The Guy Who Is
Now and again when things don’t go the way
I’d like and people blame me, what I do
is see who I can blame instead. I find
this a good coping skill, and there are those
who’ll lend an ear to my complaint. For instance,
when I drop passes, I can always tell
what person is responsible. It won’t
be me. When food is burnt, there is some person
whose fault it is. I’ll point that out. And when
the dust clears and the story’s told, be sure
you know each person’s part. If you’re in doubt,
just ask me and I’ll let you know what I
am not to blame for, and the guy who is.
The Guy Who Is
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CalebPerry
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This is more prosaic than most of your poems. You sound a bit like me.
I'm reminded of the old argument that a poem should "show" more than "tell", and this poem has a lot of telling in it. Perhaps because of that, it doesn't evoke an emotion or a mood in me. In my opinion, that is the gold standard for poetry. Perhaps another way of saying this is that the poem is very explanatory.
I'm reminded of the old argument that a poem should "show" more than "tell", and this poem has a lot of telling in it. Perhaps because of that, it doesn't evoke an emotion or a mood in me. In my opinion, that is the gold standard for poetry. Perhaps another way of saying this is that the poem is very explanatory.
Signature info:
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
Hi Caleb,
Yes, this is a persona poem, and the persona is chatting away about their opinions on how society functions. That is, someone else is always to blame. It's a bit political, independently of the Trump parallel, and you are quite right ,satire tends to appeal to the head more than the heart. It's also a bit categorical and two-dimensional, but again, that's how satire works.
Not my most poetic poem - i agree 100% - but then, not all verse is poetic in those terms. I think it does its job and doesn't need emotion to do so, it's more of a think piece, where we get the point and go ah, I've seen that myself.
"Clean," now, was in serious need of an edit, as you made clear, so thank you for that.
Cheers,
John
Yes, this is a persona poem, and the persona is chatting away about their opinions on how society functions. That is, someone else is always to blame. It's a bit political, independently of the Trump parallel, and you are quite right ,satire tends to appeal to the head more than the heart. It's also a bit categorical and two-dimensional, but again, that's how satire works.
Not my most poetic poem - i agree 100% - but then, not all verse is poetic in those terms. I think it does its job and doesn't need emotion to do so, it's more of a think piece, where we get the point and go ah, I've seen that myself.
"Clean," now, was in serious need of an edit, as you made clear, so thank you for that.
Cheers,
John
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CalebPerry
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- Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2018 11:26 am
If the poem works for you, that's the most important thing. You have to satisfy yourself.
I find it a little scattered and nebulous. It sounds like you are giving the reader a window into your thoughts, as if you are reasoning something out. Does that make for a good poem? I don't know. Maybe some people will love it.
I find it a little scattered and nebulous. It sounds like you are giving the reader a window into your thoughts, as if you are reasoning something out. Does that make for a good poem? I don't know. Maybe some people will love it.
Signature info:
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
Thank you, Caleb, you are very understanding! The poem may work for me, but it matters when a reader stumbles over it, because we or I write for others in the end.
Yes, my N is thinking out loud. For instance is not a typical poetic phrase, but it’s true to thought, to working something out, as you rightly put it. It’s the core of this poem so I hope it’s OK here.
Cheers,
John
Yes, my N is thinking out loud. For instance is not a typical poetic phrase, but it’s true to thought, to working something out, as you rightly put it. It’s the core of this poem so I hope it’s OK here.
Cheers,
John
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CalebPerry
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I don't know if I ever shared my hypothesis or theory (I never know which word to use) with you before, but I have noticed that good writers who are very prolific will rise to a level of greatness in some of their poems, while others remain somewhat ordinary. Some writers, like Frost and (in my opinion) Stallings have an overall high level of quality in their writing, though I wouldn't describe all of their poems as great. I've seen enough of your poems to believe you achieve greatness often enough that you may indeed make a name for yourself. Sometimes I feel, though, that being so prolific might work against you. It seems to be easy for you to knock off poems, so easy that perhaps you don't feel that you have to work hard at all of them. (I hope you realize that what I've just said is more of a compliment than a criticism.)
