This is my favourite poem. “The Look” by Sara Teasdale: Strephon kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall, But Colin only looked at me And never kissed at all. Strephon's kiss was lost in jest, Robin's lost in play, But the kiss in Colin's eyes Haunts me night and day.
That's a sweet one. I discovered Sara Teasdale only a while ago, two months at most. She's really written so many endearing poems. One can definitely depend upon her if they'd like something soft, tender, and nostalgic. 😄
@@gristlevonraben The duality of night and day is more fitting to represent the distance between two figures yearning for a physical romance but are kept at a distance. Hence why the focus of the title is 'The Look'. Haunts me still this day might be more expressively pleasing to listen to, but the poetic license taken by the author put more focus in the duality of the relationships (Haunts me (my) night//night and day) than in a focus of an individual's yearning. If the latter had been selected, it would be more fitting (haunts me still//still this day).
"You don't just blindly grab things out of your fridge and dump it all into a pot and it's dinner." ... I came here to learn about poetry, not be personally attacked, Zoe.
instead of separating poetry into "good" and "bad", i think it might be better to figure out what makes poetry "effective" or "ineffective" for whatever purpose/audience you have in mind! experiencing poetry, and art overall, is pretty subjective; your goals and priorities may vary widely depending on whether you're writing poetry to read aloud, be published, sort out your own feelings, etc
It might be an interesting English assignment to have students find examples of poetry that they find effective or ineffective for them personally, and then explore/analyze how/what they find to be effective or ineffective.
I used to think that as well, but poetry does have structured parameters to adhere to. Step away from those guidelines and poetry can be twisted to a semblance of what determines what actual poetry even is. We can toss a football back and forth to our heart's content, but that still doesn't meet the criteria of an actual football game. That doesn't mean people shouldn't continue to write to their heart's content. It simply means that not everyone is going to hit the poetic mark as per poet policy even if only subjectively so in terms of what moves a given reader. Luckily for poets not everyone gives a running shit about poetry's policy handbook. 99% of people aren't literary grads. Some of the best poetry I've ever read was written by barefoot, pregnant house mom's and 9-to-5 working dads whereas some of the most pretentious drivel I've ever been force fed has been written by prominent poets. 😉
Not everything is poetry. If everything is poetry then what isn't poetry? And the classics didn't write in a pretentious way. They where trying to use the beauty of the language to say something. Themes like love, justice... are important.
@@eduardmanecuta5350 I don't see where I wrote or implied the statements that everything is poetry or that the classics were written in a pretentious way; i didn't intend to communicate either of those ideas! Apologies if that's what you took away from my comment. I was more trying to say how I think using the labels of "good" and "bad" might be limiting and inefficient for organizing/identifying poetry when peoples' tastes, experiences, and interpretations of art can all vary vastly from each other!
00:00 Introduction 2:19 Part 1: The What & The Why 07:45 Part 2: The How 08:14 On Being concrete & specific 14:42 On Metaphors 20:24 On Sounding good 23:25 On Purpose 28:24 Part 3: Writing a Poem 41:50 Conclusion 44:10 Greetings & Credits Respectfully hoping that this will guide anyone through this edifying video essay!
Yeah, no, that "bad" poem legit almost made ne cry, and I'm supposed to teach children about poetry. I think the word moonlight triggers the German Romantics in all of us.
There's very similar wordplay in Monty Python's Eric the Half a Bee: But can a bee be said to be Or not to be an entire bee When half the bee is not a bee Due to some ancient injury?
My notes: - make the reader feel like they’re in the poem. Add specific details but don’t over do it - show don’t tell - metaphors: make new connections between things. Make familiar things strange and strange things familiar. - think of poems as food: there are no bad ingredients but they don’t always work well together.
