Constraints. But we won’t know eh!? Might be a cultural thing, I don't know. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. Like where did I get that poem example from above? So to come to a quite late conclusionTo this odd rhyme and CMV fusion,Poets speak of thingsProse and paintings can't bringSo easily without its musin'.

It's true, most of poetry is about love and hardship.

These are unclear and unhelpful terms that he never really explains.

She’s certainly an interesting artist, it’s not surprising people have mixed opinions on her work. Although that's actually a crazy omplicated topic, so moving on... "Courage"?

Which is all well and good if that's your preference--Formalism has a following still.

Well, once you know about the sheer amount of detail and skill involved in painting a good portrait, then you'll probably appreciate it more.
One is a direct, albeit metaphorical, confessionalized poem about loss while the other is an oblique narrative about loss.

I guess all I'm saying is, and maybe we can try and provide people a better alternative to these trash 'poems' on your social media.

I’d be interested in seeing them!

She is one of my favorite poets because she has a story beyond her poetry that I can connect with on a personal level. I have a bit of a positive counterpoint to that, which is that I have worked with a lot of young Chinese students (in LA, as a teacher for newly arrived foreign students), and let me tell you, Chinese people love poetry, and young people are sharing it all over social media.

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But! At the same time, Dickinson builds out a sophisticated symbolic and spiritual structure across her work and has a remarkable command of language and prosody1 . It is easy to see in even some great novels parts that could have been improved or expanded by revision that there simply wasn't time for. Assuming you're using the same reference point for "Modern Poetry" as Edmundson is, which seems to be any poet coming-of-age after WWII, mostly beginning in the late 50's and early 60's, it's no surprise that you'll hear those things.

Please share your own poetry on our sister subreddit, r/OCpoetry. Regarding John Ashbery (because out of love for his work I have to defend him), Edmundson gave a very superficial reading of "Those Lacustrine Cities" in his article. If you're into poetry, and you think some poem conveys some beautiful idea, with clever word use, you might want to share it with your family. Give me your answers and opinions! Poetry (and any other art form) can be philosophical, but poetry already is something "artistic." Upswing, I recognize that both Dickinson and Dylan are both influential writers. one with red skies and purple grass .

Memorizing poems can give students an appreciation for the flow and rhythm of language, which will help improve all of their writing. It's much easier, and people are water that goes down the path of least resistance. Dadaism, for the record, being what inspired Surrealism and inevitably the Edmundson-lauded James Merrill.

She is also mysterious. As far as Dickinson herself, the non-standard punctuation gives it a feeling almost like a stream of consciousness, which my mood tends to dictate my opinion of. Why is it a big deal? Here are a few casual thoughts for you to consider: Economy. There are things you can express with music that you can't express as elegantly with words, but there are equally things that you can express with words in ways that you can't express as skillfully with music. Ashbery is a very hard poet whose work will--on purpose, I believe--leave you wondering if your reading it filtered through a funhouse mirror. Poetry is art.

What you're describing is modern culture. What aspects of her poetry do you find you reside in? Poetry can do in a few stanzas what it takes many essays pages to do. Most of it is repetitive: hardship and love.

I should also note, that older things feel more importantand meaningful to us often.

Sure, I classify poetry as art, but I don't see the big deal about it. I don't know I don't really feel like poetry is getting worse because there are plenty of modern, living poets doing actually interesting good work, but like the other commenter pointed out I think the rising trend of this pseudopoem Affirmation style is a side effect of social media culture. Yes, there are very nice and interesting poems that don't fall in between these two spectra, but they are not as well-known or as praised. Taboo and the subjects forbiddenNeed not just lie down on the midden.There are places in live,Obscene or of strife,And the pictures of such are oft hidden. You can't assume every poem of every time period is going to address every person's ideas. Is Morgan Parker's "The President Has Never Said The Word Black" not serious?

My main interest is not to make pronouncements anyway.