There is a poet named Robert Lavett Smith who is so prolific that he goes through long periods in which he writes two poems a day, and they are all perfectly metered and rhymed. Any poem which is metered and rhymed and written by a poet with good judgement must be at least good, but some of his poems really do shine brighter than the others. I think the same thing is true of you -- everything you write is at least good, but not everything is great. But enough are great enough that I think you'll be remembered. (Did I just repeat what I said above?) The problem, though, is that there is so much competition.
There is a poet named Robert Lavett Smith who is so prolific that he goes through long periods in which he writes two poems a day, and they are all perfectly metered and rhymed. Any poem which is metered and rhymed and written by a poet with good judgement must be at least good, but some of his poems really do shine brighter than the others. I think the same thing is true of you -- everything you write is at least good, but not everything is great. But enough are great enough that I think you'll be remembered. (Did I just repeat what I said above?) The problem, though, is that there is so much competition.
Signature info:
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
Hi Caleb,
Those are kind words. It is the first time I’ve heard anyone actually say they think I will be remembered, and it’s a big moment for me, so thank you from my heart, it lifts my spirits. Perhaps I will be, and then people will remember you as the first reader to see that potential on the page.
I share your concern about my facility. To borrow an example, James Merrill is a very fine poet, but he wrote reams, and reading his collected works involves wading through hundreds of pages of perfectly well-formed verse to find the poems that take the top of your head off, as Emily Dickinson called for. My wife and I were discussing your remarks, and she suggested that I think in terms of selected works to try to make myself known. I do have a MS. which is meant to be my best poems, To Our Alien Overlords, but then, I have 27 other MSS following along behind it, or over 2000 pages. I know I have difficulty telling my good poems from my better poems, though I am OK at distinguishing crap. Here, my wife thinks of the poems which journals have published – a pretty good benchmark – and I also think of readers’ comments, like yours on this poem here, “The Guy Who Is.” Not my best work, I would certainly agree.
Should I write less? I don’t think so. But I’ve been trying lately to write more slowly – it’s quite common now for quatrains (my main form at present) to go through a few iterations, as I decide my rhymes and thought processes are facile and I should challenge myself more. A recent pent quatrain turned into tet as I decided it had filler in it for the sake of the meter. A better poem now. But I want to keep writing a lot, that is a good way to improve when one has the option. Really, my work cries out for an editor (in which I am not alone).
In short, thank you. I value your eye and I value your comments.
Cheers,
John
Those are kind words. It is the first time I’ve heard anyone actually say they think I will be remembered, and it’s a big moment for me, so thank you from my heart, it lifts my spirits. Perhaps I will be, and then people will remember you as the first reader to see that potential on the page.
I share your concern about my facility. To borrow an example, James Merrill is a very fine poet, but he wrote reams, and reading his collected works involves wading through hundreds of pages of perfectly well-formed verse to find the poems that take the top of your head off, as Emily Dickinson called for. My wife and I were discussing your remarks, and she suggested that I think in terms of selected works to try to make myself known. I do have a MS. which is meant to be my best poems, To Our Alien Overlords, but then, I have 27 other MSS following along behind it, or over 2000 pages. I know I have difficulty telling my good poems from my better poems, though I am OK at distinguishing crap. Here, my wife thinks of the poems which journals have published – a pretty good benchmark – and I also think of readers’ comments, like yours on this poem here, “The Guy Who Is.” Not my best work, I would certainly agree.
Should I write less? I don’t think so. But I’ve been trying lately to write more slowly – it’s quite common now for quatrains (my main form at present) to go through a few iterations, as I decide my rhymes and thought processes are facile and I should challenge myself more. A recent pent quatrain turned into tet as I decided it had filler in it for the sake of the meter. A better poem now. But I want to keep writing a lot, that is a good way to improve when one has the option. Really, my work cries out for an editor (in which I am not alone).
In short, thank you. I value your eye and I value your comments.
Cheers,
John
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CalebPerry
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You're welcome, John.
Let me say one more thing before I go to bed.
Judson Jerome, my favorite author of poetry instruction books, examined the work of a woman who proudly said that she had written 4,000 poems. He then wondered if she might not have had better success if she had concentrated on writing 25 great poems. Of course, we both know that poems write themselves, and that no one can choose the great ones. But the point is, 25 highly memorable poems may do more for a poet's reputation than 4,000 not-so-memorable poems. I think that Wilfred Owen is the proof of that.
