I came to WOL from the MA in Writing at Manchester Metro. I came away from the course very underwhelmed, and not a little bored.
I came to some conclusions:

Poetry is whatever works.

Poetry must always come first.
Any discussions be more as way of descriptions, never prescriptions, and never, ever proscriptions.

Poetry is huge, wide; is whatever form and subject matter etc it happens in.

Comedy and humour have as much place there as anywhere BECAUSE poetry is a human expression.

Because poetry is a human expression it can be about any and everything that interests us humans (?!).

Comedy and humour are as adept vehicles for tackling serious topics (see Moxy) and plumbing psychological depths, as any amount of worthy hammering out etc.

We can be twee and sentimental as well as tough as well as outraged and all the other twists and turns in the human psychological profile.
So, therefore, can poerty.
It always has been, from earliest times. This is what made it close to the heart; and maybe what has been lost.


ANY BODY ELSE OFFER SUGGESTIONS, ALTERATIONS ETC?

I was hoping to never be faced with this question!
For me, poetry is whats happening now, I have often been critisized for not been very "Poetic" in my works but to me I don't know what is and isn't poetic.
One person came up to me after a performance and told me that he thought me rhyming "Dining" with "Stomach lining" was inspired! I guess poetry is in the eye of the beholder.

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Is this a poem?

Ricardo, I think what you say is beautiful sometimes Universities can destroy creativity by being so fixed in their views of what is and what isn't poetry.
Cayn, I think you are right also - poetry is many many things for some of us it is therapy, for others it is expression, for some it is beauty and for some it can be hard work.
I think your point about it being in the eye of the beholder is very important - as long as the writer/reader - speaker/listener gets something out of it what does it matter?

ooh and Ricardo I think your philosophy should be taught in schools - amazing how many kids can be turned on to the idea of poetry when they are shown it's relevance to them.

Hi Maggie, Cayn, Ricardo
Here is my graphite reinforced polycarbonate polybutylene pennyworth.

Poetry is arm wrestling with tree roots
Poetry is Bruce Lee working as a human strimmer in your back yard
It is the indeterminate trajectories of spit
Flobbed by youths at bus stops
It is the moon losing its ceremonial franchise
It’s an incremental sunrise
Leading to the earth being caramalized
By a red dwarf
(and poetry is being able to reference that with
the psychotic knife-slasher in Don’t Look Now)
It’s the wheezy emaciation of accordions
Heard through a wall of volumizing mascara
Poetry is also a parade of bulimic cannibals
And a synchronized swimming team
Made up of amputees.
In my opinion.
Moxy.

Yeah...thats what I was going to say!

Yep, I mind read you, Cayn. Hope you don't mind.

'Mind' is a good word, isn't it? Mind that biscuit. Mind that car. Mined that coal and iron ore! Mind's a pint. Ha ha ha!

Couldn't have put it better myself Moxy.

I've never thought of that, I'll ponder that while I'm performing in two hours time.
Speaking of which, I better sort out my set list!!

Moxy's definition of poetry is a bit limited.

Tree (POA)

I thought this was polly ticks, but my parrot said it wasn't so it must be poa tree (that's what the parrot lives in):



Five Polyps have been arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation after being discovered in suspicious circumstances deep in a bush.

The President of the United States said:

“Look you gotta understand that there are a whole lot o' good Polyps but these bad Polyps are a real threat to the fundament of society.

I have already spoken to Field Marshall Al Burkha...er Al Berkhamstead...um Al Farsi....well Al is really on top of this and he is a good guy. He is right behind me and he is pushing these bad Polyps to where he says the good guys are gonna be safe.

We just gotta rely on Al and his pals 'cos ya know he's bought a lot o' missiles from us and ya just stand by friends like that.

Al's really serious about his country joining the civilised world. He's agreed to buy a major share in the Screaming Brassy Blonde Peroxide Company and I guess those ladies will be getting out of their tents pretty soon and joining the free world in Miss Universe.

Yeah he's a real sweet guy.”

It has just been reported that the Polyps have confessed in full.


Major General Lindsay England

They will be deported to Polypistan just as soon as they have been democratically executed.

Attorney Specific

Polypnesia would be a better destination, shirley?

Sentences reduced in micronesia. And forgotten in amnesia.

turned into a button badge when uncle samneedsya

Right I'll get a dead certified ticket to Shirley. They'll love it withouth Stan.

Eternal General

I demand a flalwess rendition, or I'll start chain-chewing my nails. That's poetry, isn't it? Unfocused commodities traders waving each other's scalps.

I was Anon before and now I'm anounced.

I left an 'n' out so 'anon' didn't feel alphabetically deprived. I am thoughtful.