Poetry can tell. For example: “Take my head and roast my carcass. I have the body of a pig.” I didn’t need to ‘show’ the gorey details of decapitation or the burning of a headless corpse OR implications of having a weird pig human hybrid body. But you can still feel the poem, even though I ‘told’ it. The problem comes when people don’t know when or how to tell and it reads like a manuscript.
damn great advice.What differentiates between gud poems and bad ones is the way the poet introduces the story.If your story isnt creative(Even small things with no story can be created with creativity), then the reader will lose interest.The second thing is how you narrate through it.This includes all the words you use.And here your point is really very important. Thank u 👏
Yes... gifted like criticism because it helps her to grow more as a poet and writer... you should check out her page .. she's a gifted one.. ua-cam.com/users/shortsCeaMlYEE4X4?feature=share
This is a seminal work. You have made the single-BEST video about poetry I have ever seen. I have attended workshops by world-famous spoken word poets, I have read every book on poetry I could get my hands on, and I do not think that a single dollar of what I've spent is close to the value of this (free!) video you have just made. Sincerely, thank you, because you have just taken this love of mine which has decayed into a skeleton I shoved in a too-small closet, and shown me an angel wearing a dollar-store skull mask. I'm a spoken-word poet, and I am completely self-taught. I never went to school for poetry, I barely attended any poetry events, I mostly just holed up and wrote what I wanted to. So I felt really insecure about what I did and why I did it when talking with other poets…even when I've written stuff that has made people cry. I know that I write good poetry, but I never could express how or why that is. You have just vindicated every part of my practice, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm crying writing this comment because section by section you have just dismantled my bruised craft and pointed out how every piece shines in the moonlight. Thank you so, so much. You are quickly becoming my all-time favourite youtuber. Also, I blame you bc now I need to create a patreon account and resist joining your highest tier JUST so I can learn more about poetry from you.
Thank you for such a wonderful comment, Albert. If your sentences in your comment are evidence of your poetry writing, then I bet you're an incredible poet, friend. Keep up the good work, and I'm glad to have played even a small part in helping you hone your craft ❤
yeah, this is about the size of it. between Zoe and Shaelin, and NK Jemisin's Masterclass course (which, money, unfortunately), i don't need anything else. :)
I actually really like a lot of the poets I read in school, especially Emily Dickenson. I don't always "get" the "meaning" of her work, but it connects to something inside of me and I like it. Some "classic" poems are really too wordy or pretentious, but many only sound that way because they're old. We aren't used to the way that they talk or the allusions they use, but to the audience at the time it was easily understood. There are lots of great points in the video too and Zoe knows way more than I do for sure but please don't diss my faves
Not every poem that is too wordy is meant to be pretentious. People write poems sometimes to explain feelings and thoughts or put them into words. Some thoughts and feelings are hard to explain and so when you put them into words they are hard to read and understand fully. Sometimes poets like to write poems that only a handful of people can understand, or sometimes only themselves can understand until they explain it to the world. Poetry can be like a diary, but you get to play with words. Taylor Swift is an artist who liked to include references in her lyrics that only fans could understand. Some lgbtq poets from history didn't outright write in their poems about their identity, they did it in a discrete way so that didn't get killed lol.
So, I got inspired by this video and I tried something. Title: Spell In this little sanctuary of green and white My eyes are drawn to you like a pole finding its opposite And I watch your hands, pearly white One pressing upon grey chords The other elegantly curved around the wooden bow Gently coaxing music out of the instrument against your shoulder Flowing ever so softly like a mother’s lullaby The wind carries the melody to me as it tousles your hair Midnight flowing against daylight In the contrast, that darkness seems to glow as bright as the sun behind you My chest rises and falls with the bow and the tune And I find that the violin isn’t the only thing under your spell.
I love writing poetry. It's the only artform I feel like I can keep to myself I can throw some flowery language in my notes app and then never look at it again I can freely express myself in a way that regularly structured paragraphs could never show I can explain my emotions in a way that makes sense to me It's something I've always struggled to do through drawings - and struggled even more with writing regularly structured stories or essays
This is also true for me, lol. I have a Notes on my phone full of more than a year’s worth of “drabbles”, often about the day I had or the thoughts I had that day or meditation on my religious reading. I don’t think I’d ever want to publish my poetry, because it’s a way for me to translate thoughts only for me, not for other people such as when I draw or write longer prose.
Hearing your cat purring so much makes me unreasonably happy. My English class is currently doing poetry and I just submitted a poem I made about my feelings of anxiety and depression and how it feels to me. Hopefully it was pretty good.
