Posted by giveawayboy on July 03, 2002 at 23:11:55:
In Reply to: Re: misc. poetry posted by john on July 03, 2002 at 06:18:28:
: I like poetry with form...specifically rhyme and meter. To me free verse has to be really really good for me to get into it. I sometimes feel that the new chik is to forget the structure in poetry...at least in amature circles. Frankly unstructured poetry is nothing more than stilted prose...at least that's my opinion (and Robert Frost's more or less)
: So I really liked Bert's thing.
: Also I like alot of Chris Kingsford's new hip hop/ beat stuff, but there again... it has a structure, even if it is often synchopated.
: nothing personal to all the free versers out there, it's just my own prefernece.
I remember the first time I read John Vaughan's poetry, which I regard as some of the best stuff I've ever read......the first time I read it I thought, this guy has lost his center and he's floating out there in space. There was NO STRUCTURE to it at all! Now I see that there is structure to it, but not the kind of structure I liked or was familiar with. the words just seemed irresponsibly scattered across the page. the page might have well not existed as the words seemed rather non-existent themselves, until, UNTIL one day something hit me like a ton of bricks. Some crazy words of his were jumping off the page at me, seizing me in a wall of emotion and meaning like some crazy tsunami or something. i realized that there was a life force jumping out and attacking me. something was vital there. somethings was visceral there. something was ontological there. wow! it was like a mack truck. ever since then i've gone around staring at this whole wide world w that deer-in-the-headlights stare you get from ek-stasis. you get it from being placed outside. everything is John's poetry, everything is like formica. everything is hanging over a dark pit. everything is being actualized and non-existing. everything is dumb and mad and beatiful like Scott Pardo!
Later, Bill