Why Modern Poetry... Sucks

A contentious title, is it not? But unfortunately, I believe it a true one. Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against modern poets (I mean, I technically am one) and indeed some—like Carol Ann Duffy, to name my favourite—produce some excellent works.

And yet I cannot deny the fact that, reading most of today’s poetry—be it online, in a few books, or in literary journals—I have the powerful impression that there really aren’t many real poets out there. What gets classed as ‘poetry’ today possesses a certain… vacuousness, that would make poets—even those of a few decades ago—turn in their graves.

I’m not trying to be hyperbolic. Allow me to elaborate…

A Look Into Today’s Poetry

I shall not be naming and shaming; I don’t consider that kosher. Mostly, I shall be using examples created by myself. Take this one:

In my house
The song of radiators
Echoes into television dreams.

Actually, that’s a little too good for what I’m referring to. Let’s try again, this time with a poem by Anonymous:

So I want
To leave
A deep scratch
Of my mind
On the screen
Of the world
And walk along
With all bards
After my death
Hundreds of years
On soiled paths
And metal streets
Without my limbs
Blood and flesh
In haunting houses
And Joyous classes,
Make them feel
My hovering spirit
In emotional moments
In acts and deeds
Soothing souls
And agitated minds.

This actually isn’t bad, in the general standard of things. It’s biggest mistake is in being too long, having overly short lines, and overly bulky stanzas. (Let me paraphrase: it’s god awful hard to read.)

Closer examination, however, reveals a deeper problem. It’s meaningless. It has neither rhyme nor reason; and with that it no longer becomes a work of art—an expression of emotion, a creation of inherent desire—and instead becomes a vapid caricature.

Let’s delve into some specifics:

On soiled paths
And metal streets
Without my limbs
Blood and flesh
In haunting houses
And Joyous classes,

Does the adjective ‘soiled’ have any impact whatsoever on the meaning of the poem? Does it even create imagery? As far as I can see, it doesn’t. Nor, for that matter, does ‘metal’ in streets; for there are no such things, and neither is it metaphorical or used to evoke imagery.

‘Blood and flesh’ literally has no meaning whatsoever. You could remove it, and nothing would change. ‘Haunting houses’? Really? I know alliteration is effective, but this really is very forced. As for ‘Joyous classes’—why the capitalisation, what exactly is ‘Joyous’ supposed to mean in this context, and what type of ‘classes’ are we referring to exactly?

Perhaps Anon is referring to school classrooms? In which case, he is being: a) terribly vague; b) unrealistic; and c) not evoking of the image.

Basically, six entire lines are devoted to nothing at all.

Harsh? Yes: But Not Without Reason

You may think I am being harsh on the author. And indeed, I am: the idea of leaving an indelible mark upon society through art is certainly an interesting and powerful idea.

Trouble is, modern poets seem—on the whole—obsessed with joining words together instead of writing meaningful prose. Turgour is even worse of a problem than it was in the eighteenth century; for now that turgour is devoid of meaning.

And remember: this is actually pretty good for the ones I’ve seen. Most seem to have little relation to anything at all.

The Poet has Killed the Poem

That’s my final message, at the end of it all. There was a time when a poet could bring his work to the masses… and the masses could be expected to listen. They may not have understood everything; but still, the poem would have connected. They would have seen something of their lives, and of themselves. Perhaps they would enjoy life. Perhaps they would reform something of themselves.

At the least, they would feel something.

The killing began with pretentiousness. Poets began writing ever longer and more turgid works. The references to gods became too many and too obscure for the ordinary working class citizen to know or understand. And the structures! Complicated, twisting; difficult to read; harder still to speak.

At least poetry was still read (and enjoyed) by the academics and those of a literary disposition. Now, even writers pay them little attention; and poetry seems mainly to belong to a few niche circles.

This new fall came from the modern era. Poetry is no longer a an art form worth practising: it is now merely a way to express musings. Little snippets of words that just happened to be passing through your mind are now considered serious prose.

At first we stripped poetry of general appeal; then we stripped it of meaning; and now we condemn it to the work of the untalented and poor.

