On balance, I think they do, at least a little.

A person who readily accepts reality as it is defined by the civil powers and the mainstream media - a conventionally-minded person - will not usually have what it takes to be a poet.

A poet has to see things differently, be a sign of contradiction to society as a whole, rage against the machine etc. so he/she is always going to be considered 'eccentric' or 'mad' ... at least by definition of the majority of people.

Some poets I knew in London were crazy in the coconuts, but still good poets.

Others I've seen and heard (particularly at the type of poetry groups that meet in libraries) are obviously sane and sensible, and they tend to indulge in middle class humour and (to me) unappealing whimsy.

I know the poets I prefer... the ones who are as mad as cheese.

Oh for the sanity of cheese.

Have a look at the NHS website for advise on mental health, and the American equivalent. Artistic expression seems to be a symptom of a diseased mind.

Well, the people who pay good money for cheese are certainly mad - cos it's just milk that's gone sour.
I rang NHS to see if they could help me decide whether I was mad. They told me I had a split personality - if you could call either of them a personality!

I'm not mad.

Nor am I.

Pipe down you two, I'm trying to sleep.

Writing is the best thing for your health,
been to alot of performances were poets will pretend to be a bit crazy and wacky,
mainly because they are - understandably - scared of performing their own words.

Poets are the only sane people.

There has to be a norm for crazy to exist in the first place.

Although I've met Norm, I couldn't really say that I'd be able to prove his existence.

Madness of course is subjective.
It of course needs a backdrop on which to be compared, in this case our new pathetic media driven society. The madness brush they call it, that’s it, tar him with it, makes us feel better that we have a label. Oh!, and she’s a poet too? Well “oooh they say there is a fine line don’t they….yes”, “maybe they are a child abuser too”, why not just throw the whole lot of stinking little labels at them whilst we the media are at it, Mad? Definitely , What the hell do they know, as they hide so carefully-their little skeletons, if only we knew, Maxwell and Morgan- you entourage reports only bad news and sensational heat waves or waves of flooding destruction, you should be ashamed as you shun the confused.

Madness, poetry? The 2 have connections but just as much as sanity and poetry do. It depends on the ability to acess parts of your mind that are in ‘the mad zone’ . We are all, and do think ‘mad’ ideas, it is society that regulates (to a degree) our expression of these ideas, emotions and desires. It is society that conditions our responses, our peers, who may wish to conform to the status quo, the framework thus erected by our social conditioning, so what can we do but to regulate.

It takes the opinion of 3 doctors to have yourself sectioned, most likely then youll be chmically coshed and pretty much in a rut of the mental health system. It takes just one person to listen for just one hour, to someone who feels isolated, scared, anxious, paranoid- this can make a world of difference.
If you cant EXPRESS yourself you are going to suffer. Our basic instinct is to express. And that has been moulded into shape to a degree by contemporary society. We can do it socially acceptably through music, art, even, but can we achieve the same through our poems without being judged? Our poems are our bare feelings, have we the skill to dress our madness and project it in a sophisticated way that serves not only to express but to be accepted as ‘not mad’

Do we care? Many don’t. I certainly don’t. If you do not express your true core emotions, when you read it will not have the same impact as say a straight recital of your own-or someone else’s poems.
It takes one to know one- this is the basic mechanics of social groups and peer support, it’s why to a whole, the poetry audience is made up of other poets, though this is changing as poetry once again slowly shifts its stance in society, the madness label will dog it and it will allow the arrows to be launched, I always felt poets to be the saint sebastians, boldy marching on.

