And just to give further proof of the utter decadence of the avant garde here is the wondrous Geraldine, late of Blackburn, currently residing in that den of iniquity, Sheffield.

http://ekleksographia.ahadadabooks.com/issuethree/authors/geraldine_monk.html

(I couldn't have formatted this one on the discussion board so you'll just have to click the link...)

I lost patience with it. I think I prefer the wheelbarrow - it's starting to look like safe, traditional poetry :)

Do you really like this Steven - or are you just choosing some extreme examples to get us all tutting?

Geraldine Monk is one of my favourite contemporary poets. And yes I do really love this one. It should be spoken aloud, I feel, with attention to the size of print (the larger the print, the more declaimed.)

And if you pay attention to the words, the theme of the alien and the outsider starts to come through. Though I wouldn't spend too much time analysing it for meaning, as it's much more Lewis Carroll than it is T S Eliot...

It's probably more system-based than most of her work though sound, placement on the page and a kind of wild music are very much a part of her practice.

It's probably one I should go back to and try to appreciate more. If I had more time, I might - but I tend to just give up on stuff that doesn't float my boat immediately.

I felt inspired to have a go at some experimental stuff but I find that WOL isn't a great medium for displaying it. I'll have a bash anyway. It's the alignment that buggers everything up. I've had to insert hypens to make it readable. On a proper crossword it would work. For me this was just about having fun with language rather than writing poetry.

CROSSWORDS

CROSSWORDS&&&
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&&&F-R-IENDS-H-I-P&
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&&&&I&&&&D&&&
&&&&CLUELESS&&
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&&&&Y&&&&&&&&

Thoroughly enjoyed this.
What I particularly like is that I only had to read the first few words before I realised I needn't read the rest.
I think more poetry should be like this to save us time.

Awwww - I'm now cut to the quick and burnt to the wick John ; I guess I'll have to go back to rhyming russet ducks :(

What did you think of Geraldine's poem?

(Izzy - that's the one I meant!)

Bloody hell Iso! You have written something different! Win x

Isobel -

It'll probably be easier to format on the Blog.

As to whether it's a poem or not, well why not? I do like the idea of it though (and why not a crossword poem?

Poetry is about having fun with language, isn't it?

Yes - it is - it's more fun if you can get others to see your vision of fun though. Although I like to listen to my inner voice, if I was alone on a desert island, I don't think I'd keep wanting to listen to my own disc :)

I've really enjoyed both of your threads Steven and what you said on your wheelbarrow thread had echoes for me. The difficulty of finding anything original to say is probably one of the reasons I'm writing less. Add to that the difficulty of expressing what I want to say in a poetic way. In fact, I don't know what on earth I'm doing on this site at times :)

Winston - don't get too excited - I can't see myself turning into an extreme eperimentalist any time soon but maybe an extreme discusser, or a discussing extremist maybe. The possiblities are endless when you like to have fun with language :)

John Coopey - glad you liked Geraldine Monk as much as I did!

I've seen Geraldine perform on more than one occasion, once with an improvising musician, and most recently as part of the Other Room Bob Cobbing ensemble reading of the ABC In Sound (I was part of that too...)

Yes, it is more fun to be able to share your enthusiasm with others. All poets, mainstream or experimental, have sometimes played to 2 people and a dog and a packet of crisps audiences. But Geraldine is well worth seeing if you get the chance. She gets some great audiences, though they're not the kind who'd go to see Seamus Heaney or Atilla the Stockbroker, probably.

As for 'originality', I found over the years that the best thing is actually to forget having anything original to say. Pretty much everyone has been writing about the same things for centuries: love, death, landscape, spiritual experiences or whatever. As the song says, it's not what you say/do; it's the way that you say/do it.

And yes, the possibilities are endless! Muck around in the big mudbath of language and don't worry about whether it's original or not!

Here's a little more information about Geraldine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Monk

It might not make you like her more, but it'll give a bit of context.

Well thats a sort of list poem really, the Geraldine Monk one.

Lots of interpretations of UFO, ending with three words that could be the beginning of word existence. Did I find the right poem? Is it controversial? Why?

It's not controversial for me, Frieda. I like the word-play in it, the fun of it and the shape. Yes there could be something about the origins of language/words in it, and other meanings are sort of hovering in the air around if you want to find them.

I thought it would be fun to talk about it. Some people seem to find this kind of thing difficult, but I suspect they're over-thinking it. They're looking for 'profundity', some neat little statement about what it's about, and of course it doesn't give that. It's not meant to.