Talking about prolific poets, I decided to read some of the less famous work of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and much of what I read was very amateurish. It seems that her normal writing was fairly low quality, but on occasion she could rise up to a much higher level.
Believe it or not, I have ambitions for myself. My writing is more prosaic than yours, but what I have going for me is a unique perspective in my poetry: Not pretty, but blunt, real, down-to-earth, relatable, and even a little crude. I attack subjects no one else does. (What other serious poet has rhapsodized about defecating, sodomy and disinterred caskets?) If my name is remembered, it will be for those reasons. The fact is, though, most people like pretty poetry, and you do that much better than I do. Your average reader wants to read uplifting stuff, not about the co-worker who insulted the poet forty years ago. (Sorry, this is your thread. I shouldn't be talking about myself.)
Let me say one more thing before I go to bed.
Judson Jerome, my favorite author of poetry instruction books, examined the work of a woman who proudly said that she had written 4,000 poems. He then wondered if she might not have had better success if she had concentrated on writing 25 great poems. Of course, we both know that poems write themselves, and that no one can choose the great ones. But the point is, 25 highly memorable poems may do more for a poet's reputation than 4,000 not-so-memorable poems. I think that Wilfred Owen is the proof of that.
Talking about prolific poets, I decided to read some of the less famous work of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and much of what I read was very amateurish. It seems that her normal writing was fairly low quality, but on occasion she could rise up to a much higher level.
Believe it or not, I have ambitions for myself. My writing is more prosaic than yours, but what I have going for me is a unique perspective in my poetry: Not pretty, but blunt, real, down-to-earth, relatable, and even a little crude. I attack subjects no one else does. (What other serious poet has rhapsodized about defecating, sodomy and disinterred caskets?) If my name is remembered, it will be for those reasons. The fact is, though, most people like pretty poetry, and you do that much better than I do. Your average reader wants to read uplifting stuff, not about the co-worker who insulted the poet forty years ago. (Sorry, this is your thread. I shouldn't be talking about myself.)
Signature info:
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
Hi Caleb,
I agree, you tackle subjects that are, for want of a better word, fresh and new. I’ve sometimes said that shitting vanished from literature between Rabelais and Joyce, and there may be truth to that. It’s a natural and daily bodily function, so that seems a little limiting for art. There’s value, to my mind, in saying what doesn’t get said. That is actually my argument for my madness manuscript, which I think speaks for a largely muted (and sizeable) community. I’m waiting for a contest judge to get that point. No other MS. of mine does so much to speak for the silent. As do you, and so, I think your work has a good angle on publication and on being remembered. I could imagine it prettier, but I don’t think that is true to its ethos. SO there you go.
I say I plan to keep writing often because I believe that when one has that option, that’s how one can best improve – practice. If ever my complete works appear, they will have thousands of pages of perfectly adequate, forgettable verse, like a James Merrill, I think. But I’m not prepared for a bonfire yet and I think out of that practice emerge moments of better poetry, as they might not if I didn’t work at it daily. In short, I am in agreement with you. This is why my work could at some point really use an editor, but I mean my complete works, because I have poems floating around throughout the corpus which deserve preservation. Ah well.
Yes, Wilfred Owen. Or TS Eliot, whose long life produced a remarkably small corpus of work.
Cheers,
John
I agree, you tackle subjects that are, for want of a better word, fresh and new. I’ve sometimes said that shitting vanished from literature between Rabelais and Joyce, and there may be truth to that. It’s a natural and daily bodily function, so that seems a little limiting for art. There’s value, to my mind, in saying what doesn’t get said. That is actually my argument for my madness manuscript, which I think speaks for a largely muted (and sizeable) community. I’m waiting for a contest judge to get that point. No other MS. of mine does so much to speak for the silent. As do you, and so, I think your work has a good angle on publication and on being remembered. I could imagine it prettier, but I don’t think that is true to its ethos. SO there you go.
I say I plan to keep writing often because I believe that when one has that option, that’s how one can best improve – practice. If ever my complete works appear, they will have thousands of pages of perfectly adequate, forgettable verse, like a James Merrill, I think. But I’m not prepared for a bonfire yet and I think out of that practice emerge moments of better poetry, as they might not if I didn’t work at it daily. In short, I am in agreement with you. This is why my work could at some point really use an editor, but I mean my complete works, because I have poems floating around throughout the corpus which deserve preservation. Ah well.