If you are mad, it wont make you a poet. If you are a poet and you are mad, it does not surprise me.
How ill exactly are we? At what point is mad ill and vice versa, if I take medication for a period of time, what influence has this on the ability to write, acid trips of the 60s, Sgt pepper? Do we get an insight here? Personally I found it difficult to write when doped out, I found the insight of drugs, on the whole pretty stupid and useless, pretty pathetic really. Does an acid trip or anti-depressant or opiate suddenly transform you into the realms of madness? It certainly opens doors that society may have closed, but it opens them rather too quickly it seems, in your temporary state of awareness (often confused with being mad) do you see all the colours now? Sometimes, yes. Will it make a poem? Probably but a trip induced load of gibberish destined to the sleeve notes of one of them experimental albums you find at the back of the bargain bin in the record store.

Can you express yourself in a ‘mad’ way? take the statement -“I’m mad me!” , No you’re not – you just told me therefore I don’t believe you.

Writing is fantastic therapy, and this is expressed as poetry. It of course requires a definition of poetry, for me poetry is an assembly of words delivered or expressed in a way that cause the listener to be engaged and entertained. If you are having a panic attack, you wont be reading, if you are suffering schizophrenia you should be somewhere safe and receiving the appropriate medication, therapy and care.
If your are just a plain mad fucker, you can read poems sure, but make certain they can withstand scrutiny, the test of time and that they are genuine and true to yourself. Be a true nutter or you wont fool me.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness. Aristotle

it's march , its the month to be mad ...

What hare brained idea is this? I won't march.

The whole business of the transformation was summed up by Freddy Mercury:

When the outside temperature rises
And the meaning is oh so clear
One thousand and one yellow daffodils
Begin to dance in front of you - oh dear
Are they trying to tell you something ?
You're missing that one final screw
You're simply not in the pink my dear
To be honest you haven't got a clue
I'm going slightly mad
I'm going slightly mad
It finally happened - happened
It finally happened - ooh woh
It finally happened - I'm slightly mad - oh dear !
Ha ha ha ha ha

I'm one card short of a full deck
I'm not quite the shilling
One wave short of a shipwreck
I'm not my usual top billing
I'm coming down with a fever
I'm really out to sea
This kettle is boiling over
I think I'm a banana tree
Oh dear
I'm going slightly mad
I'm going slightly mad (I'm going slightly mad)
It finally happened - happened
It finally happened - uh huh
It finally happened - I'm slightly mad - oh dear !

Uh uh ah ah
Uh uh ah ah

I'm knitting with only one needle
Unravelling fast it's true
I'm driving only three wheels these days
But my dear, how about you ?
I'm going slightly mad
I'm going slightly mad
It finally happened
It finally happened - oh yes
It finally happened - I'm slightly mad !
Just very slightly mad !
And there you have it !

Everone that is slighty mad misses him, except me who misses him agreat deal but then I;m completely 'round the twist.

I have a cutting from the Manchester Evening News a few years ago which starts "roses are red, violets are blue, poets will die, sooner than you!"

It references the research detailed in the links below which talks about the propensity amongst poets, as opposed to other writers, to mental illness and to lower life expectancy :-(

Now then - is this because "troubled souls" are drawn to poetry or that poetry and its introspection is enough to send anyone over the edge??


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E4D7153AF937A15757C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/mar/18/research.highereducation

Pete, Pete, Pete Crompton.

One day we will all be Pete Crompton.

Only not as well-dressed - (Bloody recession gets everywhere!)

When I started this discussion I didn't realise it would be commented on in such a variety of ways, ranging from the flippant and the absurd to the deeply serious. Anyone who has had serious mental health problems will know they are no laughing matter while they are happening. But to laugh when the worst is over is probably a good idea.
I used the phrase "crazy in the coconuts" to start this. It's an expression I first heard used in the beautiful Scottish TV drama "Tinseltown". Does anyone remember that show? I wish it could be brought back. It was poetically written.

One man's,
(sorry, one woman's),
(sorry,one grey person's),

Sorry, just can't seem to get things right theses days.
Here is the fully politically correct version;

'One person of indeterminate gender or personality's madness is another's sanity'.