Anonamox Casimost.

Moxly By Stealth

Mixy Casuist.

You could be lying Casuist, and that may or may not be wrong, but who am I to judge.

Poetic Licence

Casuists create stately pleasure domes built on the principles of Buckminster Fuller’s portable dome homes using polygons of permafrost and, oh, hang on, that person Coleridge is at the door...

Send him to Porlock in a geodesic bucky ball.

Sam Tailor

Geodesic was Beowulf's sworn enemy! As was the Creature from the Black Legume.

I thought Noggin the Nog was coming out on top, but post gate that Seamus Heaney bloke came out with a different result. Crafty celts, they're ginger you know.

What the hell is poetry?

Lurch Ungracefully shalt be the whole of the law, especially if you're chauffeuring the Addam's family along hairpin bends in a Dymaxion.

Grendal resigned after the paparazzi invaded on snowboarding elephants. Noggin the Nog was decaffeinated by the deFennians.

Poetry is an all-metal monocoque inching between a workforce with frozen shoulders. In my opinion.

Poetry is a unanimously endorsed miniature earth that shoots out of poets' mouths, attaches itself to an emotion/perception/emulation ion, and retracts back taking its quarry with it, much the way frogs' tongues collect insects.

Wow Moxy, with that kinda wisdom you should be President of the world - ney the universe.
Vote Moxy! Love the analogy by the way - thanks Ric for setting us all off on such a great subject.
Must bow to the masters of word play Malcolm and Moxy.
My girls have gone away and left me all alone with my madness - so be sure to be hanging around here looking for kindred spirits - vodka, whisky - anyone but Gin - she always gets bitter at midnight.

Hello, Maggie! Thank you. I would be a rubbish president because most people run screaming into the distance when they realise it's me -- a problem at poetry readings to be sure. However, I have been invited to rant to my heart's content in Wonderland, at the bottom of the discussion box list. In Wonderland, I will not upset the site's ecology by spreading my mindspore. You see, I am a bad 'un.

Well honey,
at least you're making an impression - which is more than some of us can say - Wonderland sounds like a wonderful place to be - careful of the Queen of hearts though she can be tetchy with newcomers so I hear.lol.
xx

I snooked out in my caterpillar costume called Knowhow and Noway. Noway is adjacent to Norway and has more fjords, one for each member of the population -- they are regularly pillaged by the village pillagers. It has rolling trolls, they work as snowploughs. Noway exports the 'r's' used in generic exclamations of chilliness. Buy a souvenir bass monkey now.

Sorry to interject an utterence of misguided and completely irrelevant semantic nonsensical shat. However, I have just returned from a Cornish Tin Mine and have spent the last two weeks wallowing in the delights of nothing more than the bodily fluids of both Cornish Pixshy and Cornishman alike. The Island of Cornwall never fails to amaze either
A) my sense of perspective - or
B) my sense of humour.

Hello Moxy...?

Hello Darren! Welcome home -- I've never been to Cornwall -- never travelled very much (the tether only reaches to the bottom of the garden) -- I did wonder where you were. It's great to have you back again. Did you do much writing (postcards exempted)? I have been talking rhubarb non-stop (visit Wonderland at the bottom of the topic list and you'll see the extent to which the rhubarb has flourished) and have missed your playful and inventive postings -- and how about posting more of your excellent poetry, too? I have been pisky-led once in my life, quite literally and quite recently. I had the strange experience of arriving at Piccadilly Station and standing on the bridge above platforms 1 to 10 and not being able to see any trains -- with few people visible, too. The station just seemed spookily empty. I ran down the stairs onto platform 7 and all the trains and the people returned. Not in a sudden deluge but very gradually filling the space. I also saw one of the Four Riders of the Apocalypse in Middleton, but that's another story. What part of Cornwall did you visit?

Poetry is use of language providing enjoyment to the reader, writer or listener beyond the meaning or images conveyed.

I enjoyed writing that. It's poetry.

Personally, I have always found the following definition inviolable.

Poetry is a retractable aerofoil steering rudder
Used to navigate each item of laundry through the wash cycle
It’s a surveillance camera stuck into an icecream cornet
It’s a locket that opens to reveal a tea garden
Where the uxorious are having their cups and saucers hauled about
By huskies and their teaspoons carried around in the cuffs
Of rolled up trousers
It’s a pancake of surgically removed warts and melanomas
It’s an Olympic hammer thrower using his sporting technique
On home improvements.

Oh yes. That's it.

I disagree!

