Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

I wrote this in response to someone on another site who wrote in his poems that emotions in poems are like "poetic throw-up". The poem stated that emotions shouldn't be used in poems. hah! I hadda laugh aloud. Then I wrote this:

First response:

Barf. Regurgitate. Spew. Wad!
Worship the porcelain Word God.
That's what I do without a thought —
Let it all out... like it or not.
.

Second response:

Here's the deal,
I'm gonna regurgitate what I feel
right here in the posting box,
spontaneously like projectile vomit,
sorta like a comet jetting through outer space,
race my heart with the start of the rev
of my pen and then go ahead and spill it
again and again, word blood spewed like
volatile fuel, 'cause I ain't no fool, I write
POETRY meant to hear, m'dear, poems which
come straight outa my heart out into all parts
of my body, barfed out through my fingertips
onto the keyboard, every damn word exactly
projected into volatile spew, 'cause I knew I could,
knew I would, tell it like it is, makin' my heartstreams
everybodys biz, 'cause ya see, if it ain't free and if it don't
sound like I'm sittin' in the birddog seat or standin' at the mic,
ready to light up the world with my human being-seeing eyes,
then what would it be? It would be just plain old fashioned
everyday lies and who wants to hear that shit?
I mean, if it ain't got feelin', if it ain't got soul,
if it ain't yer WHOLE entire self comin' through,
then what's so new about it? What does it do?
It would do NOTHIN', that's what!
The glory of a poem is the echo of emotion,
blown out on the breeze across the ocean,
causing waves to save a life or two, a jacket
thrown out from the boat, so someone who hears
can say, "Yeah, man! That's REAL! That's got my vote!
I can identify with that, jack!" Yeah, bud, that's where it's at,
and I tell ya, 'cause it's true, I wouldn't lie to you,
there are birds out there that HEAR it and repeat it,
tweet tweet tweet. sweet as LIFE itself, the gift,
'cause poetry is a lift-me-up type of wordplay
and the day you cut your feelings out of it,
you might as well

not say
one
single
word

'cause who would care?
that would be totally absurd!

aside from that, what more do you think about this person.
I mean some odd job that shows up, and has some hidden agenda
in other words attacking poets for showing "emotion"
isn't it funny how there are some people that are so emotionally messed up
that they attack others for having it. For speaking their minds, speaking out
allowing real emotion to become art. Language is peculiar, there are so many
ways to make it, limited, to take away its psychology of fire. what kind of
person wants to do that to a poet, or an artist.

His poem also said something about how thinking is important when to me, when I write, the last thing I want to do is think too hard about it. It has to come from some other place that has nothing to do with thinking.... it's like I'm just the vehicle for whatever my subconscious/soul/spirit wants to say by making use of the language as music.

What do I think of the person who posted that? Nothing, really, other than it's naive to state that poetry shouldn't contain emotion and it's "throw-up" (vomit) if it does.

What is art if it isn't an expression of human feeling?

So, I don't know this person other than that one piece that I read which tells me he doesn't have much writing experience and doesn't understand what the creative writing process is about.

I respect him for speaking his thoughts because it takes some self esteem and nerve to put your material out in public on the internet, but his thoughts about the matter are ill-informed and not based on artistic expression.

I don't know why a person would want to quell creativity which is an emotionally expressive vehicle, whether it be painting, dancing, theater, playing music, writing... anything artistic.. it's all based on expression of our inner human selves so good question... why would someone want to quell that? The only reason I can think of is that he or she doesn't understand or has never experienced the creative process or its purpose.

it's a tricky thing being creative, when emotion is totally out of control its destructive, so the person the pretends to not have emotion, is either trying to find your weak spot, whatever they think that is, playing with emotion, and or the artist or poet that uses emotion to let the inner fires of creativity to come out in a piece of work, a poem.

Oscar Wilde has often been quoted as saying, “All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling." Mr. J used to use this quote as his signature and often referred to the quote when ridiculing someone's writing, telling the writer his or her poetry was "bad poetry".

At any rate, I'm certain he misinterpreted the quote. There's another sentence in the quote and I'm sure Oscar Wilde had other things to say about it, too, but the full quote I'm aware of says, “All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.” In other words, Wilde was saying not to come right out and say, "I felt sad" because that's obvious and is bad writing, but to instead illustrate sadness with creative language in order to create art from words.

I don't think this person is a trying to find people's weak spots (unlike Mr. J did for years). I just think he or she is misinformed about the purpose of creative writing.

I agree that "out of control" emotion can be destructive and also, I exaggerated when I said NO thinking was important. Obviously, we have to think some in order to write competently, however, for creative writing, it's definitely the inner fires of emotion and subconscious which direct the creative impact of the material. That's how I feel about it, anyway.

By the way, there are not only some people who pretend not to have emotion (and I wonder why those people would want to be visual artists or creative writers) but there are actually people who have no emotions... they don't have to pretend. Of course, I must admit I've been addicted to watching Criminal Minds for a couple of years, so the non-feeling, total lack of emotion in some people has become clear to me.

But people who FEEL and people who are REAL with their feelings, their emotions, these are the people who usually become interested in creative writing and other artistic endeavors. Sometimes I feel like the emotions of some artists are amplified much more than "normal" people.

.
"Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." — Carl Sandburg

That Carl Sandburg quote is a poem itself!

Here's another good quote by one of my favorite poets, TS Eliot, and about the topic we're discussing:

"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things." — T.S. Eliot

Now that's just brilliant. He's saying poetry is a way of dealing with the emotion, or purging it, or escaping it because we must since emotion is the true core of ourselves as human beings. If we don't learn to escape it, we can be devoured by it. Poetry is a release, it's a necessity. Without it, I'd die. To me, it's like breathing.

a release, and coming to terms with why you need and want to release it, and that takes
thought, and then a release from too much thought, not that it is bad, but now it is time to let emotion, passion, the spark of anger allow the words to flow. The emotion, the passion, and spark are not what make the words have meaning, they are what let the words speak for themselves. We then attempt to give meaning to what is said. If the meaning comes first, at the expense of the other elements, then there is too much emphasis on some already pat expression. This can take on a kind of patina of emotion, of passion, and even some anger.
but what is gained in making sure the meaning is all important, loses something in the mystery.

It's a balance, yes. And also different writers work different ways. But if it has no passion in it, it's not nearly as interesting to me as the passionate pieces. I've known people who write poetry whose process is thinking, period. That's it. Just thinking and arriving at the words that way. To me, without the passion, the poem loses the most important aspect ..... I'm a fan of poetry which is passionate and if that passion happens to be anger, that's fine with me. I like a poem that is a REAL expression from the poet, not some words without any passion at all.

As far as meaning goes, in my opinion, if the writer's purpose is to express a certain specific meaning, then the poem loses its life.

Poetry is alive because of the multiple levels of meaning for different readers.