Compare and contrast: Keats and Ramone

[perezoso]

Ramone, Joey.

"Judy Is A Punk"

Jackie is a punk
Judy is a runt
They both went down to Berlin, joined the Ice Capades
And oh, I don't know why
Oh, I don't know why
Perhaps they'll die.

[Second verse, same as the first]

[Third verse, different from the first]

Jackie is a punk
Judy is a runt
They both went down to Frisco, joined the SLA
And oh, I don't know why
Oh, I don't know why
Perhaps they'll die.

---------------------------


Keats, John.

Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain's to die.


II.


How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom which is but to awake.


Joey proves victorious.

[abcrystcats]

I refuse to compare, but did you notice Keats is mixing his metaphors?

[perezoso]

I'm not sure he is, but his metaphors are stale and cliche anyways. Any writer who would yawp "life is but a dream" deserves to be flogged. Even the Bard hisself would not have stooped so low, would he? Merrily merrily merrily, wife's 'bout to cream.

[abcrystcats]

Well, I am not about to criticize Keats for his cliches, but he does get away with things in these lines that would have gotten me a hand-slap in my English classes.

death/sleep
life/dream

dream? sleep?

"future doom which is but to awake"

make up your mind, already ... is death sleeping or waking?

I am reminded of some mythology in which Sleep and Death were brothers ...

[perezoso]

Yeah, it's not one of Keats' Top 10 hits. But my own view of poetry is that the vast majority of it is like this piece--bogus, false profundity, sentimental. It's meant to keep English professors working, but really when you take most of the "great" works of lit. apart, they are seen to be comprised of a few fairly obvious themes with lots of drama and rhetoric. Shelley, who I think is Keats' superior, has plenty of bombastic fluff as well.

Sorry to be a pain. I'm founding a group: Literature Anonymous (LA).
"My name is perezoso and I read Hawthorne (or fill in the blank)..."

[abcrystcats]

Perezoso. Reality versus Art seems to be the theme of my life, lately.

Reality is that hack writing pays good (the more disgusting the hack writing, the better the pay) Art pays ... not at all.

I am starting to ask: IS THERE A DIFFERENCE? People buy what they like. Am I responsible for that ... for what they like? I can only refuse to write what I think is morally defunct. I can stick to my own principles and not go beyond that line. As for ART ... ? How can I stick up for that? What is it, anyways?

You say Keats is a sentimentalist ... a bombastic fluff-monger, laden in cliches.

Perhaps Keats will not last another 100 years, or 200 years. We only know so many of the writers of ancient times ... Plato's writings live, Josephus lives, Tacitus is still read ... how many others who wrote greatly have just vanished out of memory? What is great? And why strive for it? It seems like a stupid waste of time. Something left up to chance alone.

Your Literature Anonymous makes a hell of a lot of sense. Those who think we can survive and be "great" at the same time, need therapeutic help and a support group. It's a lie. If we survive at all, it's in spite of ourselves, not because of our art.

Art, when it exists (which is rare), destroys the artist completely. Nobody silly enough to post to this website (or those like it) has ever experienced "Art" headon, up close and personal. Why ...because art crucifies its host. Beethoven, Michelangelo, if they lived today, wouldn' t be bothering themselves with posting to websites. They wouldn't have the energy left over to do it, let alone the interest ...


oh, what am I saying?

[Doreen Peri]

peresozo....

you cannot take
poetry apart.
poetry is jazzart,

if you attempt
to dissect it,
you will get simple
egg-droppings
sliced

spliced
without
recognition

[mnaz]

Joey Ramone....


Now there's some poetry....

[stilltrucking]

Nobody silly enough to post to this website (or those like it) has ever experienced "Art" headon, up close and personal.

Snort
I had a mouth full of diet cola when I read that. I almost snorted it up my nose.

[Arcadia]

ahh... Calderón de la Barca..!!

[Totenkopf]

Isn't Barca ship or boat?

Anyhoo, this Perezoso gent was partly correct: at least Joey Ramone sort of kept it real. Keats had a beautiful style like many English poets but he's hollow inside, I believe. PB Shelley perhaps lacked some of the Keatsian exquisiteness but in a sense more authentic (read Alastor--whoa). But poesy may be in fact a dead art. (Pound said as much in what 1920 or so); I'm a prose slinger and no poet but do read some romantics (Shelley , Coleridge) for the weird imagery and the syntax--tho' don't care for most rhyming. Neruda as well appeals (mi espanol no es bueno) in terms of imagery tho' I object to his innate Stalinism. Such tragic figures, poets: like Shelley, drowning on his own ship or that irish monkey Yeats--the nazis dug up his freshly dead corpse and tossed him in a pile of stiffs.

[e_dog]

Totenkompf is so obviously that perezoso gent in disguise. and he's wrong: Keats is great and if you think he's hollow that's 'cause your reading's shallow.

[e_dog]

but do say more 'bout the Yeats demise and exhumation, please. hadn't heard that.

Shelley better than Keats, fine. but ... Joey Ramone? please!!

[mnaz]

Ramone, Joey, is the house party.

Keats is the killer hangover...

at least here, with that waking-is-death cut...


But you missed one of J. Ramone's greatest works:

"Now I wanna sniff some glue.
Now I wanna have somethin' to do...
all the kids wanna sniff some glue.
all the kids want somethin' to do..."

[e_dog]

That should be in children's poetry books. have the schoolkiddies memorize taht.

or even That.