Yes, Wilfred Owen. Or TS Eliot, whose long life produced a remarkably small corpus of work.
Cheers,
John
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CalebPerry
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The underlying topic in this exchange is that we are both ambitious and want recognition, but that makes sense -- why write poetry if no one will read it? It is, after all, both art and communication, both of which need acknowledgement. Of course, without the internet I might be doing what Dickinson did, which was to put it all in a trunk. We feel driven by something inside.
John, I want you to know that I have written pretty poems, so I am going to create a thread with three or four of my prettier poems in it -- not for critique, but just for you to see. But the subjects of the poems are still somewhat intense -- death, a girl who grew up to be a prostitute, caskets disinterred by flood waters. But at the least I want you to know that I can write in meter and rhyme. You might respect my writing a little more if you saw them.
John, I want you to know that I have written pretty poems, so I am going to create a thread with three or four of my prettier poems in it -- not for critique, but just for you to see. But the subjects of the poems are still somewhat intense -- death, a girl who grew up to be a prostitute, caskets disinterred by flood waters. But at the least I want you to know that I can write in meter and rhyme. You might respect my writing a little more if you saw them.
Signature info:
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
There's nothing wrong with ambition, to my mind - without it, greatness is I suspect never achieved. A big statement but I find it likely. OTOH, failed ambition can certainly make a person bitter, which is no fun to anyone. I have moments of bitterness about my art, when it comes to contests, and have to shrug them off.
To be frank, Caleb, I think of your writing as having a clear, fresh voice in terms of topics and speaker but a focus elsewhere than in the craft of poetry, the mechanics of the thing. So I like your idea of posting some of your work in meter and rhyme, to show your chops at what you have called pretty verse. It's my experience that rhyme and meter take a fair bit of work, if you want them to sing. OTOH, your voice is characteristic enough that I'm not sure I'd want you to surrender it in order to write rhymed and metrical work, and i suspect you wouldn't want that either. Milk is best at being milk, not at being apple juice, and that goes for both of us in our respective ways. Of course, I have yet to see what you post next!
Let me add that I think a clear, fresh voice is extremely hard to come by.
Cheers,
John
To be frank, Caleb, I think of your writing as having a clear, fresh voice in terms of topics and speaker but a focus elsewhere than in the craft of poetry, the mechanics of the thing. So I like your idea of posting some of your work in meter and rhyme, to show your chops at what you have called pretty verse. It's my experience that rhyme and meter take a fair bit of work, if you want them to sing. OTOH, your voice is characteristic enough that I'm not sure I'd want you to surrender it in order to write rhymed and metrical work, and i suspect you wouldn't want that either. Milk is best at being milk, not at being apple juice, and that goes for both of us in our respective ways. Of course, I have yet to see what you post next!
Let me add that I think a clear, fresh voice is extremely hard to come by.
Cheers,
John
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CalebPerry
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Thanks, John. MOST of that was complimentary (not all of it, of course!). You seem to see meter and rhyme as more legitimate than, say, free verse, which is a bit chauvinistic. Let me just point out that in this modernist age, poetry is what the poet says it is, and unrhymed free verse predominates. Many of my poems actually have a rough meter, and I consider it to be blank verse, which is a perfectly legitimate term. Frost has written free verse that is similar to mine (or rather, mine is similar to his).
I'll post those pretty poems sometime tonight. I'm looking at those threads now to make sure you didn't participate in them, so I'll know you've never seen them.
I'll post those pretty poems sometime tonight. I'm looking at those threads now to make sure you didn't participate in them, so I'll know you've never seen them.
Signature info:
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
If you don't like the black theme, it is easy to switch to a lighter color. Just ask me how.
If I don't critique your poem, it is probably because I don't understand it.
Hi Caleb,
Not more legitimate - just part of a poet’s toolkit of craft, like a finger roll or a layup. It’s good to know one’s craft, I think, as a forward knows theirs.
I’ve started looking at your posted poems, but typing on the computer wakes my wife, so it must wait!
Cheers,
John
Not more legitimate - just part of a poet’s toolkit of craft, like a finger roll or a layup. It’s good to know one’s craft, I think, as a forward knows theirs.
I’ve started looking at your posted poems, but typing on the computer wakes my wife, so it must wait!
Cheers,
John