For your consideration, inspired by Desmond, I present “Ode to Loud Cat” : Louder than a score of students snoring in a morning classroom Or the surf upon a leeward beach by a naval base on Guam Not an ’87 Corvette engine idling at an Exxon station Not the stellar radio hums from the edges of Creation Have you papers, bills or lessons calling urgently to thee? No work or task or laundry hath priority o’er me! All else must wait when I vibrate while plopped upon your lap So I decree you cuddle me. 'Tis time to take a nap.
very nice. I appreciate the casual whimsy in context of a UA-cam comment, despite this being a legitimate poem, and I'll forever remember the gem you used to describe cosmic microwave background radiation as 'the edges of creation'
"you don't want the garlic to be the only thing people remember from your food" tell that to my friend who once made garlic chicken with so much garlic that I could only taste garlic for the next two days
This video is great as a starting point, but rules are meant to be broken and art is subjective. A lot of the things she talks about apply to a certain type of poetry, but you can completely ignore all of it and still make good poetry. Artistic movements constantly change the rules in interesting ways, and the poets she says are good or bad aren't OBJECTIVELY good or bad, they just don't align with her contemporary vision of poetry. Always remember that art can be whatever you want it to be, and this video gives you tools, not absolutes, for writing poetry.
You really really really should learn the rules first though. There's a reason art classes are incredibly rigorous, with lots of theory behind it. This will make your art better, even if you don't use 90% of the "rules"
As a fellow published poet, I appreciate this video on so many levels. You put exactly into words what I wish I could say to people when they talk with me about poetry, particularly the way they dislike it so strongly. So many people misunderstand poetry, especially due to what we were taught in school, as you said, so it is refreshing to hear a view much like my own.
@@drippingpoetry6807 Yes! I have two books of my own poetry published currently. I'm working on two other books currently, one poetry collection and the other a novel. I also have individual poems published.
@@emelidion6056 that sound interesting... do you have any poetry on your page... you can probably put up a poetry piece by gifted... I know you'll love her stuff... she's beyond perfection with her writing.. take a look at her page... I'm sure she'd love some pointer from someone like you.. who've written a book and so much poetry... Her poetry are so superb that it's like her words caress you... from skin to epidermis.. I love this one of hers.. ua-cam.com/video/hp1GNxvWbsQ/v-deo.html and also another..
Most bees are female!! But I'm just using this as an opportunity to recommend The Bees by Laline Paull. It's written from the perspective of a female drone and it's scientifically accurate and mind blowing and I suggest reading it any chance I get. Also The History of Bees by Maja Lunde if you're hungry for more Grade A Bee reading.
@@lapatatadelplato6520 You're right! The worker bees are all females--neutral females, who have not been made fertilizable. The drones are male, and don't do shit, except mate. But they don't mate with their own queen--they mate with ANOTHER hive's queen (or queen-to-be)--AND THEY DO IT WHILE FLYING! (Do not try this at home.) And queens don't rule the roost (or hive); the workers do. They work democratically, working in committees, usually when scouting out a new place for a hive. Shelley used the bees in his great socialist poem "Men of England"--condemning the drones and exalting the workers (the future is female). This poem became the hymn of the British Labour Party.
Actually! The bee in the picture she shows is an eastern carpenter bee, which are actually solitary insects. Fortunately, the bee in the picture is a female based on the lack of a yellow nose, so Zoe is still safe. (PS: I have a great book recommendation on honey bees called The Lives of Bees by Thomas D Seeley. Trust me, I’m a beekeeper.)
I have a doctorate in English with a focus on modernism. Admittedly, my dissertation is on Woolf and Lawrence, not specifically poetry, but I do teach a number of modernist poets. The straw man of Eliot you set up at the beginning belies the quality of much of his poetry -- even "The Waste Land." I think there's room to critique that poem as pretentious, but that pretentiousness is precisely because the allusions and languages that modernists of his stripe use are, to the common reader, alienating. It is not because the poem is a puzzle to be solved. Most modernists reject the idea that there is a "solution" to the poem. Barthes characterization of writerly texts (and indeed the death of the author) applies fantastically to modernist poetry. The idea of poetry as a means of conveying one's own inner state to another is what leads many of my students to miss the brilliance of the work of an author like Sylvia Plath. They're so taken with the idea of the poem as an expression of a suicidally depressed woman in a failed marriage with daddy issues that they miss the thematic complexity of much of her work. To my mind, poems challenge our fixed conceptions, breaking open their thematic focus without resolving it. The expectation of resolution in any poem is anathema to my modernist understanding of poetry.
