“Le poète satirique de poésie”

[Turtlewax]

Mudra! what says palabra to soigné array
as maker danced through his well- staged semi trance.
Oh, how past plights inveigh, phonetics’ mouille
to broiled fusions, turmoil’s fireclays in faience.

Block English brokered, is what mentors endure
as we speed-read through its symbolics so denied.
Perhaps we can tell how suborn wills so procure
if terse schematics are less torment, post applied.

Verse’s tenue de soiree is subtle canvas of prose
suffisance steps a board with raucous inflect.
Oh, how they love say, its hiatus quell-que-chose
when they give forth, words with spiels borne interject.

Time fits my problem, as odes otic must end
caesura’s sighs sound of agonic demure
I’ll not pretend that I have lost wits repetend
or given up words of spasmodic tenure.

‘Tis but here to those, on which free verse it grows
in boscage, word and treen’s nemorous tour age.
There’s naught in a thought or slight wordage that shows
where vers libre gives stum- a grace to life’s lavage.

A suture ne’er sup posed is where words strife began
when verse prosed asked poetic word to descry.
It matters not, which maker, Greeks wished it span
when dogma died of Mira Ceti’s brightest scry.

Turtlewax

[Travis]

Nice one.

I'm locking this thread until you catch up on your critiques. We have a policy of 2 per poem submitted.

I'm also moving this to BEG.

To all interested parties - this turtle has very little chance of survival.

[Travis]

Release the Kraken!

[Danté]

Tutlewax,

Although I'm not sufficiently versed in the language, I can appreciate the execution of the form as I have with other posts that have appeared elsewhere in recent times.
It looks to me like you have a grasp of the accent placements, although I'm not in a position of knowing with any degree of certainty how every word that's not English is stressed, but that does not hinder the melodic nature of this for me. It's not easy for me to give a lot of feedback that could be useful as I don't have a good enough grasp of the conjugation of French verbs and quite how they would behave in a grammatical sense when interwoven with another language.

By the way, a nicely played get out of jail card "To all interested parties - this turtle has very little chance of survival." looks like you beat the odds.

Thanks, I enjoyed the attention to detail.

Regards

Danté

[Turtlewax]

Hi Danté,
Thank you for reading and your comments, I most honoured to be placed in the beginners forum.
The posting in question is basically just a metric frame work, the full picture I was hoping to incorporate later, now that I have most of the stressed syllables stepping in the right direction, we can possibly start to consider the correlation of vowel and consonants, which is always a contagious subject especially in rhythmic verse where syntactic stress is all important.
At the moment I am trying to avoid headless iambic if I can, sometimes the search for words with suitable meaning and stressed ending proves quite difficult.
At times pulling the odd foreign word in helps to smooth the way, where would English be without its foreign words.
I notice there is a tendency on this site to favour haphazard meter, mixing iambic, trochaic and anapest sometimes on the same line on occasion.

Anyway, I have decided not comment on the work of moderators in future; it appears to be a strategy prone to danger.

Many thanks for your attention
I hope to read some of your work shortly

Turtlewax (Bottom of the class poet)

[stuartryder]

Yes, many of us have sacrificed metre in favour of meaning some time ago. Just to be clear, strict metre and musical rhythm are two sets that intersect but it does not follow that verse written without a metrical pattern is devoid of rhythm or music.

I think your vision of poetry seems to be that it must conform at all costs to the pattern; certainly the poem you've posted may be metrically correct but it is very, very hard to read without tripping up on the words, and as for meaning, I really can't see that it has any, composed as it is from a thesaurus.

Stuart

Hi Danté,
Thank you for reading and your comments, I most honoured to be placed in the beginners forum.
The posting in question is basically just a metric frame work, the full picture I was hoping to incorporate later, now that I have most of the stressed syllables stepping in the right direction, we can possibly start to consider the correlation of vowel and consonants, which is always a contagious subject especially in rhythmic verse where syntactic stress is all important.
At the moment I am trying to avoid headless iambic if I can, sometimes the search for words with suitable meaning and stressed ending proves quite difficult.
At times pulling the odd foreign word in helps to smooth the way, where would English be without its foreign words.
I notice there is a tendency on this site to favour haphazard meter, mixing iambic, trochaic and anapest sometimes on the same line on occasion.

