When is a poem not a poem?

One definition might be... the encapsulation of profound feeling, insight, reflection, truth, etc in a few short words or a vivid image.

Raymond Carver's 'Quiet Nights' comes to mind:

I go to sleep on one beach,
wake up on another.

Boat all fitted out,
tugging against its rope.

Short and sweet - and maybe not to everyone's taste. To me, though, it suggests hope, recovery, promise - and all in that one tiny mental picture. Is it a poem? It has rhythm and structure. And if he'd written

I fell asleep on one beach and, oddly enough, woke up on another one, and there was a boat there all fitted out and ready, and it was tugging against it's rope as the tide went out.

it wouldn't have had the same effect. That's a literal transcription of the poem into prose - but the transcendent, metaphorical, spiritual nature of the piece is entirely lost.

As with any other art form, it's probably largely subjective, too (I actually think Ham on Rye is quite poetic... in places! More poetic, perhaps, than some of Buk's poetry!) Your idea of a good poem may not be my idea, etc. Are song lyrics poems? That's another debate that's been going the rounds for years. To some, maybe... to others, maybe not.

I'll hold my hands up now and admit I'm not much good at this sort of thing... as must be evident! For me, it's probably a case of the subjective: I may not know much about poetry, but I know what I like.

I'll shut up now and leave it to those better equipped than myself to answer this question...

Looks like a pretty good job to me Stan. Happy New Year.

My kids could of painted a better one.

Disgusted of Oma Harna Brasker

?

You've rolled the debate out so well STM, a succinct expression of feeling that others can relate to (or not).

"Cast aside the simplistic notion that a poem must rhyme. Nearly all of our great poets have written poetry that doesn’t do any such thing."

That's only true if you follow the common modern free-verse-fascist idea that all our great poetry has only been written since TS Eliot published The Waste Land in 1922 and doesn't rhyme.

Before that, of course, pretty much all our great poets rhymed all the time. You'd have to go back to the Middle Ages to reach a point when they didn't.

As to whether song lyrics are poems, yes, they can be. Not all of them of course, but some are.

Exhibit A:

Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass,
They slip away across the universe.

Pools of sorrow, waves of joy
Are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me.

Images of broken light
Which dance before me like a million eyes,
They call me on and on
Across the universe.

Thoughts meander like a
Restless wind inside a letter box,
They tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe.

Sounds of laughter, shades of life
Are ringing through my opened ears,
Inciting and inviting me.

Limitless undying love, which
Shines around me like a million suns,
It calls me on and on across the universe.

Blake?

Before that, of course, pretty much all our great poets rhymed all the time. You'd have to go back to the Middle Ages to reach a point when they didn't.

Which therefore means that some of them didn't...doesn't it. Which therefore suggests that rhyme is not an essential component for a poem. Doesn't it?

Yes, a lot of non-rhyming poetry was written before 1400 and after 1922.

I wasn't suggesting that rhyme was an essential component of poetry, I was just saying that it's not true that "nearly all of our great poets" didn't rhyme.

So what separates poetry from prose?

I would say, prose involves normal, natural use of language. Poetry is different because it says things in peculiar ways, it relies on things like metaphors and wordplay. And because it normally aims to encapsulate things in as short a space as possible, unless it's epic poetry.

That's the best explanation I can think of at the moment.

Not Blake, Leander - John Lennon.

As for the general question, I suppose it's a matter of taste though for me the best poetry certainly has a discernable metre and mostly rhymes.

That's not to say a poem has to have those qualities but I do think a lot of what people now call poetry is really prose masquerading as poetry.

What I think rhyme and metre do best is to help a poem be memorable. How many people can recite any modern, free-verse poetry from memory? Not many I suspect.

I do worry that many modern poets, by eschewing rhyme and metre, are in serious danger of talking only to themselves and alienating their work from 'Joe Public'. I ask myself - Is that wise? Is it not a similar situation to the debate about 'modern art', which many people find inaccessible at best.

Here's what I think is an interesting point. When the BBC did the 'Nation's Favourite Poems' thing, of the 100 poems chosen, 86 had straightforward rhyme structures and most of the rest had a discernable metre. Even when looking at the next 100 in the list, 72 of them had a clear rhyme structure too.

I think it's therefore clear that most people find poetry with rhyme and metre to be more memorable. I agree that's not the sole criterion but it does seem to be important to most people.

Helvigo Jenkins

Archie

That's pretty much the conclusion I've come to. It's like the language of poetry has an extra dimension not used in everyday speech.

