Poets' Corner

Crossed my mind the other day whether it would be good to have a kind of sideline of MeFiMu where poetry could posted for comment etc. I don't mean lyrics - which aren't synonymous with poetry imo (discuss, if you can be arsed) - although I guess they could be included in Poets' Corner provided they were clearly tagged as such.

I guess the writer could record themselves reading it - that would get round any upload problems? Not sure if there's any provision on the site to upload text on its own - i.e. that's isn't a question or part of a discussion thread or one of those things on the Blue or whatever.

As I said, this is just a whisp of thought, the merest nuage......

It would be cool to branch the artistic side of MeFi out a bit I think - photography would be another obvious one in terms of ease of electronic delivery.

posted by MajorDundee (10 comments total)

I like the idea. i say the more artistic endeavor at Metafilter, the better. Poet's Corner sounds good.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:48 PM on April 24, 2011

I like it, Major. I'm not sure how much it has to do with MeFiMu, but I like it.
posted by unSane at 5:34 PM on April 24, 2011

It doesn't have anything to do with MeFiMu really, but I think that the "creative" aspects of Metafilter could expand beyond music. I guess one motive is to up the ante on the creative front working on the theory that the more creative/artistic people that partipate in MetaFilter, the more chance there is of our dusty little musical corner getting the attention is deserves (but let's not go round that one again). A sort of coup d'etat by stealth.......not .

It's just an idea. Probably because I've run out of musical gas at the moment and poetry is my artistic second string. Even though I don't give much of a toss about song lyrics. Go figure. I know why this is btw, but it's too difficult to get across without being boring (coincidentally one of my favourite Pet Shop Boys tracks...).
posted by MajorDundee at 10:30 AM on April 25, 2011

So, Major, why don'tcha just post some of your poetry here? Audio. That'd be great!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:55 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

MD, don't be thwarted by the idea that poetry may not fit in here. This IS the right place for it. If you're worried about the "letter of the law" so to speak, just add a subdued acoustic guitar track or something like beatniks might do.

In any case, I'm totally in favor of this and have an itch to post some of my own too.

FWIW, it's a great joy to hear an author read their work with all of the inflection and nuance that written language doesn't have marks for.
posted by snsranch at 7:36 PM on April 25, 2011 [1 favorite]

Some authors read their own stuff well: others don't, at all. T S Eliot always sound like a railway station announcer to me. Sylvia Plath's reading of Daddy, which I hadn't heard when I wrote the movie about her, though, is pretty definitive.

One thing that drives me insane is people who have heard that you're supposed to ignore the scansion and read for the sense. Actors are particularly prone to do this, and as a result they often steamroller right over the rhythm of the thing they are reading. You only have to listen to Plath or indeed one of Winston Churchill's big speeches to hear how important rhythm is to rhetoric.

(It's said he sat in the bath and wrote them out in iambic pentameter to sound like Shakespeare - de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum - and indeed if you listen they're absolutely chock full of them)
posted by unSane at 10:13 PM on April 25, 2011

So, Major, why don'tcha just post some of your poetry here?

I'm real shy about my poetry Flapjax. I don't mind showing my musical wares, but there's something a little stark bollock naked about poetry. Maybe if one or two other post some stuff I'll dive in the pool too, or maybe if I have a few beers........we'll see. I'm sure that you'll have some good stuff ready to go - your lyrics betray a deal of care over words. And unSane too - it's a little daunting to upload poetry knowing that someone reading it wrote a screenplay of Sylvia Plath's life. Jeez. Did you call it "Ariel" by any chance?
posted by MajorDundee at 9:08 AM on April 26, 2011

We went through a lot of titles: ARIEL, THE BEEKEEPER'S DAUGHTER, LADY LAZARUS and so on. In fact I used a different title for every draft as it made them easy to identify - the 'Ariel' draft and so on - but in the end it came out as SYLVIA.
posted by unSane at 9:11 AM on April 26, 2011

Thanks for those links unSane. I have to admit that hearing T S Elliot read made me laugh like hell.

I don't if it will help at all, MD, but I'll post a poem this week and see what happens.
posted by snsranch at 4:36 PM on April 26, 2011

I'll post a poem, too! Or, you know, a "spoken song". That's close enough to a poem, I reckon.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:17 AM on April 27, 2011 [1 favorite]