I am giving you two poems of mine to read. They both carry a message—one dramatic, the other subtle. I would submit them to literary magazines, but no one will read them even if they get published. (Which is easier said than done, considering hw pretentious and closed-minded they are.)

I would voice them; but who would listen? The organisations relevant—LGBT rights advocates, reason and science foundations—don’t do poetry. I wonder why. And good luck getting anyone on the street to listen.

Perhaps you, dear reader, are willing to give them look. And maybe you’ll take my message to heart. Don’t pretend they’re any good. Don’t pseudo-analyse and write praise that would seem fake even in an ad.

Repudiate. It’s bullshit, and you know it.

Read The Lover’s Curse—a dramatic fusion of rhyme and hexameter, on false social practice and oppression.

Read God the Sun: a subtle attack on the notion of an omni-benevolent god.

Apologies for the Absence

Dear readers:

I apologise for my absence in blogging. I’ve had my third migraine in the past two years. It knocked me out of commission for a day—afterwards I was busy with a bunch of other important things that prevented me from blogging.

Anyway: I shall be in Holland (on a trip; not moving) soon. I may be a little erratic with my blogging then—I’ll be rather busy, you see. However, I shall be in Romania by about the 14th of July. There I shall have plenty of time to entertain you lot...

I have also, I can inform you, set up a dual monitor configuration. Here it is:

(I apologise for the dodgy quality: I ain’t no photographer, oh no.)

I shall now proceed to bore you with a brief analysis of why I think dual monitors are overrated—and in some cases, a downright bad idea. Skip the subsection if it doesn’t interest you.

Dual Monitors…

Let’s start with the obvious: having two monitors requires a lot of space. If I weren’t such a suckish photographer, you’d be able to see that one 22" and another 23" monitor combine to take up most of one pretty big table.

If—like my grandma dilligently waiting for me in Romania (no, I have’t forgotten you; but you can’t understand this, can you?)—you’re someone who doesn’t have much desk space or indeed space in general: dual monitors are a suckish proposition.

That’s bad brownie number one. Bad brownie number two are the cables. You need more of ’em, and you need ’em long. Not good.

There’s also the wee little issue of having the right cables. You see, many computers have integrated graphics (that means there is a small GPU embedded within the CPU; if that sounds like gibberish, you probably shouldn’t be reading this, but I digress).

Anyway, integrated graphics solutions rely on the motherboard providing the right outputs. Most mobos usually only have two outputs: one DVI and another HDMI.

Trouble is, most monitors don’t support HDMI, so you’re left needing an HDMI to DVI (or whatever) cable.

Besides the fiasco with space and cabling (making all of this seem increasingly impractical) there’s also a myriad of other issues. Many operating systems don’t allow per-monitor configuration of pixel densities; this means that if, like me, you like to have a secondary satellite monitor—a smaller one—then your text on the second monitor will look scaled down and be painful to read.

(You may observe that I am writing this in a Linux virtual machine that runs on the second monitor. Virtualising another OS is currently the only way round this.)

Finally, after all that, I’ve realised that having two screens isn’t such a big boost to productivity. Most of the time I’m doing one task; and having a second monitor just gets in the way. I usually turn it off.

Dual monitors are indeed good for doing certain kinds of multitasking. I sometimes do web coding, for example: I find it quite useful to have a monitor open with the language’s documentation, and another open for the text editor.

Still, dual monitors are if anything productivity degrading to many of us (rarely as a writer do I have to do two things at once; I’m usually trying to focus on writing).

And let’s face it: it’s not impossible to work with two windows at once on a single monitor—especially if your OS is designed to maximise available screen space à la OSX or Ubuntu Unity.

So there you go. My suggestion is to spend your money on a super wide screen monitor, or maybe even just on a monitor with a very high resolution. I find that pixels help almost as much as inches when it comes to running two apps side by side.

Moving on

I am finishing off a review of Faefever (by Karen Moning) on Goodreads. There is a lot to say, and I was interrupted by my awful migraine in writing it. Please bear with me—the review will be the basis for a post on what bad writing can be. Stay Internet-tuned...