I think this speaks to having different tastes. There are different styles, genres, and goals writers have when they write poetry. I tend to like poetry, but my favorite poem was by a 16 or 17 year old writing about a second language. I didn’t have that experience but it still spoke to me a lot, and the language was, to me, beautiful
This argument only holds water if you like modernism though. Like no shade on modernist works, but the fact that a famous modernist work is good by modernist standards is... a tautology? Modernism can be challenging for the kind of poetry beginner she is targeting with this video.
Yes. It's sad that the regular person today will only see beauty in things in which they can see themselves. If they don't identify with it immediately, if it takes work and time, they will just disregard it. So one of the most excellent poems of all time becomes "pretentious" just because it takes time to understand it. The lazy narcissism of today is decomposing everything complex and special.
I agree with you here, and I’d add that the idea that poetry is about “conveying one’s own inner state” only works for a narrow set of poetry, mostly in the tradition of lyric poetry. What about epic? What about romance? What about dramatic poetry? None of these forms can be said to be only about conveying one’s own inner state (which is not to say these forms are devoid of internality!). Honestly, I am convinced that most accusations of pretension are just cope from people who have encountered art which transcends their current capacity to comprehend. Being pretentious is of course a grave sin, but so is brute reductionism. Not every emperor has no clothes.
I find your takedown of T.S. Eliot's poetry bizarre. When he wants it to, it certainly captures emotion. You cite the ending of Prufrock, which is an excellent example of that. The parts of his poetry which are less easily accessible aren't 'bad', they're just designed for you to puzzle over and revisit them. You might not know instantly what the words themselves mean, but they will probably still make your feel *something*. Personally I think Eliot wrote the most arresting opening to a poem in all of literature: 'Let us go then, you and I/ When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table;' Eliot never mocked the public for finding his work inaccessible. (He also wrote much less allusive and fun literature: take 'Cats'.) If anything he was harshest on his overly analytical critics... the footnotes he left on 'The Waste Land' were specifically designed to confuse them, and to inspire 'bogus scholarship', as he later called it. You describe William Carlos Williams not liking Eliot as if he were representative of all of Eliot's contemporaries. Yes, he didn't like Eliot's poetry. WCW himself was a Modernist, and he felt threatened by the different brand of Modernism that Eliot espoused. Direct quote: 'It was a shock to me that he [Eliot] was so tremendously successful. My contemporaries flocked to him - away from what I wanted.' ... they were poetic rivals. That doesn't mean that Eliot had no contemporary admirers; far from it. I also think it's quite ironic that a large part of your argument about how to write poetry is... directly borrowed from Eliot's own theory of poetry. The part about the 'music of poetry' could also be taken word-for-word from Eliot's essay 'The Music of Poetry'. Eliot believed that the best poetry was musical; that it blended emotion and intellect in equal measure. I think your dismissal of him is based on straw man logic.
You obviously are both a poetry enthusiast and an Eliot fan, so I can see why her notes about Eliot rubbed you the wrong way. But I think her point there was that the common perception of poetry as something for and by academics isn't entirely accurate. While yes, TS Eliot wrote incredibly influential and often beautiful poetry, his was not the only salient poetic voice (as some might have been taught in High School). Yes, modernism was an important and pivotal movement, but poetry in 2022 operates in a different zone than Eliot. It is critical to recognize how his works brought us to the point where we are at today, but trying to directly emulate the style of TS Eliot produces poetry that, as she said, has been done before. Her goal is to reach prospective modern poets who feel somewhat isolated in their understanding of poetry, not to debate about movements throughout the history of poetry (a different video entirely). She aims to walk back the idea that all poetry has to inhabit an elevated, academic tone by somewhat playfully undercutting a traditionally upheld poet. An understanding of Eliot can certainly inform someone's understanding about the history of poetry, how we got to where we are, but it is less useful when trying to understand how to write poetry today. Yes you can read Eliot and learn a lot from it, but his writing embodies the style of a different generation of poets that is somewhat "out of fashion" poetically. Her goal is to create a foundation upon which anyone can begin to craft their own work, not to educate someone about the way Modernists wrote (which is why a more contemporary example, like Ted Kooser, serves as a better model for how to create poetry today).