I find it interesting that the name of a psychological condition known as 'fugue', which involves a loss of awareness of one's identity, is also the name of a form of music (eg. see JS Bach) which I find to be aesthetically very satisfying to listen to. Should I be worried ?
A few days ago I wrote a fugue in three parts for voices -no music- I am worried !

Fugue me!! Then forgive me.

Anyone who has read the brilliant novels of Michel Houellebecq will realise that the entire modern world has gone TOP BONKERS!

"Nurse, can I have some more medication please?"

Hi Steve

Here I was, ready to launch into some sort of self-righteous (tiresome) tirade about seriously referring to perceptions of mental illness in a thread with the word 'crazy' in the title, and then...

...You went and mentioned MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ. You are obviously a person of great (dry) wit and humour. I applaud your personal taste. I've said numerous times that people who read (and like) Camus should read Houellebecq. There's a kind of nihilism at play in both writer's work that becomes so relentless it cheers you up - (cheered me up, anyway).

For me, 'crazy' - in this context, means against the norm, swimming against the tide, outside of conventional opinion, etc. All cliches. I have enormous issues with just what 'conventional' and 'normal' is meant to mean. Conventional and normal according to?... Conventionally minded?... I'm not convinced.

I'm not sure that poets have to be 'crazy'. I do think that they have to be brave. Deep villanelle or dirty limerick, page or performance, lurking on the internet or making everywhere your stage - it takes a lot to actually summon the nerve to share your work and have it be subject to scrutiny.

And I always make a point of having a dig at Pete Crompton - even when I agree with most of what he's saying. Why? Because he deserves it.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Michel Houellebecq . He's the bravest, most prophetic writer the West has. I wish our own country could produce someone as heroic. His novels "Atomised" and "The Possibility of an Island" had a big influence on me and I've read his others. Not since I read William Boyd's "Any Human Heart" have I been so moved / distrurbed by novesl.
Of course, Houellebecq is also a poet, though strangely enough, I have not read any of his poems.
Do you go to the Wigan poetry at the Tudor, Steve? I went to the last one and enjoyed it. I thought Pete Crompton compered it with great style and offered commendable encouragement for the other poets taking part - some for the first time.

s e l f destructed
Monster Munch
:-)

Patsy Cline sung,
' Crazy. I'm crazy for feeling so lonely.
I'm crazy. Crazy for feeling so blue.'

Poets are often lonely, sad, depressed and very colourful people.
I don't class myself as a poet. Crazy? Well maybe.
Just a little. :-)

Janet.x

Hmmm . . . not sure whether poets have to be crazy. Are bears Catholic? Does the Pope s**t in the woods? Who knows? Who cares? It does give them an infinitely more interesting image though. Like artists and garrets I guess. "Sane Poet" just doesn't really cut it in the "impress a new acquaintance" stakes. The "Mad, bad and dangerous to know" certainly didn't do Byron any harm in preserving his memory. Yup, I'll settle for crazy - come to think of it I'd settle for poet!

Just to play devil's advocate, here is the dark side of the question.

Steve O made a point about scrutiny which needs to be expanded upon. Performance poetry has a tendency to attract people with varying degrees of mental illness who unwittingly masquerade as poets while the general circle jerkery of the scene carries them along on a tide of hollow applause and unfounded praise. This process may have important functions as catharsis or therapeutic expression but it is not necessarily conducive to the creation or encouragement of worthwhile verse. Much of it is the artistic equivalent of hassling a stranger on a bus.
This is not to say that suffering from some form of mental illness renders one incapable of writing good poetry, merely that the lines are blurred when performance poetry celebrates everyone equally in the spirit of misguided inclusivity. This may be good for people who suffer from mental illness, but it ain't good for poetry.

Feel free to disagree with as much vitriol as you like. Mental-wise I'm fine these days and I can take it.