(Ouch. Still have’t come up with better marketing lingo.)

PS: I shall be restarting the Poem of the Week and the Three Days’ Word properly soon. Just give me a bit more time, okay?

Obscure Word: Vociferous

‘Alex, Alex, what happened to the Three Days’ Word? Is it being replaced with this crap?’ you ask.

Well, no. The Three Days’ Word will stay... at least for now. No, the reason this post is called ‘Obscure Word’ is because it isn’t going to be superseded by a new word in three days. With my up and coming exams (hurray!) I can’t keep this blog up-to-date in my usual timely fashion (ha ha). Therefore, this will stand for the next two weeks—okay, maybe a little less.

Vociferous

Pronunciation: /vɜ'sɪfərʎs/

Etymology: From LATIN ‘vociferari’ meaning ‘to cry out; to yell, and shout’.

Definition: To be outspoken and loud—to be insistent in being heard.

Examples:

‘Vociferous are the activists; but are they deceived by greater entities?’

‘We are the vociferous, and the indefatigable: our voices shall not be drowned out, not in blood or in noise or in propaganda.’

The Three Days’ Word: Ephemeral

Here we go with the Three Days’ Word again. Since I am on holiday (though I’m still doing some revision as I have more exams afterwards), I have a bit more time on my hands. I have a little idea for some of the poems I’ve been talking about: it’s to do with visual art. I’ll tell you that much.

Anyway...

Ephemeral

Pronunciation: /əfɛmərɘl/

Etymology: From GREEK ‘ephēmeros’ meaning ‘lasting but a day’.

Definition: Lasting a brief amount of time; fleeting; a will-o’-the-wisp.

Examples:

‘The ephemeral memories of children; so easily forgotten, and so terrible for it.’

‘The ephemeral promises of politicians. Bah!’

‘Ephemeral dreams, and fleeting, forgotten wishes; humanity: an illusion?’

Well, there you have it. Sorry if I sound kinda tired. I am tired, you know? The work isn’t over yet, and the publishing world is a difficult one to break into. But, like the indefatigable, unyielding soldier that I am, I shall do my exams; and I’ll do well; and you can be expecting new work to come out soon enough.

My novel, the Necromancer, is under the watchful eye of a friend of mine. Decisions will be made. I may not publish it—it’s why I’m not giving you any previews of it. However, I do have a novelette written, so you can expect something from me, at least...

(‘Poor Alex. He’s rambling now,’ you think. Well, you’d be right on that.)

Three Days’ Word & Poem of the Week

Hello everyone!

After having done quite a bit of science and history revision—and now being occupied with maths revision (algebraic fractions, hurray!)—I have been lax in my blogging. Sorry.

Anyway, I decided to give you a little treat: the three days’ word and the Poem of the Week! Aren’t you so lucky?

Egregious

Pronunciation: /əgrɛdʒiəs/

Etymology: From LATIN ‘egregius’ meaning ‘illustrious’. (Note: etymology is a weird thing—don’t be surprised if it sounds tenuous or questionable!)

Definition: quite apparently and rather shockingly bad.

Examples:

‘Such egregious publications from vanity presses; you’d think a 10 year-old could do a better job.’

‘Egregious is neoclassical economics—how anyone can take it seriously, I know not.’

‘Egregious teaching from a pedagogy obsessed with tests and league tables.’

And now...

Poem of the Week: The Little Pink House at the End of the Lane

Now, I should warn you: this poem is a little odd. It doesn’t entirely make sense. And if you want to get something out of it—well, there is a message, but it’s very subtle and embedded within the narrative’s arc. Mostly, the poem was my first attempt at rhyme.

The Little Pink House at the End of the Lane

There once was a little pink house:
It had cake-brown walls,
And a toffee-coloured roof;
It had cute, square little windows,
And it was small,
And it was the little pink house at the end of the lane.

Near the little pink house,
There lay a wood—
Its name was funny,
Because it sounded like eerie.
Wolves played at night there,
And caught naughty boys who stayed to listen.