Yess, Prufrock is my favorite poem, and for me, puzzling over a poem, playing that game with the poet, that’s the real fun of it. That’s what I love about poetry. That’s why I also love Emely Dickinson. Yes she is an enigma, and that exactly is makes her so interesting and fun to talk with through her poems. Complicated doesn’t mean good, but easy doesn’t mean good either.
0:00 The Alchemist" by Zoe Bee - Complementary example 8:50 "Unnamed Bad Poem" by Zoe Bee - Bad Example 10:06 "I do not need the kind of love..." by Rupi Kaur - Bad Example 10:38 "After Years" by Ted Kooser - Good Example 13:38 "Newcastle Bar & Grill" by Thea S. Kuticka - Good Example 17:07 For Annie" by Edgar Allen Poe - Good Example 18:05 "Yellow Tractate" by Brenda Hillman - Good Example 19:48 -"Iron" by Gabbie Hanna - Bad Example 21:41 "The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot - Good Example 29:39 "Ode to the Bumblebee" by Zoe Bee - Good Example 41:51 A patch of violets, visited twice" by Zoe Bee - Complementary Example
I have seriously just within this last week been thinking seriously about how I need to learn to appreciate poetry. No joke. This video is showing up at the exact right time.
I'm a poet by hobby (and hopefully by profession in the future) and I've found it interesting to see how different writers interpret similar prompts. When I was attending writing workshops in college, it's so cool to read vastly different things based on a picture of a cracked egg on sand. And to me, that's what's so cool about good poetry. It's very telling of how somebody communicates their emotions - and the good ones make me feel mind blown because nobody could've thought of it other than the writer.
Well.. that's the effect that gifted lil thang gives with her poetry...its like she can write a whole poetry piece from a droplet of water and a smile lol. ua-cam.com/video/hp1GNxvWbsQ/v-deo.html
Honestly I think a cliche well used can be wonderful, I think they're often unfairly maligned, but I can see how when we're talking specifically about poetry, anything too familiar risks being ineffective.
Hearing you talk about poetry is wonderful, I would love if you could talk more about the actual creation of metaphors. I was told I can write "like a mystic rat that speaks only in metaphor" and other people didnt understand my metaphors. I cant tell how much is my autism meaning I think differently, how much is me having little experience for poetry, and how much is just people I share it with. I tried to write a poem about throwing a stick really hard, and feeling ascendance in that whipping motion in my arm since I couldnt explain the feeling well with other descriptors. Throw and Fall Run that stick thrower through the door. Run that sick forest rain red. Ridicule every bit of existence. We rank the moments of this place by the weight of our foot prints. Those foot prints dig through dirt, wet. Wild how those thorns sting, stuck inside. Prick the arm stinging scabs to be picked. Stories of scars form from minds place in the woods. Mind changes range from wind up to release. It sticks to mine, the fleeting feeling. What state of being there was waft into water. We threw ourselves into the air. We wait to fall as we fly into our colorful rain.
@@user-mo7cd9jd8v I essentially intended it to be a series of vignettes, showing a trip into the woods. It is framed around just throwing a stick really hard, trying to draw upon memories of getting little cuts, scabs, and thorns and the memories as scars, how the place is remembered. I compared those permanent memories to the very fleeting physical feeling when you throw something, winding up, and snapping your arm forth. thinking finally about what was being thrown, and identifying with it. thats kinda the rundown, a few months later the fact that thats the structure might not be the most clear, hopefully with understanding what it is it makes more sense.
