Lilith Beneath The Moon by Stephen Jarrell Williams

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Lester Curtis
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Re: Lilith Beneath The Moon by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Post by Lester Curtis »

Damn fool Adam . . . shoulda kep' 'er barefoot and pregnant -- and had her cook the snake fer supper . . .
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Lester Curtis
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Re: Lilith Beneath The Moon by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Post by Lester Curtis »

Excellent commentary, Tao. I was going to be maybe a little unkind and say that people sometimes use "poetry" as an excuse to produce something completely incomprehensible. I think a simple computer routine could be written that would select words completely at random and arrange them in lines and verses for you. (Of course, you can do the same thing without the computer.) Some weirdo in NYC would praise the output as utter genius, and you could have a big laugh about it.

Personally, I like poetry to make some kind of sense; enough to read it and say, "Oh, my cat does that exact same thing!" or somesuch. On the other hand, I also believe that poetry often works best when it bypasses the forebrain, but this has to be done skillfully, or it ends up being incomprehensible (see above).
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Lester Curtis
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Re: Lilith Beneath The Moon by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Post by Lester Curtis »

TaoPhoenix wrote:
Hi Lester.

I believe that would be very unkind!

I believe one of the most important topics in all of poetry is buried in here! But for this moment I am about to go out and do a couple things with a friend. But I plan to write one of my bigger comments on this topic soon. So for now I have to go all Fermat and say this topic is too big to fit into one little note!

As much of a reminder to me later, but feel free to play with these teasers:

- That I believe it is a HUGE mistake to call it "incomprehensible"
- Even worse is to start joking about weirdos in NYC calling things utter genius, because I'm in NYC now, and I fear I might qualify as a weirdo!
:shock:
- That the fancier way to say it is that poetry can often be too compact, and require too much context to interpret. See for example Mark's and Rick's poems and their backstories.

Salut for now!
Tao -- and Mr. Williams -- sorry I was misunderstood there. I had no intentions of implying that this particular poem was incomprehensible; it isn't. (Believe me, I have read more than enough incomprehensible poetry.)

I'm only offhandedly familiar with the Lilith mythology, but the poem was amusing, and quite clear in its implications.
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Re: Lilith Beneath The Moon by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Post by Lipinski »

Fact: Every piece of writing, be it a poem, suicide note, shopping list, epic novel (etc...) has a point.
the question is, is it an obvious point?

The question is often asked, "What is a poem?" when the question should really be, "What is the point?"

Example: Man of numbers, two nipples twisted, locked neath the floor he goes.
Expression of gladness and with glass of ale, I say to the world, hay-ho!

Now, what was the point of that short poem? For me it is obvious as this is April, tax month, and the
poem was about how I 'metaphorically' killed the IRS agent who is auditing me from last year. First we wrestled
and I grabbed him by his nipples and it ended with me winning and celebrating his demise with alcohol before
the police come looking...

I like how this poem of the snake turns into another 'point' of sorts, a tail sweeping.
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