Anyway, I have decided not comment on the work of moderators in future; it appears to be a strategy prone to danger.

Many thanks for your attention
I hope to read some of your work shortly

Turtlewax (Bottom of the class poet)

[Turtlewax]

Hi Stuart, nice to meet you.

I agree with what you say, about free verse and it must be said I have no aversion to free verse when it is well written, that is- not written in a sloppy and erratic meter, however most free verse poets of any note learned their metric craft thoroughly before venturing into free verse, nowadays anything that looks like a shopping list or an office memo is classed as poetry by the free verse brigade.
There are of course many other aspects and poetic devices to be considered apart from meter that go into that rarity of all rarities the perfect verse. Let us not forget we are currently in the basement of poetic construction here.

I am not here to do battle with free versers, I am merely objecting to those who have not learned their craft properly, yet profess to be poetry experts.

Prose poetry and versed poetry are worlds apart in their language employed.
Prose poetry is strictly grammatical, versed poetry is or can be a flamboyant expression of emotion put to a regular rhythmic pattern, the licence afforded to poets is expressed in the language employed, why should poetry language be restricted to the mundane mediocrity of prose?. Are we to say that the skill of ballroom dancing is inferior to some idiot gyrating alone on the dance floor?

As I have already stated this exercise is merely the framework of a metric pattern the embellishments can be added later. This I believe is the whole idea of the exercise, it being work in progress, presented for improvement.
However, it would helpful to explore the metaphors, and then the seamless progression would become more apparent to you. What you need to do is establish what those metaphors actually mean to you if anything at all, I not prepared to write a full-page preface just in order to explain a poem, you either get it or you don’t.
The whole idea of using metaphors in poetry is that allows the reader to go in many directions, wherever their mind takes them, if you wish poetry to be read as a street directory then you are probably better sticking to prose poetry, it is after all horses for courses.

I am not at all sure why I should be judged on a single example of metric verse, I write in many genres.
What I have presented here, is the basic building blocks to a poetic frame work, what I am asking from you, is to help me supply the picture, tell me what you see so that may apply the brush strokes, surely that is not to much ask from someone versed in the art of meaningful poetry.
Several poets have experimented with isochronic verse; probably the most successful was Robert Browning who produced several such examples.
I am quite happy to listen to all suggestions and have often changed my poetry in spite of my personal preference, when some one gave good reasoned argument as to why I should.
I look forward to your suggestions,
Many thanks for your comments, I am most grateful.

Turtlewax,
The bottom of the class poet

[Travis]

By the way, a nicely played get out of jail card "To all interested parties - this turtle has very little chance of survival." looks like you beat the odds.

You're such a nebulous little dissident. Why don't you come out and say something concise and substantial for a change?

As for the Turtle in question, lumping us mods together like that (along with the other implication) is about as intellectually honest as saying that fossils were put here by God to test our faith, or that the laws of nature were suspended in Mary's favor when she conceived Jesus, when in truth she had just recently gotten fucked.

Here's what really happened:

David having a bad day + your imbecilic cogitation (expressed publicly) = David uncharacteristically ripping into you. It's a simple equation.

I won't come out and say everything on my mind, so I'll end with this - interacting with a mod is no more dangerous than interacting with anyone else here. Give it a try. I'm sure you'll get lambasted equally by all sides if you continue being a pretentious, shit-disturbing idiot.

Stop being an over the top character, start acting like a real person and act at least half sensible and you'll be fine. Nobody here (or anywhere else that's not overrun by clowns) gives a flying fuck if there's intermetrical marriage going on or if metaphor usage allows a reader to really take flight. For fuck's sake! Listen to yourself!

[Danté]

You're such a nebulous little dissident. Why don't you come out and say something concise and substantial for a change?

Is that referring to me?

regards

Danté

[Travis]

Yes. Please respond.