Share published poems and discuss poetry here. How do you relate to her? If you want something artistic, I feel you should stick to art and other craft.

This is just to say that most poems are good if you come at them with a certain slant of light. For instance, why do Russians rely heavily in poetry and teaching their kids to memorize them. Whereas, it wouldn't be very much fun to hand-re-write a great novel.

I'd only say her poems are "easy to read" being that they aren't overly complicated at face value and are unnecessarily eloquent or verbose. Reading through all those poems, it's clear that Dickinson spent her whole life working very hard to crystallize some small set of pure feelings, and tried over and over to do so.

In other words, there's a great deal to unpack for the intrepid reader but peeling back these layers isn't necessary to achieve understanding and enjoyment. I suppose this is because poetry is often less accessible that other forms of fiction.

There are some trends I've noticed: Short form, free verse, lack of punctuation/capitalization, self truths (rather than human truths), a-ha moments and small, personal epiphanies. When reading a lot of her work all I want to know is why she’s written such things, what happened to her and what’s made her want to express herself this way. Does it take courage to write "The Emperor of Ice-Cream"? I would say that her work is the opposite of that. Its just a different way for people to try to convey meaning by putting words together differently. Maybe feel those things. I've never read anyone else I relate to as much. I thank you for the suggestions. I am a big fan of using constraints and limitations to promote creativity and clarity of thought--it's something I try to practice in my own writing, so I appreciate that Dickinson wrote almost 2,000 poems within very few formal rhyme schemes, lengths, and line structures.

What you’ve said here is quite frankly exactly how I feel.

The reason I quoted Ron Padgett though is because Edmundson is coming from the entirely wrong direction: You can't start from a single (largely artificial) narrative of the history of poetry.

I'm totally a prose person, sounds like you are too. Edit: Can’t figure out how to quote a blank line.

It's relatively accessible in base terms, that her poems aren't super confusing, don't have terribly obscure wording or concepts, but the symbolism and abstraction is exceedingly prominent in her poetry.

I think it’s interesting, but I’m no poetry expert.

Agree very much with the in-depth analysis.. Also for what it’s worth, I think Emily Dickinson can be appreciated on many levels and even though I liked her well enough for a long time, my appreciation for her grew slowly over time to the level of poetry genius.

I think there's also a line between being symbolic and abstract and then going too far, which I feel a lot of her works do. Poetry is less diluted than prose. How can you connect with her on a personal level? So I'm in college and something that I've noticed really taking off is for Single White Female types finding books of "poetry" where each of the poems is like one sentence like "listen, she loves you, be more considerate of her feelings" etc and titled something like Share This With Him. Cookies help us deliver our Services. Self focused, self indulgent, etc.

Please share your own poetry on our sister subreddit, r/OCpoetry.

It's easier in Chinese simply because the way the language works (fewer characters to communicate a longer message) but social media can be a great tool for anyone.

Recently picked up a book, “The selected poems of Emily Dickinson” and have read about half of it.

But when I have the underlying feeling that it's wrong for me to 'go grand,' perhaps its the gravity of social class tugging me down from the big structure that I might want to erect. This allowed me to be confident in my own opinions.

But I saw once some graffiti from the early 1400s ("William waz here" type) and that was truly impressive, even thoigh the only real difference between the two is time and context. I disagree.
This article for example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2013/06/20/why-is-modern-poetry-so-bad/?utm_term=.616d194e7b35. Poetry is something that is easy to write and iterate upon. I've been having some mild success with that where I am just because what I want to read is so different than everyone else. but I’d just like to know why she is in fact so marvellous. It's not fair to single out poetry alone for going back to this (rather deep) well. Some of the most impressive writers can take hard work and commitment to appreciate fully. I also love her writing style.

Consider the full stops as the delineation between stanzas. Dickinson's poems are easy to read and eminently digestible, and this "Hallmark" quality may be how her work is best known in the culture today.