Hi guys,
Like your description Malcolm,
Love the little poem Moxy - especially like the locket that opens into tea garden what a beautiful idea.
Magi
xx

on a more serious note would some body come up with a thread that is for drafting and reviewing poems - like 'Would be good to read other poets work' used to be, as the poetry review thing isn't working and could somebody review Peter's poem Blanket words as I've made a hash job of it due to tiredness, loneliness and downright jealousy - least I'm honest.
LOL.
xx

Hi Maggie! And thank you for kind comment.
Some of us have reviewed a lot in the reviews listing and the 'it would be nice to read work' listing to name but 2. I reviewed so many it felt as though people were maybe not joining in because of it, so I stopped. Tough to gauge how to respond and what frequency of response helps rather than hinders. It also feels, speaking as a reviewer, that comments may be judged to be of no use to the poet whatsoever since there is sometimes no response to, or aknowledgement of, the review. This can be disheartening. I have felt for some time that there ought to be a sort of rota of reviewers. A lot of the more experienced poets never seem to respond to invitations to critique and review -- a lot have day jobs and, after all, the call to review may not be something particular poets wish to undertake, for whatever reason.

What is a review?

It is a quadrangular igloo.

I'll try and review, but I often get scared of sharing my opinions lol!

I think that's the overall problem, Cayn. It can be pretty scary actually expressing an opinion -- I must admit I never feel entirely comfortable myself. Perhaps the reviewing/commentary would be better face to face -- time/place set aside at gigs for what have become known, rather cuttingly, as 'poets' surgeries.' That was an intended pun, by the way. A gal's got to have a giggle.

Cayn, you always participate in your wonderfully affable, funny and witty way -- with biscuits at the ready to be dunked!

Reviewing can be difficult for the reviewer and the reviewed. There is a great deal of subjectivity in the appreciation of poetry. Pure genius to one person can be utter crap to another. Possibly the risks of misunderstanding or unintentionally causing upset are too great for fully public review to work well.

If it is of any help, I am more than happy for WOL contributors to send me their work through the e-mail on my Malpoet profile and I will send them a private review which they may then post on the discussion forum if they wish. If anybody wants to practice their reviewing, I post a lot of poetry on my WOL blog and on MySpace and I am very happy to receive reviews or critiques of that work through the comments facility. Don't worry, you won't offend me.

As I am an idle loafer I usually have time available, but obviously if a lot of people take me up on this invitation I could take time to respond.

I do understand what you are saying guys - I just think a nice bit of friendly support can be necessary and stop poets making fools of themselves - well that never gonna happen is it - some make a good living that way - but it's nice to be able to share your work and have it appreciated or guided maybe?

Hi Sophie! How are you? I am still mind-reading (mainly door to door salespeople since I don't get out much) so the tin foil hat remains a necessity, I'm afraid. I'm also attempting hypno-poetry, too. You hear a poem, then, a week later, you find yourself inexplicably tying strangers' shoelaces together on public transport.
Your poem-definition-of-poetry is terrific. Poetry doesn't need any defense but it's good fun to try and work out what it is -- I guess it's become a portmanteau word, and why not, eh?
I can't speak for anyone else, but I ramble on here until overtaken by incoherence or hysteria. Join in, lose track, use oodles of words, shout at a biscuit. Enjoy!

Flipping Big Question -- I think the whole chat room ethos could poison genuine personal communication. I guess the internet needs us to give it the commanding power it needs to be what it has the potential to be (if that makes sense), the way the Romans only remained in power as long as their roads allowed communication to pass freely from the hub to the territories. Once 'communication' breaks down then whatever the 'communication' supported (held together and gave shape to and empowered) is fractured. Soon, we may only have the world wide web as our 'family' since the world outside will have been stalled by lack of direct contact and by incoherence.
Having said that, I do find that I care about the people I get to know only through the internet. I feel genuine friendship towards them. The feeling of friendship is indistinguishable to the feeling of friendship I have for people I have only come to know in 3 dimensional 'real life.'
And then, of course, the internet is bound to function socially in the same way humans function socially everywhere else. How can it differ, really? It's us in cartoon form, really, isn't it?

I've just answered it -- oh no!

Hope the Big Chill is actually rather sunny. Who's on?

Hi all

I'm sure you'll have a great time at Big Chill Sophie - I'm jealous! I don't know the full poetry line-up but do know Manchester's Amanda Milligan and Martin Stannage (aka Visceral) are performing. Both well worth catching. (Both on myspace.)

Hope to see your review on here when you get back.

But Tony, what the hell is poetry?

test message -- I keep getting access denied

oh that is odd.

why do we use chat rooms thread is rejecting input oh mighty King Paul!

What the hell is poetry?

"Beauty
or truth
or lies
or madness,
writ pleasingly
and spoken."

I quite like that. Maybe I should take up poetry!