[Danté]

Well I've been called worse and gotten over it without losing any sleep. If you don't appreciate my style or humour that's your choice.
I come here to write poetry and really can't be bothered with futile exchanges that have no poetic merit whatsoever. My comment was a bit of a dangle of bait because I thought perhaps Turtlewax might be another person already posting on the board and the reason they got unlocked was possibly because they had done their quota of crits using another alias. I reserve the right to go fishing any time I like and if you don't like it I'd suggest you bar me from the site or evaporate, whichever pleases you.

Regards

Danté

[Travis]

I come here to write poetry and really can't be bothered with futile exchanges that have no poetic merit whatsoever.

Perhaps you shouldn't get involved in them then...

[Arian]

Actually, Tim, the thread was unlocked (thanks SS) in response to my specific request, so I could make a comment on TW's piece. Which is this:

I'm afraid it means nothing, absolutely nothing, to me. I read it a couple of times (there's 10 minutes I'll never get back!), but could extract nothing whatever from it in terms of either meaning or music. To my ear, it smacks of a beginner's attempt to look authentically experienced through the use of tortured language, impenatrable construction and cringe-makingly faux poeticisms. The result is something hopelesly naive, painfully pretentious, void of any value whatever, and which resembles nothing quite so much as a "poem" generated by one of those Random Poem Generators you can find on the Net (they're quite fun, try them).

Anyway, that's what I think - but I'm a (ask anyone) bear of very little brain, and my poetic antennae very badly tuned, so I shouldn't pay any attention to me.

Perhaps, talking of being banned, this kind of forthrightness will bring the axe down on the neck of my continued membership, but, if so, it was worth it.

peter

[Ros]

Turtlewax [/quote]

this exercise is merely the framework of a metric pattern the embellishments can be added later.

So this is merely a scaffold to get the metrics right and you'll replace all the words later? Perhaps it would have been better to let us see a more nearly finished work. This one isn't going to mean much to anyone, is it?

Feel free to comment on mods' posts. You are bound to get our backs up if you launch in with a rather nasty, ill-thought crit without even introducing yourself. And please remove that bottom of the class nonsense - you don't even qualify for it; believe me, we've had worse than you!

Ros

[Turtlewax]

Hi everyone,
Thanks for all your comments; I never expected such an enthusiastic response to my posting.
I was quite enjoying the initial well-mannered discussion on my metric poem, and I don’t think I have been unduly averse to the intelligent comments proffered so far.
I fact I have attempted to solicit help in the further construction of the poem.

Of course, it is perfectly true that I am all the things that the subscribing moderators, with their pronounced invective insist I am inherent too; I am indeed guilty as charged. However, I have at least maintained my inherent good manners
However, we all have our crosses to bear. Peter Bruegel put it best in the form of his pictorial art.

Since when were poets not supposed to be larger than life? Poetry has always been larger than life; it is prose, which is normally described as tedious, boring, mundane, dull and mediocre.
Regarding the offending poem, I was not aware that I was under an obligation to follow any hypothetical allusion of correctness. One wonders to the reason the amimadverters are so virulent.
It would have been relatively simple to have introduced Collins or Bob Dillon’s name in the opening line and then followed through with an excruciating array of popular name-dropping. (I much prefer the metaphysical route)However, that is not the purpose of the exercise, when one posts in a critical forum it is naturally expected that the reader if one is fortunate to get a reader with an opinion and is not frightened to express that opinion, there is no onus on the author to take notice of the proffered opinion, or implement any suggestions made, however it is normal practise on good well run poetry sites for the author to thank the reader for the proffered opinion.

Not that I will be considering the moderators invitation to comment on their work (once bitten twice shy) However, I am perfectly happy to consider any suggestions of cognitive excellence that they decide make to further the completion of the posted work.
I look forward to an interesting array of replies.

Here’s a touch of joviality in these somber proceedings.

My grandchildren once said, “Grand-dad you have more medals than a African General”
To which I replied, “I suppose I have, but I did to have shoot two to get them”.

Have a nice day everyone, I am now off to the pub..

Turtlewax.

[David]

... or, rather, they don't.