What a tatifilariously absurd question,
Tis the season for great folly,
Tra la, la la, la,
la la, la la,
:-) $%£%$£%£%,
:-) &%&%&%^&,
:-) ^&*^*^&*^***^,
:-) &*(*&(&*(&*(,
:-) *()*()*()*()*()*,
:-) )_+)_+)_+)_+,
FLUBBER DUB !
(Sorry, mustn't shout or I'll wake the dormouse)
flubberdub...

Mad? Crazy? Pots for Rags? Better Read on...

Is an atheist allowed to play ‘devil’s advocate’ ? If they are, or if they make conflicting statements, even those that are soaked in cliché, then how do we treat the rest of their logic?

Siren, you too make statements that need to be ‘expanded upon’ but I have to be careful because your threads are usually booby trapped with clever paronomasia. Beginning with your very first observation - ‘performance poetry has a tendency to attract people with varying degrees of mental illness’. If poets are taken from the society in which they dwell, then is it not true to say that every muse or every vocation attracts ‘people’ with varying degrees of mental illness?

I’m always perturbed with the label ‘illness’ when attached to ‘mental (health)’. Without going into the physiological aspects of an illness that has serious mental symptoms, it’s hard to define ‘mental’ in a way that sits comfortably with MOST people.

There appears to be a condescending theme crafted into your replies, replies that I often look forward to reading but more often than not, it's rhetoric that I find myself at odds with. This is not unusual - I disagree with most people.
Your analogy that performance is ‘the artistic equivalent of hassling a stranger on a bus’ does little to persuade me that you are talking nothing more than, let’s be polite here - nothing more than - shite.

But this one in particular is a beauty -
“This is not to say that suffering from some form of mental illness renders one incapable of writing good poetry, merely that the lines are blurred when performance poetry celebrates everyone equally in the spirit of misguided inclusivity. This may be good for people who suffer from mental illness, but it ain't good for poetry”.

I may have read this wrong ( it wouldn’t be the first time) but once I’ve finally stripped away all the convoluted language from the clauses - it reads something like,
“ I’m great - you’re crap”.

The very ethos of ‘Write Out Loud’ and what it hopes to promote is, I feel, being urinated upon from a dizzying height. Yes, there are always going to be ‘better’ poets than others. Yes, there are always going to be better poets than the man (or women) who doesn’t know his R’s from his rondeau, but to sound noble about poetry and telling us what is good for poetry and what is bad for poetry is far too prescriptive.
Anybody with an ounce of intelligence will be able to work out what is considered good and what is considered bad. If I could use my own analogy? I liken watching and performing poetry to watching and playing football. I’ve played football to a high level. In terms of writing poetry, I suppose it would be the equivalent of having a book of verse printed with any of the small publishing houses. When I played at this level I still watched others who were playing at levels both above and below where I was at - because I loved football. Almost overnight, I seemed to fall out of love with football and began to write (as well as get a proper job). I still watch football - at all levels. I've been involved in a game where people not considered able- bodied played against those who WERE considered able-bodied and, rather foolishly, decided then that it wasn’t the winning - it really was the taking part.

Anyway, I’m one crazy, mad, mother fooker me - so, where were we? Ahh yes, of course you have to be mad/crazy to be a poet. If only to tolerate all the other poets ' up their own arse'.

Will you two stop it, you're driving me sane !

Blimey! I seem to have set the goatee-whiskered Hep Cats among the strutting pigeons of performance poetry. Sorry I started this. Can’t we all be friends? Besides, the north-west venues I’ve visited so far are models of sobriety and sensible shoes – compared to the poetry clubs I used to go to in That London.
‘Poetry of My Shoulders’ in Hackney and ‘The Foundry’ in Shoreditch - TOP BONKERS!

no steve i am glad you posted this ,

if we were discussing people writing poetry with multiple sclerosis , or i dunno diabetes do you think people would be so rude ?
people get mixed up and suddenly decide that poetry written by folks who sometimes have mental illness is only a product of the illness and not the person . well thats how it reads to me

Steve...

and you can 'shud up' 'an all. London Shhmondon.

