| Author | Message | ||
     Rondall Moderator Username: Rondall Post Number: 54 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
Chris brought up a good question. Who are some of the poets, underground and otherwise that you say represent "real poets". See the last thread for some of my suggestions. Try not to duplicate and please! let us know how to get some of the more obscure poets if you list them. Feel free to satiate your egos and list yourself. But beware, some the judges are: Cynique, Abm, ChrisHayden, Lambd, Sisg, Miss_wysteria, myself, and the rest of the pandemonium posse. So speak up!!! These are your shout outs: | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 873 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
I just did that in the foregoing thread. If I think of more I will add them--should they all be living? | ||
| Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 1883 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
I may not be an underground poet, but above ground I sometimes like to experiment with language. Every once in a while, I get an inspiration. Not surprising, I'm currently appreciative of how succinct Haiku verse can be. This Japanese type of poetry requires a 5-7-5 meter and can only be 3 lines long. So the challenge is to make words count, and to make the last line have an impact. I Body Language Smile seeks approval of response. Wrinkle creases the nose on turned head. Eyes drop with silent thud. II Two Bad Bodies fall as shots fly. Death flips the cruel coin of fate. Iraq "heads", ghetto "tails". Gotta go. I feel a love sonnet coming on; enough of this 3-line whimsy. | ||
| Rondall Moderator Username: Rondall Post Number: 55 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
Chris, I hope you don't mind if I reprint that list. ================================================================================ ChrisHayden wrote: People who I respect (living) are those above plus Eugene B. Redmond Kola Boof Qunicy Troupe K. Curtis Lyle Shirley LeFlore Michael Castro Lenard Moore Sapphire Paul Beatty Elizabeth Alexander Kevin Powell Amiri Baraka Michelle Clifton Patricia Smith Guy LeCharles Gonzalez Ron Chill Da Playa Williams Fofeet Hari Skye Campbell There are so many...I know I left somebody out | ||
| Rondall Moderator Username: Rondall Post Number: 56 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
A very diverse list Chris. And by the way, after a sleepless deliberation I am voting that the list does not have to be limited to living poets. In our last thread we were talking about a current tour of "real poets". In this thread, I just want to see some of the love we have for poets that not everyone of us have been blessed to come across. Half of Chrishayden's list had me jacking Google at 4 in the morning. I don't expect this thread to be very hot because of another dismal subject that won't die: ***Why have many "so called" poets fail to read? Not just other poets' work but any books at all.*** Please allow me to be derisive by using a Roger Waters' lyric/song quote that comes to mind when I think of this subject. Those of you familiar with it will appreciate the satircal reference point: "Wrong, Do it again!" "If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?" --- Pink Floyd: Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 875 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Rondall: Reading (for pleasure) is going out of style. With the proliferation of other ways of recording work--audiotape or cd, videotape or dvd, people are going to these for their relaxation and entertainment-- I have stated before that I know many professionals who have to read for a living yet when I go into their houses they don't have any books or magazines in them. This is not totally the fault of a beknighted public. At one time poets in this country were public figures. I remember seeing a clip of Carl Sandburg on the Ed Sullivan show. Nowadays the academics have made poetry into a cult. They write poetry that only other academics understand or get into. Most of the poetry we are urged to worship and study came from the common people--the songs of Homer, the ballads of the troubadours. Now it is an arcane and intellectual language. The most effective and well known practitioners of poetry are in popular music and advertising--the rap star, whether we like it or not, is a poet, and is presenting his poetry in the traditional way--originally poetry was made to be performed live or recited to musical accompaniment. The poets of the past would have been horrified by the popular notion, today, among the academics that one only need write or publish it. The poets now see who is successful--the rap stars. They see the "real" poets ragged, starving to death, publishing their work for free and being ignored, counting success in hundreds of books sold. They see how Jewell's poetry book sold 800,000 copies. They want to be heard. They want to entertain. Though they are boxed in being slaves to the beat and the rhymned couplet, they want people to hear them and like them. They don't want to stand up in front of 20 people. They want crowds. Another perverted notion among "real" poets is that popular success equals some failure--they turn up their noses at entertaining or touching people--they want to expose their wounds and nueroses and the dull details of their own meaningless lives. When I started out I was under the influence of poets spawned by the Black Arts Movement. All of them were academics. They managed to combine a reverence for studying the history of the craft and performance. You probably have never heard of any of them. Baraka doesn't even have a book contract. I wanted to write my stuff and get published. These new poets make CD's. They don't want to go up a dead end. Generally they turn up their nose at me until I run my voodoo down (I got about 30 minutes worth of material memorized I can throw down anywhere). It combines cultural and intellectual reference with street slang and common everyday language. They dig it. But when I tell them about reading Paul Lawrence Dunbar or Robert Hayden or Langston Hughes or Gwen Brooks they say, never heard of them. Who wants to be somebody you never heard of? More poets I read (let's get some black ones out here) Bob Kaufman Robert Hayden Claude McKay Paul Lawrence Dunbar Carl Hancock Rux | ||
| A_womon "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: A_womon Post Number: 1179 Registered: 05-2004 Rating: N/A |
So Rondall, How's come I don't get a honarable mention in ya judges corner, hmmmmmmm? What Im just a member of the pandemonium posse or what? Lambd got mentioned and heount event come around no more. He been hidin for at least a month or two! Chris, S'up with your book? | ||
| Rondall Moderator Username: Rondall Post Number: 58 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
A_womon, the membership fee for this very exclusive club is hypnotic chaotic verse. Are you seeking an application? Besides, a few threads back you came off the "top rope" and hit me woth Monday Night RAW suplex. And after the match was over you said you were going to boycott the poetry board like it Selma, AL in the 60's. I value your judgement as sound. But beware of illegal holds and try not to hurt the participants. And by the way: Do YOUR list!!! Peace | ||
| A_womon "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: A_womon Post Number: 1180 Registered: 05-2004 Rating: N/A |
Rondall, What thread, Iount remember that! Hahahahahaha Ok Ima do my list, but I gotta think on it some more. They don't have to be published yet, do they? Here's a teaser: a partial list Sistah Souljah Lambd Beautiful Waterstar and of course Rondall | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 879 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
A woman: It's out. | ||
| A_womon "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: A_womon Post Number: 1182 Registered: 05-2004 Rating: N/A |
Chris, How come I didn't get my advanced copy? that i ordered online when I clicked on the link provided by your publisher? | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 880 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
A woman-- Let me check up on that. | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 881 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
A woman: My publisher, Door of Kush Multimedia, informs me that the book has been sent to the warehouses of Amazon and the distributor. They have informed the publisher that it will be available Friday. Thanx for the headsup. Keep me posted if you have any further problems. | ||
| A_womon "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: A_womon Post Number: 1183 Registered: 05-2004 Rating: N/A |
Will do, thanks! | ||
| Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 885 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
Okay, we listed poets but what about poems that they or others did that we like--name dat poem. Here are a couple of poems that turned me on when I started out by Robert Hayden "Middle Passage" http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6657&poem=33720 and "Runagate Runagate" http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6657&poem=29700 I really liked "A Ballad of Remembrance" too but I have to find that one. |