"I do worry that many modern poets, by eschewing rhyme and metre, are in serious danger of talking only to themselves and alienating their work from 'Joe Public'. I ask myself - Is that wise? Is it not a similar situation to the debate about 'modern art', which many people find inaccessible at best."

Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes yes.

Also, it strikes me that a lot of poets and poetasters who write exclusively in free verse believe their poetry to be inherently more soulful, deeper, essentially BETTER than poetry which does have rhyme and meter. This insults the intelligence and validity of not only the rhyming-metric poets themselves, but also a poetry-reading audience who, as you say, tend more to gravitate towards rhyme and meter because it's more memorable.

It's like a superiority complex and an inferiority complex rolled into one.

Helvigo,

I wonder then if rhyming was simply a tool to aid the memory in a time when the majority of the population could not write and plays and poetry were passed verbally.

I don't have a problem with rhyming poetry. I just don't think it's a vital organ.

Metre though? That could be more important - especially when we read aloud. Then again, there's some pretty good doggerel around - then again doggerel rhymes (always?).

Hmmmh. I still don't know.

Meter is only important if you're rhyming or writing in blank verse. And then, of course, it's usually very important. I say 'usually' because a rhyming poem that doesn't have perfect metre can still be good, if it at least scans reasonably well.

A poem that rhymes but doesn't scan is, for me, unreadable.

Most people ignore most poetry
because
most poetry ignores most people.

Adrian Mitchell

...and then you have prose poems, prose with poetic qualities, odes, limericks, sonnets, clerihews, epigrams, tone poems...

In some ways, asking the question 'What is a poem?' is a bit like asking 'What is music?' We all think we can give a definitive answer - it should be easy enough. But...

What is art? Oh dear... that's a can of worms...

"I do worry that many modern poets, by eschewing rhyme and metre, are in serious danger of talking only to themselves and alienating their work from 'Joe Public'. I ask myself - Is that wise? Is it not a similar situation to the debate about 'modern art', which many people find inaccessible at best."

This is what I don't understand - how does this alienate their work from 'Joe Public'. I think the biggest thing which alienates a reader is poetry where the actual meaning is inaccessable (never could spell that word) - which is why the majority of the population don't read poetry. That in itself suggests that all poets are speaking only amongst themselves - as are most modern day painters and sculptors.

I hope this doesn't sound elitist but how should poets go about 'reaching Joe Public'. Nudes on the cover? Free beer with every copy? Topless readings?

Yes Leander, you're right, but the point is that it does seem overwhelmingly to be free verse poets who write in this inaccessible way, this seemingly deliberate way to alienate people. An enormous number of them concentrate so much on avoiding rhyme and meter, and being experimental and subtle, that their work loses all discernible meaning. Which is why hardly anyone reads poetry anymore, which is why the poetry publishing industry is minuscule and approaching irrelevant.

I think Helvigo's point was that rhyme and meter make a poem more satisfying to the ear and to the memory, and this is what people like. Free verse is a more acquired taste. It takes getting used to. I used to find pretty much all free verse unreadable. It took me a while to develop a taste for it, because it's not obviously immediately satisfying, the way that a frolicking anapaestic rhyming poem might be, for example.

Chuck, it's not about poets needing to reach Joe Public. It's about publishers needing to. They ought to open their minds instead of only ever publishing subtle experimental free verse written by their friends.

OK I'll rephrase that. How do publishers reach Joe Public? If they know they can sell a few signed copies to the in crowd and get their money back they'll publish it. For Joe Public there's Dan Brown.

Publishers would reach Joe Public firstly by publishing poetry that's more accessible (not to mention dynamic and exciting) and secondly, by marketing it with the same vigour that novels are marketed.

There should be huge posters for new poetry collections dotted around the London Underground, the way there is for crappy chick-lit novels.

Interesting topic, to which I have nothing to add at present, but hope to be somewhat enlightened after reading the views of others.

Well Archie I admire your idealism. Unfortunately I don't share your awe of Joe Public's literary aspirations.

Who is 'Joe Public' anyway? A tabloid reader with a general level of education? A semi-skilled service sector worker with A levels? A shop worker with a degree?

Is hip-hop poetry? It has a pretty broad appeal.

Some poets, I'm sure, never wanted that level of appeal anyway. Eliot was pretty elitist - but then, Joe Public in his day was probably largely uneducated. Jonathan Prynne... I mean, who - outside of academia - would ever read him?

It comes back to the main question: What is a poem? Maybe it's just what the reader says it is. What is art? Is it what you see, or what Charles Saatchi buys?