In the little pink house,
There lived a woman and a mouse.
The mouse was pretty and white;
But the woman, oh dear oh dear,
She fed the mouse to the cat.
Such a nasty rat.

The woman was a little old:
She had faint wrinkles around the eyes,
(Of which were grassy green)
But people said she had always been like that.
She had her black and nasty cat,
And a broom as well.

She wore black;
She had a knack for that.
Children did not like her,
Because she gave out sweets,
That smelled like feet;
But the grown-ups thought she was a breeze.

One day,
She started to sneeze.
She had horrible green snot:
It was gooey and yucky, and we
Wouldn’t go near.
But one day we heard her singing, and we went.

It was rather frightening, what she said:
‘Eye of newt, and feet of toad;
‘Fur of rat, and feathers of owl;’
And then she did a funny little dance
And said:
‘Childrens’ teeth.’

She, the woman, then turned:
‘Hello my darlings! What doth thee do here?’
And we said:
‘Lady, lady, are you a witch?’
She laughed merrily, and said,
‘Why no. I’m only a baking a cake!’

And so we saw,
The delicious gingerbread men,
At the little pink house at the end of the lane.

The Three Days’ Word has Restarted

Good day, members of the blogosphere!

I can announce that the Three Days’ Word has begun again. This time, we have a word called ‘ubiquitous’, courtesy of Karen from Joie de Mid Vivre. I don’t think it the most interesting word ever conceived by the English language—or indeed foreigners, from which we stole—but that’s a different matter altogether. I’m sure you’ll like it.

(If you have some better examples than me, please comment them. Although, I doubt it.)

Ubiquitous adj

Pronunciation: /ju:bɪkwɪtəs/

Etymology: From LATIN, ‘ubique’ (meaning everywhere).

Definition: Being everywhere at once; octopus-like characteristics.

Examples:

‘Ubiquitous was he; a madman, seemingly capable of teleportation.’

‘You are most ubiquitous—are you quite certain you can’t fly?’

‘No one is ubiquitous. Prioritise.’

Good day. I have poems to write...

On Turgid Prose and Carrot Juice Fiction

Some Terms to Know

This is going to be quite a long post—should I say sorry for that?—and I am going to be using some terms which you may well not be familiar with. This little section will give you a heads up; and maybe a laugh, too. (One can only hope.)

Carrot Juice Fiction: This is a term I’m going to be using to refer to pieces of literature that are extremely boring, have pretentious and tiresome characters, and a plot that is... lacking, to put it politely.

They also tend to use excessively large words, excessively long sentences (with excessive punctuation), and have a propensity to use various metaphorical and poetic devices that add very little to the actual story.

The term goes about because of carrot juice and what it actually is: an unsavoury drink consumed solely because it is meant to contain magical vitamins that you don’t get anywhere else. (Unless of course, you actually like the stuff, but that’s a different matter altogether.)

Anyway, like carrot juice, people read this type of literature in order to ‘gain’ something from it—insight, creative writing technique, whatever—and likewise, they can find the same stuff in books that are far more interesting (in orange juice, to continue the anecdote).

Logorrhea: An unusual little noun that refers to an excessive flow of words.

Turgid: Why do I need to tell you this? You do have a dictionary, right?

On to the Good Stuff

(And no, I’m not talking about porn.)

First off, let me introduce you to what I call the carrot juice novels: the Great Gatsby (perhaps the most famous one in this category), Chimanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (a more modern one), as well as Wuthering Heights et al.

What these books have in common is that they are known as ‘Classics’ or ‘Literary Fiction’. You will find that most proponents of such fiction cannot even really define what the hell ‘literary fiction’ actually means.

I propose that such novels are Carrot Juice Fiction. They are extremely tedious to slog through, with their ridiculously long-winded, turgid and sometimes even meaningless prose. Here’s an example:

Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.

I guarantee you’ll have to read that passage at least twice in order to understand what the author is actually going on about.

And you shouldn’t have to do that.

I won’t bore you with a tedious analysis of what the quote is saying (which it shouldn’t do anyway, since a novel should present its message within the story and not so directly). I won’t even bore you with how it can be shortened; and make no mistake, it can.