@@belalaloca not really, it's in Dutch and also visual - the main text is in the middle, with sounds overlapping, sitting further away or closer, and bigger or smaller. Not easy to share over UA-cam comments haha
I'm a songwriter. Everything I write starts with something I just think is kinda neat. Like I wrote about trans invisibility saying people filter out everything they don't like. They see the world in black and white. But we live in the rainbow past the clouds. For me, taking two common ideas and mashing them together, mixing metaphors but then it turns out it's actually an extended metaphor and the pieces fall into place, is what I like doing. I'm pretty proud of the result. These were the lyrics I wrote: You see the world through filters You see in black and white You filter out the monsters To help you sleep at night But what if those were people You filtered from your sight Outside the world you know Are the ghosts you still see through If you remove the filter We were always here among you If you refuse to see us We will once again fade out Keep your greyscale sky We will live in the rainbow past the clouds A bit of introspection Could help you see your flaws Instead you use projection Assume that we're the cause You filter out the spectrum You stay indoors While outside the world you know Are the ghosts you still see through If you remove the filter We were always here around you If you refuse to see us We will once again fade out Keep your greyscale sky We will live in the rainbow past the clouds Transgender and translucent I travel through the sky Some see the faintest traces Some see a different guy I try to show you who I am I try But outside the world you know Are the ghosts you still see through If you remove the filter We were always here around you If you refuse to see us We will once again fade out Keep your greyscale sky We will live in the rainbow past the clouds Past the clouds Past the clouds Past the clouds We will live in the rainbow past the clouds
After watching several of Zoe's videos (including her Lovecraft series), I was inspired... so I tried to capture the feeling of my anxiety. I haven't written poetry in years, so please go easy on me. A storm lingers in the center of my skull, Threatening to flood my thoughts with piercing pellets of ice-cold rain My eyes cloud over as I gaze into the distance, And in an instant, the rain begins to moisten my skin The future looms like a vague, unidentifiable Lovecraftian horror, Standing ominously on the horizon. At times its overwhelming shadow fades into the surrounding darkness, Allowing me a moment of respite in my ignorance But a white-hot flash illuminates what I've feared all along: One cannot know the unknowable. And so I sit in my discomfort, Twisting this truth around and around in my head, Knowing that this knowledge I now hold is both a gift and a curse How does one live with their uncertainty? Is ignorance truly bliss? Will I ever know for sure? The rain falls faster and faster until my skin turns pink and raw And the monster laughs a booming, evil laugh Sometimes I think he enjoys my suffering; But sometimes I think it was just thunder.
this is really cool!! For a standalone poem, it's a bit blunt, but this type of writing is absolutely perfect for a book of poetry! The best things I've ever read were written in a really similar way to this-
It's a really good poem! I prefer making my lines shorter and briefer but your stuff works too. By shorter I mean turning your "The rain falls faster and faster until my skin turns pink and raw" and spreading it in a few lines like "The rain falls/ faster and faster/ my skin turns/ pink and raw".
Oddly I found the “purses and bottles of after shave” much more engaging than the longer explanation, which i found dull and needlessly long. The problem with poetry is that it’s so wildly subjective that you feel excluded when everyone agrees that it gives off one idea and you went the opposite direction. For me, identifying a store by purses and bottles of after shave is more interesting because it raises the question of why that would be the go to description, while the “good” example is just “oh some atmosphere, how artistic”
Same, I don't know any of the brands either which also strained my interpretation a bit I thought the "Iron" poem was good actually, and tound most of what is said on the video pretentious Poetry is not something that can be good or bad objectively
Yes! Some of this felt alienating and confusing to me. It's interesting to learn about and hear different perspectives, but the use of terms of "bad" and "good" feels too decisive and ignores the subjectivity of art more than I would personally prefer. To each their own, but it sucks to feel excluded.
On this exact topic, I once wrote a poem on my fear of turning like some of the pretentious poets we read about, and also in general about my fear of being an incapable poet in the first place who pretends they're good. I resolve the poetry by basically telling myself that I'll still write even if I probably have no clue and I'll not always get that much inspiration, because I like to write, despite everything It's embarassing to share but I felt like it was too much of a coincidence that I came across this video out of the blue. It's simple and straightforward compared to other poems I made, but if I can inspire even just one person, that's good enough for me! Title: Bad Poetry "Looking far outside, yet so near, I gaze and hear, as I write and fear of ending there, in a tone-deaf glow, in that tone-deaf chamber, that we all know. Will you look at me? Are those eyes of content? Or is it just a farse as you Hide your contempt? I'll write bad poetry, and so will we all, Pretending to know, as words come rough. I'll keep writing wearily, wording each thought, Pretending to be, as if that'll be enough."
“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.” - Nietzsche on poets And thank you for posting this. We are soon going to be passing out awards for the Griffin Poetry Prize in Canada, and I have just made the mistake of buying a collection by one of the nominees. Not sure why I bothered. Most of the modernists stick their heads so far up their own behinds that they enjoy the view.