Well Archie I admire your idealism. Unfortunately I don't share your awe of Joe Public's literary aspirations. My experience of Joe suggests he may well resent being educated on the underground.

Oooops....little problem with the edit feature there. Stan makes a good point. Who precisely is Joe Public?

If we sweep aside all the usual assumptions and stereotypes, I guess we could get an idea from looking at things like newspaper sales, TV programme ratings, book sales... though it's still dodgy ground.

So let's have this person and call him Joe. He has a handful of GCSEs. He's living alone now following a divorce. He works as a clerical officer in local government. He reads The Mirror, or occasionally 'i'. He likes watching footie. He also enjoys movies. He plays a pretty good game of chess. He likes a pint with the lads, but also buys the odd bottle of decent wine. He shops at Sainsbury's. He's not over bothered about fashion, but he has his hair styled, and on days off wears jeans and t-shirts from Matalan. He likes Robert Ludlum novels. He listens to bands like Coldplay, Snow Patrol, U2. His hobbies are running, computer gaming and fishing. He likes his gadgets. He's not especially aspirational, but he has his eye open for promotions at work, and he does the Lotto every week.

At school, he read some Shakespeare, but didn't really get on with it. He likes Benjamin Zephaniah, though... what he's heard, anyway. Given the choice between a slam and a gig, he'll take the gig every day.

So... how would you get him back into reading poetry?

"My experience of Joe suggests he may well resent being educated on the underground."

Why? What's to resent? Newly-published novels are advertised in public, as are other forms of culture, new albums, art galleries, plays, musicals etc. Why should poetry be considered offensive?

I don't like this idea that Joe Public is a moron. He is much more intelligent than he is given credit for. It's simply that the kind of class-based, capitalist, quite anti-artistic and philistinistic society we live in does not encourage him to read poetry. It would rather he didn't. It would rather he just read tabloid newspapers. And it distracts him so vigorously with work and the pressure to make money and survive, that at the end of the day he can't be arsed to read anothing other than a tabloid newspaper. But that doesn't mean he's too stupid to.

He would be much more inclined to read published poetry if it wasn't pretentious incomprehensible bollocks. Unfortunately though, it is.

Gawd mate now you're asking. If he's anything like me he might read the odd poem on a website somewhere. ABC tales would be a good place to start.

Hehe... I kind of agree with you, Archie. Give 'em their telly, give 'em their lottery, give 'em a vote and make 'em believe it works, give 'em just enough to keep 'em quiet and stupefied...

Well Archie I'm probably a fairly typical middle class grammar school drop out myself. Didn't go to university. But for some reason I like to read. Always have. All kinds of stuff. That doesn't mean somebody who doesn't share my tastes in literature is a moron.

I just read your poem about the lizard girl. Thought it was great. Very amusing. Lot's of interesting references. Joe may find it a little too demanding. Or it may brighten up his day. Certainly it deserves a wider audience.

You may be right about selling poetry books on the underground. Seems like a minority taste to me but worth a try. If you're looking to reach the general public you may do better writing song lyrics.

Ah. I have it now. You can tell it's a poem because Joe Public won't read it.

And me? Quite a stereotype in some ways: sink estate, lousy comprehensive, no qualifications, long string of dead-end jobs, only really started reading when I was 30... and I can't even remember what started it all. A love of story, I suppose. A love of words - in all their forms. Novels, poems, songs, instruction leaflets, cereal packets...

Cereal packets for sure. Public libraries. But it's not a class issue at all. Philistinism transcends class boundaries.

Hm. I seem to have put in a bit of a red herring - albeit unintentionally. I was just using 'Joe Public' as a shorthand for people who read and enjoy reading.

I don't think it matters who 'Joe Public' is, nor do I think he or she (Jo Public?) should be defined. I was simply trying to say that there's a wealth of evidence that some poetry does appeal to enough people to make writing it a worthwhile enterprise. That being the case, it seems to me to be perverse for modern poets to write in a way that is demonstrably, and seemingly intentionally, inaccessible to those people who might want to read their work. I dunno - but I think I perceive more than a smattering of elitism.

I think I agree with Archie. It's not that poetry HAS to rhyme or have a metrical form, but it's odd that many poets now seem to go out of their way to avoid it - as though eschewing populism is somehow more literate or even noble.

Or perhaps I'm just an old dinosaur.

Helvigo Jenkins

A raptor or or one of the other types like a brontosaurus. Helvigo you (like all of the other contributors) have spoken sense.

And I agree with the comments about inaccessible rubbish poetry written by who knows and read by who knows.