What I will tell you is that if a book—any book, no matter how good—forces you to re-read sentences, then there’s a problem.

The whole point of Creative Writing (and indeed all writing) is to communicate the author’s intent. Writing just to string words together is an exercise in pretentiousness. In this world, if a reader doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say, you’ll lose them.

You can argue that such readers aren’t supposed to read literature. To this, I say: sod off. Literature is not an exclusive club reserved solely for the upper echelons of society; in fact, that is the very antithesis of literature—art in all its forms is meant to be accessible; it is meant to change the outlook of many, not a select few.

Logorrhea just gets in the way of things. One can say ‘it is the nature of mankind to follow persuasive leaders, the way sheep follow the shepherd; but in the necessary process of deciding leadership and accepting law and order—something which must be present in all successful societies—things are lost: the minorities, the victims of political gambles, all must suffer the oppression of their voices; that is the weakness of democracy.’

The above sentence is disturbingly long. And while the content is certainly of intellectual merit—arguably, anyway—the way in which it is presented is not.

Say I were to write: ‘People follow persuasive leaders. They do so in the same way sheep follow the shepherd. The necessity of this is apparent: a productive society cannot exist without leadership and order. But in this process, something is lost—the voices of the minorities, the cries of political victims, of the oppressed. It is the great weakness of democracy.’

Now, this paragraph—notice it is no longer a single sentence—sounds almost is important and eloquent as the above. But which would you rather read?

And even if you answer otherwise, you must still consider the majority (ironically). Jane down the street—you know, the one who works in that supermarket—is, sadly, unlikely to read either; but, I know which version I would want to have to market.

The same applies to fiction. The issues raised by the Great Gatsby would come into far more scrutiny if the book had been written and marketed with a serious storyline and understable writing. Pretentiousness won’t just get you criticised by the likes of me; it will harm your career as an author, and it will undermine your efforts.

But Surely the Message is Still Important?

Yes and no. The age-old oxymoron. Yes, in the sense that (with a bit of effort) you can gain something valuable; no, in the sense that I’m going to elaborate on next.

Now, Northern Lights has to be my all time favourite novel—although the Amber Spyglass (the last book in the series) might just beat it out.

Northern Lights is also a book that is deeply inspirational to me; it instilled a love of physics in me (you’ll know why if you’ve read it), it gave me a love of literature, it gave me a real perspective on my view of religion; and it was a cracking read.

I can tell you that Pullman’s Northern Lights—or the works of other comparable authors—have made a much bigger impact on our lives than any classic you care to name. This is for no other reason than the fact that it is widely read; and because the people who do read it (unlike those forced to study it in English) will actually, really, comprehend it.

If Lights had been written in the same manner that the Gatsby and its ilk were, then it is likely I would never have read it—and couldn’t have understood as much as I did even if I had.

Now One More Point

Another thing I would like to mention is the fact that, by upholding a work of pretentious literary fiction, you are not only annoying the heck out of a lot of people; you are also giving authors a message—that convoluted writing and expositionism is okay—and, most importantly: you are distracting readers away from better books.

That is the crux of it all, at the end of the day. It is not about complaining that the prose is difficult and obtuse; it is not about whining that the characters are impossible to emphasise with; or that the plot is aimless and confusing.

The problem is that, in a world of books, lavishing praise on the not-so-good detracts from the ones that are really-good.

To Conclude

You’ve read a book. You don’t really understand it all—some bits especially. You think it’s good though. You have read what the critics say; surely, if they say it’s this and that, they must be right? Maybe you’re not clever enough to ‘get’ it? Now you’re going to give it 5 stars?

Well, don’t. Not to sound contumacious, but just because the guy with his degree from Oxford and the Cambridge girl who mastered in some obscure subject say it’s good; that doesn’t prove anything.

Education about literature these days is focused on symbol-hunting and metaphor-making (if it ever was any different). Use your head. If you can’t bloody read the thing, it probably doesn’t merit five stars.

Hope I’ve gotten the point across. Care to leave a comment?