O Man! Take Heed! O Man! Take heed! What does the deep midnight say? ‘I was asleep, asleep -, I have awoken from deep dreams: - The world is deep, And deeper than the day imagined. Deep is its grief! Joy, deeper still than heartache! Grief says: Perish! But all joy seeks eternity -, - seeks deep, deep eternity!’ - Friedrich Nietzsche, Translation: Richard Stokes
I read poetry statistics recently. Canada buys mostly Instapoets, so whoever won the Prize most likely didn't sell all that much anyway. Rupi outsells everyone with her noems.
When she was talking about metaphors and cliches and stuff I couldn’t stop thing about WAP and how it compares sex to junk food, like Marconi and cheese or McDonald’s, even “get a bucket and mop” kinda evokes the image of like a fast food worker
Hey Zoe! I'm teaching a poetry course to 10th graders right now and I loved much of what you had to say here. I'm all about breaking down misconceptions about poetry and the misguided idea there is a secret meaning to unlock. Poetry offers SO many pleasures! I gotta say, though, your assertion that T.S. was a bad poet is a tad... subjective, to put it mildly. He definitely appears to have been a dick, and he definitely believed poetry should be difficult, but neither of these seem to speak to the quality of his poetry. While Rupi Kaur is a poet you can read on the airplane or before bed and get some good feels from, Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a poem that requires attention and can be returned to throughout one's life, revealing something different every time. It's been one of my favorites since I read it in 10th grade myself just cause I enjoyed the texture of it. After all, there are gorgeous images, intriguing metaphors, and sonic beauty just waiting to be soaked in. There are also lots of allusions and complex meaning for those who enjoy the intellectual joys of poetry as much as the physical or spiritual. Just because a poem is challenging, doesn't mean it's bad, my friend. I urge your followers to give poetry--in "school" poetry--a second look after learning from all you offer here. : ) With respect, a fellow English teacher
i write lots of things just for myself, ive always struggled to call them poetry, its mainly to remind myself what something i was feeling or seeing was like, because i can not picture things in my head and my memory is often failing, but i think having watched this video will help me put more of what the feeling or sight was like into these thing i write. thank you 💜
An excellent way to know your video is having an impact is just to look at all of the spontaneous poems people are writing in the comments. You inspired your viewers to create! That's one of the best things a UA-cam video can do. Thanks!
Rupi Kaur has always been so hyped in my opinion. Her poems seemed wrote by a child to a child. 😅 You have actually made me go back to my poems and realized there are actually fine for a non-writer at all. I'm musician so, they pretty much looks fine
After having seen your process, I learned two things about my own writing: 1. This kind of poetry is not my style. 2. I need to rethink my approach to metaphors.
I wrote a poem for school once where I was meant to compare two similar things I think, I can't remember the name of the type of poem, it's been a while. Anyways I decided to go the weird route and compare two things that were actually seen as quite different, but in a way, the same; a desert and an ocean. I spoke about how they were both beautiful, yet unforgiving, how even the vast stretch of lifeless blue of the waters or the endless rivers of burning, shimmering gold were really filled with life and beauty. How their nature was unfeeling and seemingly frigid, hostile, and without compassion; they could both drown you at a moment's notice, yet cradled life like no other. The words to describe them couldn't be expressed as gentle, really, but maybe something else. Not loving, either, but something else, something new. From these unforgiving stretches beneath the sky they held something that grew in so many colours; red, green, blue. Yet in the night when the cold came you'd expect the wintery bite of ice or frost to eat and consume what was left of it. But no, their survival was less like a storybook, and more of a canvas painted with grey, blue, and white. Not a story from beginning to end, but spattered with unseen life. Or maybe she was right, and it was a dumb poem lol
people like you and those that hold these ideas are the reason I write poetry only for myself. I don't want to measure up to your ideas of what is good. I don't care. But I do find it interesting what you had to say about the topic. I generally appreciate your perspective and videos. But listening to you on this made it clear again to me, why I don't show others.
Thank you for helping me see poetry in a new light. I have been writing and thinking the wrong way. Your video has definitely made me a better poet than I was before I watched it. I am going to improve my poetry with this new insight. Thank you soo much
Yo same! I stopped writing music because I got sick and burned myself out. But like Travis Meadows said, when you push it down, it comes out sideways - so here I am neck deep into poetry lol
That poem again but in the style of poetry Zoe doesn’t like: “I poked a bee on my window screen To see if it was still alive. There’s a metaphor there somewhere, I guess?”