Thanks Chuck, for your thoughts on Girl from Nibiru. I would say that this poem is well within the understanding of the vast majority of people. We live in the Internet age, where vast amounts of information are a few taps of a keyboard away. So, if you don't know what Nibiru or who David Icke is, you can find out in seconds. In this way, knowledge spreads. It's not a difficult poem.

Stan mentions Benjamin Zephaniah, who is one of our most famous contemporary poets because he does actually write entertaining and accessible stuff. It also helps that he's Jamaican and has dreadlocks, which automatically makes him look cool.

Our society needs to publish more poets who are like Zephaniah. This is the way to get people interested in poetry again. But at the moment, poets like Zephaniah, Adrian Mitchell etc are drowning in a sea of off-putting pretentious irrelevant wank.

The off-puttingness, pretentiousness, irrelevantness and wankness isn't just my opinion, isn't just me being angry as usual. It's the majority public opinion about poetry, when the public has an opinion on it at all, which it seldom does.

I certainly think that music can be a bridgehead into poetry. Hence the importance of (decent) hip-hop and people like Scroobius Pip. And Bob Dylan.

Exhibit B:

Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine,
I'm on the pavement
Thinking 'bout the government,
The man in the trench coat,
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough,
Wants to get it paid off.

Look out kid,
It's somethin' you did.
God knows when
But you're doin' it again,
You better duck down the alleyway
Lookin' for a new friend.
Man in the coon-skin cap in the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
And you only got ten.

Maggie comes fleet-foot,
Face full of black soot,
Talkin' that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone's tapped anyway,
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May.
Orders from the D.A.

Look out kid,
It don't matter what you did.
Walk on your tip toes,
Don't tie no bows,
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose,
Keep a clean nose,
Be careful of the plain clothes,
You don't need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows.

Get sick, get well,
Hang around the ink well,
Ring bell,
Hard to tell
If anything is gonna sell,
Try hard,
Get barred,
Get back, write braille
Get jailed,
Jump bail,
Join the army if you fail.

Look out kid,
You're gonna get hit
By users,
Cheaters,
Six time losers
Hangin' around the theatres,
Girl by the whirlpool
Lookin' for a new fool.
Don't follow leaders,
Watch the parkin' meters.

Get born,
Keep warm,
Short pants,
Romance,
Learn to dance,
Get dressed,
Get blessed,
Try to be a success,
Please her, please him,
Buy gifts,
Don't steal,
Don't lift,
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on a day shift.

Look out kid,
They keep it all hid.
Better jump down a manhole,
Light yourself a candle,
Don't wear sandals,
Try avoid the scandals,
Don't wanna be a bum,
You better chew gum,
The pump
Don't work 'cause the vandals
Took the handles.

This, for me, is a fantastic, perfect example of how song lyrics can also be poetry. I've always thought of this song as being an early example of hip-hop-style lyricism. It's also very reminiscent of the late medieval poet John Skelton.

This is the kind of thing that needs to be written and published and marketed and advertised and sold!!!

This is how to get Joe Public interested in poetry!

But are any publishers interested?

Are they bollocks.

I'm beginning to feel like the boy at school who starts the fights and then runs away...but I'm going to bed.

But this isn't a fight. We're all basically saying the same thing. And that's because we're right.

Are there any poetry publishers reading this?

You're all bastards!

Fine song that, Archie... so much better than

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss,
well, a few of the verses, they've got me quite cross...

...but what about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkCR-w3AYOE

Yeah, that is amazing. That is real poetry, real wordplay, real artistry. That's the sort of thing we need more of.

I learned that for a slam last summer. Took me 6 weeks. Still say it to myself half a dozen times a day - usually when I'm in/on the loo.

Stan, I played this link to my class before the end of term and it had an effect.

Like Archie says... it's the sort of thing that could get the public engaged again. Make it fun, make it relevant, make it whatever you have to to get people listening and reading.

Without it, we might as well all curl up and die.

Yes and that's because of the theatre. And who goes or gives a toss about the theatre? Not my kids, or their parents. It's only the theatre goers that think they care. And then they eat prawn sandwiches and wear black shoes.

...and yet... that's where it all began, really. The oral tradition. Old sages proclaiming in market places. Faces around a fire.

And now you've got people who sit in the audience and Tweet and text...

...where's my gun?

.

Correct. We must recall and celebrate the oral tradition. Do not underestimate the power of the audible word. George Carlin certainly didn't.

*small, subject-changing cough* On a far simpler note, there's things like Apollinaire's Calligrammes, e.g. 'Il pleut'. How much is it image and how much is it prose?