Yours

Darren Thompson.







8-}

This is getting ridiculous, I joined WOL in the search for enlightenment, and I've ended up being very confusciused.

Darren is right.
Siren is wrong.
Steve is mad.
So long.

I'm not judgemental
I'm a mental judge

Was talking about poetry to the manager of my local departmental store recently. Have you met Mr Dee? He's part mental. (Aren't we all, dear?!)

I agree with Shoeless. People would not be so rude if this were about some other debilitating ailment. It's interesting that some people seem to be more offended by my serious point about the role of mental illness in poetry (if you read what I've posted you'll see that I think poetry is very good for psychological wellbeing), than the several people on this thread who have made reductive gags of the 'Oh, I'm mad me!' school.
The sense of worth that performance poetry can give to people who feel they are socially excluded or psychologically fragile is a wonderful thing, and should be encouraged by all. I merely question whether this benefits peotry in a qualitative sense. As usual, I put my point across rather provocatively in order to engender a passionate response. This seems to have worked.
Darren, your boiling down of that paragraph in my post was not only very funny but entirely accurate. I do think I am the best poet around. Otherwise, why the hell would I bother writing? The big difference between football and poetry is that in the former, quality is self-evident and quantifiable by goals, team-play etc. Poetry, on the other hand, can only be judged by opinion. Mine just happens to differ from that of many others.

"I do think I am the best poet around. Otherwise, why the hell would I bother writing?"

What a very peculiar comment Siren. I think it makes about as much sense as saying:

'I do think I am the best driver around. Otherwise, why the hell would I bother driving.'

I don't think I am an especially good poet and I am not a particularly good driver either. I don't enjoy driving, but I do it because it is useful to me. It gets me to poetry events which I do enjoy.

I write poetry because I love language and I like to play with ideas and observations through verse as well as discussion or prose writing. It is a medium by which I can take subjects to different audiences than I otherwise could. Not only do I enjoy writing and performing poetry and the social contacts and friendships resulting from it, I learn a lot from other poets.

None of this requires that I should be the best poet around and if I thought that I had to be in that position for it to be worth me writing poetry I would lose out on a great deal in my life.

Of course it is good for people to aspire to be the best and it is a positive thing to have high self regard. Nonetheless there are a great many people who bother to write who do not think that they are the best poet around. I am one of them.

My mental health has only been assessed by Gemma.

I have several complex points to make, so I thought I'd load up an old university essay. Then I thought: "What a crazy idea."

Sorry Siren, I was on the phone. What were you saying..?

I don't see anything wrong with uploading an old essay to illustrate an argument. Unlike many people on this site I tend to engage with the issues being discussed rather than just write about myself all the time.

Anyway, back to me. Kenneth Burke (a great American philosopher and a decent poet in his spare time) declared that mankind is 'rotten with perfection'. We strive towards apotheosis. It is part of our libidinous urge. One of the many reasons I love writing is that every time you pick up a pen (or a word processor) there is always the potential that you could write something wonderful. This is not just to do with eloquence or education or vocabulary. Some great poems are incredibly simple linguistically.
All you writers. Think about it. The next thing you write could be an absolute classic. It's a long shot but it is entirely possible. You all have that potential. I do, especially.
Mal, your driving analogy is rubbish. Driving is functional. Art is aesthetic. The only way you could compare the two would be if you drove in a particularly beautiful way that entertained or enlightened people. If you did do that, and you devoted much of your time to it, part of you would believe that you had the potential to be the bestest little beautiful car driver in all the world.
And when you finished writing that favourite poem of yours, did it not flash through your mind for just one second that you had created something of great beauty which stood proudly alongside all the other wonderful pieces of art this world has created?
This all goes back to my earlier point about a lack of measurable criteria for qualitative assessments of the arts. I can sit there and think something is rubbish till I'm blue in the face but if everyone else likes it what is my opinion worth?