I know I shouldn't bother, but I thought I should just point out that poor Turtlewax played no part in my deciding to go away for a while. You can't blame him for that. Nor, indeed, can he take the credit for it. I was already heading for the door. He was just a little annoyance I had to step over to get there.

However, he is right in that I ought to have thanked him for proffering his opinion, no matter how entertainingly wrong-headed I found it. I would have taken issue with it in detail, but time was short and I just didn't know where to begin.

And I would urge him to engage with the poems posted by one and all, not excluding the mods.

Anyway, I'm sure he's going to be loads of fun, and you're all going to be great friends. I almost envy you the pleasure of interacting with him. Just be gentle with him.

I'm off to read up on the works of Bob Dillon, a poet who has escaped my attention thus far. Silly me!

[Travis]

Cognitive excellence, yeah...

[stuartryder]

T, you don't have to maintain a veneer of politeness, it seems your poem is all about veneer - exercise or not. But to get to the heart of the problem, I don't mind metre, metaphor, exercises, fancy words, strict rhymes, prose or poetry. But I just cannot see a poem in what you wrote.

And I think you have got on to the politics very quickly, which seems overly defensive to me. I mean, you say below that you are "objecting to ..." etc, but if I were posting my first pieces on here I would be more interested in touting my own poems than parading my critical principles. But that's just me I suppose.

I found it quite absurd that you should suggest that, later, this "framework" will need "embellishments" as it is blatantly overwrought already. The only way you could possibly save it is if you scrapped it, then wrote down in the most simple way what point you actually *want* to get across, then every further revision must be referred back to that initial plan and you would need to make sure that it could still get the point across in spite of or via the fancy language. (They were teaching us this when I was 11 years old.) But as it is, if you ever had a coherent idea for this poem, it got crushed in the "framework" you've squashed it into, and became untranslateable in the face of the constructions and vocabulary.

You've simply *got* to grasp that what you've posted is not poetry, I would probably suggest not a poem either, certainly not prose but considerably more mundane and mediocre. (You dumb snob, by the way, relegating prose in that way you did.) If you can grasp this, you might be able to start again and one day you could write something decent. If not, no chance.

Lastly, and though I may have come to the party late, I note that you are washing a dirty pair of anti-moderator knickers in public. Well there are people here who aren't mods (me for one) who don't want someone trying to turn this into a party political debate or play mods off against members. Fight your battles with them in private.

Stuart

Hi Stuart, nice to meet you.

I agree with what you say, about free verse and it must be said I have no aversion to free verse when it is well written, that is- not written in a sloppy and erratic meter, however most free verse poets of any note learned their metric craft thoroughly before venturing into free verse, nowadays anything that looks like a shopping list or an office memo is classed as poetry by the free verse brigade.
There are of course many other aspects and poetic devices to be considered apart from meter that go into that rarity of all rarities the perfect verse. Let us not forget we are currently in the basement of poetic construction here.

I am not here to do battle with free versers, I am merely objecting to those who have not learned their craft properly, yet profess to be poetry experts.

Prose poetry and versed poetry are worlds apart in their language employed.
Prose poetry is strictly grammatical, versed poetry is or can be a flamboyant expression of emotion put to a regular rhythmic pattern, the licence afforded to poets is expressed in the language employed, why should poetry language be restricted to the mundane mediocrity of prose?. Are we to say that the skill of ballroom dancing is inferior to some idiot gyrating alone on the dance floor?

As I have already stated this exercise is merely the framework of a metric pattern the embellishments can be added later. This I believe is the whole idea of the exercise, it being work in progress, presented for improvement.
However, it would helpful to explore the metaphors, and then the seamless progression would become more apparent to you. What you need to do is establish what those metaphors actually mean to you if anything at all, I not prepared to write a full-page preface just in order to explain a poem, you either get it or you don’t.
The whole idea of using metaphors in poetry is that allows the reader to go in many directions, wherever their mind takes them, if you wish poetry to be read as a street directory then you are probably better sticking to prose poetry, it is after all horses for courses.

