Ms Marilyn's Blog

watching this as i type.
It's very interesting, but a lot of (especially) modern poetry leaves me stone cold.

Rap for instance, and the type of poetry described by the lady with the beach balls. I'll never get that. Ever.

Well I'm really jealous because I never got chance to watch it after all. Will have a look when I get chance - to see if it is on iplayer.

A few years ago when I was facilitating basic songwriting sessions, I once wrote a rap and performed it in front of a small class -it was a great ice-breaker - I think they're probably still laughing.

I'm not a poet, I've tried and failed miserably. LOL. But, I can get lost in a poem by Yeates, Keates, or Tennison. I can equally get lost after the first line of a lot of modern stuff.
Especially the poems that read like someone has just copied a thesaurus entry.

Sorry, I didn't mean that to sound as harsh as it appears.
I can understand why people get poetry. I understand why people want to write it, but i can also understand why people don't want to buy it. A lot of it is pretentious twaddle. My attempts at the art for instance. :)

My brain is functioning again this morning, it shut down early last night.
To clarify:

I'm not having a go at poetry as an entity. There are people on here who produce absolutely excellent work, I enjoy them immensely and I do love the haiku poems, you get a story in 3 lines what could be better?
As i tried to say last night, my problem is with the Damien Hirst style poetry. He might think a cow in formaldehyde is art but to me it isn't. It's a cow in formaldehyde. Likewise a shopping list isn't poetry, nor is the ingredients list from a corn flakes packet. Both of which I've seen trying to pass off as poetry. I mentioned the beach ball episode in last night’s program as an example of how modern poets think they can use any jumble of words and expect people to not only read it, but 'get' it. Sorry, but I don't. To me poetry should be more than a few random words chucked on to a page. It should have depth and meaning.

I'm not a poet either. I watched last night's programme and learned nothing. If future programmes are not more interesting I may be unable to resist switching them off. The Griff Rhys Jones show did nothing to promote an interest in poetry for me.

By all accounts I haven't missed much then. I hope the producers of the programme are taking note of these comments.

Firstly, you're a published poet, Trevor, and do read poetry. Bob watched the programme and said how he felt about it, which is good. It sounds to me as if the programme was too elementary.

It covered the basics, but I feel it did fall short.
It did mention the rhythm of poetry, an element as important as the actual words themselves, but I don’t think using Shakespeare as an instrument to prove the point worked that well. I think the whole program fell a bit short of what it could have been. Analysing Keats with scrabble tiles and the ridiculous beach balls in the pool scenes were unnecessary in my view. More time should have been spent on encouraging people to find the poet in themselves. I liked the schoolteacher working the kids, ok it was a bit rappish, but if, in the end it leads them to Yeats, Wordsworth, or Keats, then I’m all for it.

I’d like to know what the real poets on here think about it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kmtyn/Why_Poetry_Matters/

Oh, there's more! To be honest I've not had time to watch the box, but I have been reading the BBC site poems and information on poets etc., and some of it is very good!