The main things wrong with uploading the essay are that it is far too long, bloody boring and primarily directed at academic assessment rather than appropriate response to observations on a discussion board.

My analogy was poor, like a lot of my poetry, but not completely rubbish. Poetry has functions as well as being aesthetic. I listed some of the functions it has for me so I won't do it again. Without ever reaching an aesthetic pinnacle, or even attempting to do so, those functions remain.

Driving is a primarily functional activity which has aesthetic aspects for some, but not me.

Back to the point. To suggest that there is no sense in writing poetry unless you are the best around is plain daft.

I can sit there and think something is rubbish till I'm blue in the face but if everyone else likes it what is my opinion worth?
siren says :)

well as with all things in life , for all people , your opinion is worth erm , , bu**er all

Crazy? Rhymers, not unless someone's sabotaged their rhyming dictionary with random cut and pasting followed, within 24 hours, by a mysterious international email offering to reveal what word rhymes with 'orange' in exchange for banking details. Free-Versers, variably, depending on diet and whether their imaginations remain untranslatable and their visions drip like grease from a charity sausage. But greeting-card versifiers are totally harunka-tunka gibbering afternoon shrugs like Voltaire groping for cheeks.

I actually believe my driving skills are excellent when i know where i'm going or have a great navigator.
I'm often complimented on them while ferrying people around to their destinations.
In contrast to that little bit of self praise, i think my writing skills are at best average. The comments received often exceed my own expectations. The ones i think are rubbish get substantially better reviews.
So all in all, perhaps our perception of whatever we do reflects the feedback we receive in some ways but can boost the morale in others.
Maybe if i decide i'm going to be a great poet, i'll become one but i refuse to believe one needs to be an academic to be one. Either way, i'll always be a good driver.
Crazy or not.
:-)

Sanity at last Casimir is 'ere.

Sanity, eh? But I couldn't drive the aWOL instant messanger.
Messanger? As much use as a hessian can or an incendiary poet without a detonator (chees may go off but not they) or Henry VIII's code of practice piece or an extended nymph.

Chees is cheese without the E additives as sold to Cockneys as a strategum: or do I mean bubblegum? Cheese chewy. But I digress and so must suffer.

Janet, your writing skills are A plus. May language long continue to be your chosen vehicle.

I was busy juggling rhyming oranges and they got rude on me.

Those that would in orange dress
may cringe at turqouise in distress.
Oh range of knicker colours clad
an auburn minge confined and sad.

Come and bang your tambourine
a fringe of jolly tangerine
can bring a thong to life.
Relieve the rhyming strife.

Chat is easy on WoL Mox. Just type any old rubbish in the white box and hit the return key.

I have removed the offending essay.
I am now going to remove myself.

Siren ,you said driving is functional, art is aesthetic; ok-but surely art can be functional too; doesn't it perform a vital social function/need?

Everything has social function in that sense Bill, in that it occurs within social situations and has certain social effects. But Oscar Wilde defined art by its uselessness, and I meant it more in that sense. The primary function of art is personal pleasure (either that of the artist or the audience) ie. aesthetic. The primary function of driving is getting from A to B. Unless you are Mark Thatcher or Evel Knievel.

Message understood !

The primary function of driving is to feed the need for territory: the Nazis introduced the Volkswagon as a precursor to invading Poland. With driving comes the need for roads. Roads and driving prompt regulatory bodies and also the police with their cameras archiving the routes taken by millions of drivers every day. With archiving comes the organisation of information into agenda-based categories.
Art? Art is. Art can be infested like cheese can be infested, with invisible-to-the-naked eye mites/beliefs, but these infestations give it its flavour, always variable and very much depending on the person experiencing it. So, as much as art is thought to unify, it does the opposite, creating the unique and individual experience in each person. So it could be said to have an anti-social function.
Smile, go on, and say 'cheese.'
Of course,the Nazis would have really confounded expectation if the first Volkswagons were made to look like Bavarian cheese, you know, decorated like a promotional car.
Beep beep.

