to write to show off his calligraphy. Kaur is a social media presence--that is her art form--and the poems are a means to that presence. The presence is the point, not the poetry.
This is true. Do you think a social media presence can be taken up as a poem even if the actually literature riding alongside isn't good poetry? Are people making their own poems out of the combination of her presence, her words, and their experiences? Or do you see the only manipulation in the "success" of her marketing? I think the archetypes she is whistling up don't stay in the cup, they spill. Her popularity vs. other instagram poets is manipulated and maybe undeserved, I guess. But once the work is in the air, is that all you see in it?
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  #63  
Unread 01-07-2018, 10:49 AM
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Andrew Mandelbaum Andrew Mandelbaum is offline
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Originally Posted by John Isbell View Post
Orwn: "Maybe it is like a calligrapher who writes dreadful poems not because he cares about poetry, but because he needs something to write to show off his calligraphy."

The Alcazar in Seville has two sets of mural calligraphy: that predating the Reconquista, which is verses from the Koran, and that postdating it, done by Mozarabic artists who spoke no Arabic. It is gibberish. Both, to those who don't read Arabic, are of equal beauty.

Cheers,
John
Is it gibberish? Do you suppose that to all who do speak Arabic, and recognize the scripture, the former is the more beautiful? I wouldn't.
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  #64  
Unread 01-07-2018, 11:15 AM
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R. S. Gwynn R. S. Gwynn is offline
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Andrew, the only mountains I've observed growing during my lifetime have been volcanic ones, and I certainly wouldn't want them under my feet while they're growing. Maybe your experiences are different.

What Julie has done is a "tabula rasa" effect; she has projected a very specific event from her childhood onto a poem that is very vague. In a similar manner, phony psychics can "zero in" on what seem to be specific facts about a person (possibly deceased) by starting the questioning vaguely and then using hints from the listener as a way of unearthing information. "I'm getting letters--a J and an M." "Her name was Nancy." "Ah, it wasn't an M; it was an N. So she was your . . . ." "Mother."

Sometimes I feel emotionally blackmailed when criticizing a bad piece of writing, and the writer says, "Well, you haven't been through X." The point of good writing is to make the reader experience what X is like.
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  #65  
Unread 01-07-2018, 11:17 AM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Well, I don't read Arabic, so I rely on my sources, AKA second-hand news. Now they say it's gibberish: pure décor. As to the reactions of Arabic speakers, I'm not one, as near as dammit; to myself, both sets were equally lovely. My hunch is that Arabic speakers might prefer the Koran verses. But that's just a hunch.

Cheers,
John
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  #66  
Unread 01-07-2018, 11:20 AM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Sam: "The point of good writing is to make the reader experience what X is like."
Nicely put, to my mind. This is maybe a key difference between poetry and Rorschach tests.

John

Update: though rather than make, I might say invite.
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  #67  
Unread 01-07-2018, 11:33 AM
Orwn Acra Orwn Acra is offline
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Mark, that is far too much to ask! We are in agreement that she is not a good poet. To read her poems as poems, which is what all of us on this thread are doing, seems to me a mistake. Yet I'd still rather read her than Ocean Vuong, whose every word, line, and poem is so cloyingly sentimental and artificial-feeling that all of it comes off as insincere and manipulative--though we are told over and over again and by everyone that he is an artist, a great writer. Which brings me to my point: Kaur presents her poems with no pretension; we are the ones who turn them into something else. I think they are merely a way in which she markets herself to a social media audience and that they have no claims to being great literature. That is what I find likable about Kaur.

Thanks, John, for the anecdote! If I had to be religious and had to pick from one of the three great monotheistic religions, I would pick Islam, whose emphasis on words as words and letters as letters, and the metaphysical implications therein, I find strangely relatable and beautiful. A favorite book of poetry is David Melnick's PCOET, which you can read here and which is gibberish yet not devoid of meaning or beauty.
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  #68  
Unread 01-07-2018, 11:44 AM
Mark McDonnell Mark McDonnell is offline
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Walter,

Quote:
Mark, that is far too much to ask!
Oh dear, what a world.

Quote:
That is what I find likable about Kaur.
Believe it or not, I find her likeable (from what I've seen of her) for the same reason. For the last time, good luck to her. Social media is utilised in many much more unpleasant ways!

Now I must read this Vuong person to find something else to get annoyed about.

Cheers.
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  #69  
Unread 01-07-2018, 11:46 AM
Aaron Novick Aaron Novick is offline
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Originally Posted by R. S. Gwynn View Post
Andrew, the only mountains I've observed growing during my lifetime have been volcanic ones, and I certainly wouldn't want them under my feet while they're growing. Maybe your experiences are different.
Mountains take millions of years to form. Her metaphor is perfectly good. Indeed, the very slowness of mountain growth seems to help her point: this is a long struggle. This then transitions into the second half of the poem, where she imagines a violent, catastrophic action, a final shattering, with a new metaphor to capture that. The long struggle has passed a threshold, and offers an opportunity—the task then is to seize that opportunity.

I don't think it's a great poem by any means, but it's more carefully considered than you're giving it credit for.
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  #70  
Unread 01-07-2018, 12:07 PM
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R. S. Gwynn R. S. Gwynn is offline
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Aaron, a ceiling of any kind is human-made or human-observed, as in "Ceiling 5000 ft., visibility unlimited." A "glass ceiling" is a cliche, or ready-made metaphor. Using fists, even as synecdoche, would not be a wise or healthful way of breaking one.
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