I am not at all sure why I should be judged on a single example of metric verse, I write in many genres.
What I have presented here, is the basic building blocks to a poetic frame work, what I am asking from you, is to help me supply the picture, tell me what you see so that may apply the brush strokes, surely that is not to much ask from someone versed in the art of meaningful poetry.
Several poets have experimented with isochronic verse; probably the most successful was Robert Browning who produced several such examples.
I am quite happy to listen to all suggestions and have often changed my poetry in spite of my personal preference, when some one gave good reasoned argument as to why I should.
I look forward to your suggestions,
Many thanks for your comments, I am most grateful.

Turtlewax,
The bottom of the class poet

[Turtlewax]

Hi Stuart,
Sorry I did not get back to you sooner, it is not due to any lack of good manner’s it’s just I was in the pub having a good time.
It’s interesting reading your phraseology it’s mostly rhetorical. However, this caught my attention “But I just cannot see a poem in what you wrote.” Could it perhaps be that you do not wish to see a poem there, could it be that you are not poetically proficient enough to see anything, Could it be you are not even a poet but merely someone who pretends to the title. A real poet would have come up with constructive suggestions, yours have been singularly lacking. All you had to do was post the missing pieces, why then the hestitancy, the ball is in your court.
Unless you just like playing the politics to boast your ego. It would explain a lot of things.
It doesn’t look as if I am going to make much further progress on this, the cognitive assistance appears to be missing, I think I best go and ask my granddaughter for help, she goes to school with the daughter of Carol Ann Duffy. Duffy, now she is a scream ( British poet laureate) My grand daughter is currently writing some weird stuff at the moment, I hope she grows out of it, my other grand daughter is currently being tutored by Simon Armitage at one of Manchester's universities, now he does write good poetry.
I think I will go and sing a song or two, I write lyrics too. That should be a laugh.

It been nice talking to you,
I hope you get better soon.

Turtlewax

[brianedwards]

[Pauline]

I think this is getting rather pathetic.
It should stop now.
So the guy made a mistake.

What's the matter.
Is it cos he is not one of the gang.

[gavin]

Every one of you right good poetry---all of us, the newly –hatches chick of poetry, then see if the lips are perfect on that chick.
I don’t believe you went to the pub and got on the bad manners; this has been occupying your sub-conscious
For many hours turtle, because you think? you dont know.

All i have seen from every- body are the tentative pecks at what poetry is, (get your cock off my elephant stuff);
And with that thought IN MIND mental accompaniment diminishes into a ground grabbing excise on both sides;

Turtle is in there stirring the pot, so in his epilepsy picked on David, who he knows, is a very accomplished poet,
We all have highly eccentric ideas on poetry; or peculiarities in brain tissue thats why we call our selves poets.

We all have piebald markings some -where in our poetry; why not be constructive,
Poetry is an untameable wildness until you get published, then you have tamed it,

But none of you are published; none of you have that peculiar attributes-----that Les Murray has---poetry
All i saw was war like plumage from both sides; just very impotent tendency to show low features
Of inheritance;

i for one like turtles poetry, but the brave thing about shooting someone, is to get the gun off them first, then you can become god;

[Travis]

(insert troll pic here)

Exactly.

We're leaving this thread open for now, but my advice to all honest PG members is to ignore Turtlewax. A serious critique, a show of solidarity or even a doing unto him as you would have others do unto you kind of thing is A COMPLETE WASTE OF YOUR TIME.

[k-j]

Thank you Brian. Only comment worth making.

[Turtlewax]

Hi Brian,
Many thanks for the picture, it’s gorgeous, I often used to encounter such charismatic creatures on my many trips around Ireland, especially after ten pints or so of Black Velvet (Guinness and port, lovely drink) the only real problem being if one happened wake up next too one in the morning. I bet there was a few of those jumping around when Ireland lost out to France in the FIFA world cup series.

Who do you think will win the match today between Manchester United and Manchester City? I’m glad City has put Stephen Ireland on the bench he has been totally useless this season. They should transfer him to the Bolshoi Ballet.
Many thanks for the picture.

Aon bhò a bhristeas an garradh, 's a dha dheug a leumas.

Turtlewax.