Malpoet, the Muse seems to have blessed you with a skewed sister poem to the Whitsun Weddings with its array of space dust-hued lingerie. I particularly enjoyed your nod to a former leader of a political party -- oh how you added orange to turquoise and perfectly captured his idiology. Very cultured and irrational. I thought the bubbling mix slid you, like fingers on a planchette, towards spelling out 'crazy poet.' Hallmark await your call.

I am too exclusive for Hallmark, but if any budding dictators wish to have their populist projects promoted I am prime property.

I am a budding Dictator/Totalitarian (undecided which) and would like to commission you to create some very pleasant cards that will brainwash all who read them. And I can't type into the message box! And Romans had walking buses -- put on high visibility cuirases and off they went!

I didn't know that message box was clever enough to keep budding dictators out. When you are powerful enough to defeat the message box I will accept the card commission.

The Message Box has been disappeared and replaced by a message box that fetches all the messages to me and I am building them into nuclear bubble liquid and children will disperse my nuclear bubbles with their chil-breaths and cities will crumble as the oh-so-pretty-rainbow-hued bubbles explode with the force of a walnut made of Heston Blumenthal's pea foam.

Yeah that'll do it. I'll keep an eye out and start writing the card.

Well thankyou Moxy.
A compliment well received from someone whose contributions on this site has been missed by many.
Might you be blogging a poem or three?

The thing most people have a problem with concerning the message box is that you have to type your message in the small single line box at the base of the screen. It continues to move like a production line as you type.
What most people don't like about it is that they cannot read back what they've written easily so can't do spell checks etc....
When you've done, press the send button and the message comes up in the larger box above the line.
Another problem seems to be lack of concentration in conversing. If you don't stay on the page for chat, it crashes.
Hope this helps. :-) cheese.

"The primary function of art is personal pleasure" , Eeeh, I'm not sure about that, Siren. I reckon "personal pleasure" is the primary function of entertainment, but not necessarily of art. Art should be about truth and beauty and rightousness.

And I do think we need a Dictator - to come in and sort out the evil greeting card companies, which rip everyone off. Millions suffered from them today, buying Mother's Day cards which cost tuppence to make but retail at nearly £140 each (well, I do shop in Chester).

And the people who pen verses for greetings cards are whores! Why can't they do such stuff for nowt, as most performance poets have to?

People who ride whoreses are beneath contempt.

As long as there are people willing to pay 'whores,'
there will be 'whores.'

I do love cards which have profound message verses in them though so i guess that makes me a kerb crawler.
Hmm.

Well you need to curb that obviously Janet.

It's all very well for Janet to be loitering by the kerbside, but once, when trying to get home from a London poetry club, I collapsed in a roadside gutter behind King's Cross and woke up at dawn, slicked with vomit and with sex industy workers tut-tutting in disgust at me. The things you'll do for art.

Crazy whoreses...crazy poesies...on creative writing courses... ... ... ... sorry, I suffer from ellipsistic fits.

"Art should be about truth and beauty and rightousness."

Truth & beauty maybe (though what are they?) but "righteousness"? Sounds a little Pharasaical to me.

Actually, I do agree that poetry should give pleasure. If it can't even do that, all the truth & beauty in the world won't help.

Was the art of the cave men inspired/motivated by concepts of truth, or beauty, or righteousness?

Just popped round and asked them, Bill. They said (roughly translated),
'Art is about something and everything. Not- art is anything and nothing.'
They said if any of you had any more queries, they'd be pleased to respond.

In my view (and it's merely my opinion) true art has moral purpose. Where art doesn't serve righteousness, where it isn't focused on the noble aspects of the human spirit, it invariably serves evil.

Look at the novel. Almost all literary novels have a moral agenda. think of 'The Grapes of Wrath', think of 'Any Human Heart'. The only exception I can think of is Will Self's 'My Idea of Fun' - it's immoral but it is a great literary novel.

