RE: "In Toga-Armor Clad" (poem) ... My Daughter's Scholarship Entry
Hey Block.
Well ... you didn't think I was going to teach her your style, did you? :-)
Aztec god upon a tractor,
In middle of the street,
Shakespeare aghast at genre,
From Block ... a Farm Punk treat.
Ironically, she's even more vicious about form than I am (which is saying something). One of her classes this year is Classical Literature and they're studying poetry. And ... she frequently gets into debates with her teacher about poem interpretations. She came home one day, fuming, about the assertion that Robert Frost's poems were filled with "male patriarchal" themes. Robert Frost ... patriarchy. I read over the poems in question ... if anyone ever misinterprets one of my poems that badly, I will return from the grave.
It was once 'suggested' that she expand her horizons by writing ... in Free Verse. Well, you can imagine ... she is her father's daughter. She retaliated with a 10-minute explanation about the neurological effects of pattern (meter, rhythm, rhyme and alliteration), explaining the connection between the stimuli and the responsive secretion of dopamine, endocannibinoids, endorphins, oxytocin and vasopressin.
I mildly chastised her about keeping the cheek in check but who are we kidding, I would have done exactly the same. And ... she has a 97% in the class. I can only imagine what it's going to be like when she gets to university and some green-haired professor insists that Shakespeare was a misogynist because he named a play, 'Taming of the Shrew.' Thankfully, she's not alone. Apparently, many in Gen Z are horrified by Millennial antics and are pushing back. The pendulum I suppose.
BTW, I claim "Otter status."
Quill
Feminist interpretations of iconic male literature is laughable. Any third grader can overcome them. It wasn't the millennial generation that got all that started. It was the Baby Boomers. Generation X (my generation) didn't try to fight the silly nonsense too much. The millennials adopted it and carried it too far. I'm glad to see the younger generation developing some sense and sensibilities.
Love the farmpunk new formalism. Nice mashup. :-)
@blockurator,
You're right ... it was our fault. We were the Millennials' teachers. Millennials ... my apologies.
The Robert Frost angle was new to me ... how anyone could find his stuff objectionable is beyond me ... he was a Pussycat Poet. I think it's simply that he's a famous Straight White Guy.
The thing that most boils my blood though is Aristotle ... apparently the feminists really don't like him ... and he's one of my all-time intellectual idols. His crime: He once argued that women and men have different natures and purposes. Mind you, they're not too pleased with his invention of "logic" and "empiricism" either.
Farmpunk New Formalism ... hmm ... Block, I hate to admit it, but that has just enough panache that it might catch on. What do you say ... we split royalties 50/50?
Quill
Royalties ... sure.
Yeah, my grandfather was into Frost. He really liked the two roads poem. Frost was good, for a day. I think he was a perennial favorite of men from The Greatest Generation who didn't get into poetry. Frost was white, straight, and American. What more could they ask for?
Second Wave feminists reacted against anything white, male, straight, or American and invented reasons not to like them. That's why everything is patriarchal to them. If you're white, straight, male, and American, you're a part of the evil patriarchy. Gloria Steinem and Patricia Ireland are largely responsible for that garbage. Third Wave feminism has a bit more sense to it. They at least acknowledge that the stay-at-home-mom gig is a viable choice for the fairer sex.
Well, I think they doth protest too much. Send them to the nunnery.
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Well, expanding one's horizons is never bad. I won't be surprised if in college she'll have to write in free verse as well as in metered structure, f'rex :3
And as noted in some places, free verse isn't really free. It often obeys many rules of its own. ESpecially rhythm. As for alliteration, that has a home in free verse as well.
@geekorner,
You've been talking to @blockurator, haven't you?
Did he put you up to this?
Free Verse ... that guy's a bad influence. :-)
Quill
I think I wrote free-verse on Steemit before Blockurator joined ;-)
And as noted in some citations on Wikipedia, free-verse has a lot of rules. At least the good kind.
Rhymes are easy to do bad. Hard to do well. I think giving up on rhyme and some of the metered verses is needed to grow your basic skills, and then you can go back to meter and rhyme and apply them properly.
Free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. Of course, where I come from, we call that four square with rackets. Nets are for sissies.
@blockurator,
My favorite angsty anti-Free Verse quote:
... Four Square with rackets :-)
Quill
@geekorner.
Or ... learn to write poetry from a persnickety Dad. :-)
Quill
I don't know what kind of basic skills you'd acquire by giving up on rhyme and meter. Those ARE the basic skills. Start there. If you can master rhyme and meter, then you can write free verse. If all you can do is write free verse, all you can do is spill your guts on a page. That's not poetry.
@blockurator,
You make a good point. There are actually Free Verse poems that I like (don't tell anyone ... I have a reputation to protect) and in every single case, the poet's knowledge of traditional poetic techniques was obvious. The poet was not writing Free Verse because they had to (couldn't write Verse), but because they chose to.
I have a dozen or so Quillisms that I've coined over the years that I've tried, a million times, to set to Verse ... but they always get butchered in the process. And so, quietly (in a dark room), I once crafted a few into Free Verse.
I've never published any of them as doing so would entail my having to eat a 1,000 tons of crow ... but who knows ... perhaps some day. :-)
Quill
Traitor!