Also, such a large part of the creative industries are now linked to commercial advertising. Such "art" does not deserve the name. As someone far cleverer than me once remarked, we should call that stuff "phart" - short for "phoney art".

As for the cavemen, well bless 'em, maybe their daubings were art. Who am I to judge? They didn't live in a world full of complex moral imperatives.

Mmmmmm...?ok Steve. On the basis of what you say, could we take it then, that although Wagner was (allegedy) anti-semitic, that his music came from the more noble side of his personality, and that therefore people who object to his anti-semitism should not also object to his music, as do (some) Jewish people ?

I am trying to give it up Malpoet but each time, the car stops in the middle of the road forcing me to push it a bit closer to the edge. :-)

Seeing as how the subject turned to art, do artists have to be crazy?
I'm afraid my cave lingo isn't up to scratch, my cave women friends just said 'uggh.'

The cave-women round our way were occupied doing sculpture, time-based art and installations and they said (roughly translated) that all art is self-righteous. They hadn't heard of Wagner but suggested that he probably proved their point.

Janet, might I suggest that if your cave lingo isn't up to scratch, you use woad or some red ochre, or an old lipstick ?

Don't be silly Bill,
why would i want to dye my body blue?
And red lipstick collars and cave walls might make the ochre run.

Hmmm . . . this is a tricky one, and seems to have moved away somewhat from the original question. "Do poets have to be crazy?" To give any kind of answer I would need the questioner's definition of crazy. Compact OED says: crazy

• adjective (crazier, craziest) 1 insane or unbalanced, especially in a wild or aggressive way. 2 extremely enthusiastic about something. 3 absurdly unlikely: a crazy angle. 4 archaic full of cracks or flaws.

I certainly own up to 2 and 4, but is this a prerequisite for writing poetry? And if the opposite is sane, then are all sane people sane all of the time? I might argue that to write poetry it could help if your view of the world is slightly skewed - certainly helpful for metaphorical references. I certainly don't see poets as unnecessarily aggressive, unless you include the "guns, bitches and ho's" of the rap fraternity. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't have their cracks and flaws - and all the more interesting it makes them.
As for the cave art, weren't they just experimenting with a way of recording their world? And isn't that what poets do?
Have to go now, before they take my crayons away.
A.E.

Yeah, the thing is Bill I just don't know enough about Wagner and classical music. I've tried but I just palin don't "get" classical music. I'm strictly rock and pop, and I think rock-n-pop rarely qualifies as art. A few of its practitoners are arguably artists, maybe, such as Roddy Frame who writes highly poetic lyrics, and Morrissey at his best. As for the anti-semitic thing, I just don't know enough about the subject to comment. Sorry.
All I know is that musicians can and often do talk bollox about politics. Look at Bono...

I know what you mean. me likewise with pop music !

you paint an intrigueing picture Janet ! do we want to go there, or should we stick with being crazy poets ?

How about face -painting another (possibly favourite) poet's face onto your own? And only talking with that poet's vocabulary (as published in their work) and in as much a likeness of their voice as is guessable/possible. Is that crazy, is it art, is it righteous, is it pleasurable, is it something you'd like to do and are you setting forth a moral agenda. Personally, I would opt for consensual cubism. Thank you.

Bill. How dare you call me a poet!

And moxy, i'm not sure half Bukowski and half Milton would suit my delicate features but an interesting theory nontheless. :-)
I'll let you know if either of them decide to overshadow me and i suddenly start performing in male voice.
Now wouldn't that create a furore?
Would they say i was crazy then or simply possessed?
I wonder if i'd be arrested for impersonating a dead poet or sectioned before someone decides to call the local catholic priest for emergency excorism.
Or perhaps that guy whose name still eludes me will finally give up his million dollars.

Just checked: James Randi

If I wasn't before, I am now. Flubberdub !