I feel like I really started to 'get' poetry when I got to hear it read out loud. It really changes from "nonsense words in a page" to "awe inspiring harmony with feelings and music and meaning"
Man, whenever I watch this video I feel so inspired. This is a little poem I just wrote: I stand, silently looking upon visages of pompous pasts I am filled with admiration I ask my anxious self: Will I too be one day carved by masterful hands out of delicate alabaster, to be silently looked upon, by future visionaries? Will I in the search for glorious immortality just end in the eternal lines of those six thousend figures, who are magnificent alone but mediocre when together? Is it just part of being human, of having only one pair of eyes, that you construct the, oh so, obvious lie of "I can be outstanding"? But I see, as I walk across this path, the kind demeanour of an elderly philosopher, eyes closed, mouth half opened. Her pores so lifelike, yet still just an image of a past I can never meet. But I know, this is not the smile of a philosopher, who after six decades of work, just found the great formula, the great Axiom of Morality. No, this is the smile of an old lady, accepting mediocrity, understanding, what I did not yet understand, that a single pair of eyes can still see a lot, can still see a miracle. Thank you for your work :)
I watch critiques of bad poetry (like gabbie's) and it's fun and all, but I think you have the knowledge and ability to create content that is more constructive. Maybe instead of "_________ 's poetry is bad" content, you could make "(insert bad poetry device here) poetry is bad and here's how to fix it" content. Then it doesn't feel like you're attacking one person, but addressing a common problem found in several places. Metaphor laziness and pretentious abstraction might be good places to start, since you mentioned both in this video. Thanks for being awesome, and I'll watch no matter which direction you choose! :)
You thought of the same idea as me! When she described the concept, I also thought about the fear of attempting to make a measure that would stick the object to a state.
you're making me miss my pretentious-wattpad-poetry days. i was so in love with words. so eager to explore every possible sentence and text structure and the emotional effect it would have on me and my abstract internet friends, so motivated to... create. i really miss it. thank you :) also, loved the ending poem! the flower/disgust-contrast and the little animal lives - amazing.
You were completely unfazed by the entrance of your cat and its mission to find a comfy spot. I salute you! I' e been a writer for a long time, mostly for magazines etc. and I've just recently been searching for something a bit more enriching. Poetry was something I'd never tried in any serious way until just this week. I'm still exploring it and learning but I'm enjoying it.
This was fantastic, I’ve been pretty put off by poetry in the past because I’ve always experienced it as either the Tumblr style marketable and shallow stuff or academic poetry that just made me feel dumb. This was actually really informative, also I love the staging and lighting and ESPECIALLY the cat thank you
My favorite poem is one I read in like 8th grade that I can't find anymore but it went something like this. Refrigerator Light I forget about her as soon as I shut the door. If anyone can find who actually wrote this and make sure I am writing it correctly I would be forever grateful.
I am not familiar with the poem, but it sounds like something that William Carlos Williams would have wrote - he is known for shorter poems about everyday, seemingly mundane things.
IM JUST COMMENTING TO SAY I LOVE THE CAT PURRS OMG PLEASE DONT EVER REMOVE THEM. I always miss my cat during the day so it was a nice surprise, also i just enjoy your videos in general
Bubbles of blueberries burst on the stem My fingers purple enjoying the sweetness again Nobody can haggle if I've eaten them all Not the birds, the boys or the butcher's wife
@@zyaicob I guess, it's just having enough differing experiences than everybody else can be pretty isolating. why don't I understand other people? Am I missing something? It makes me feel less human than everyone else...maybe it's just me
@@mathisverycool7240 well for one thing, you can think of it this way. I have this experience- if i believe it to be valid, then the fact that it isn't common doesn't matter, because my purpose is to be the one who has this experience for the sake of the collective benefit to humanity this experience provides. You can also learn, eventually, that you are not alone in any one aspect of your humanity, and simultaneously unique in the totality of your humanity. In other words, there's no single opinion, like or dislike, etc. that you have that is unique to you. Someone else likes any thing you like or has any opinion you hold, but there's no one that has your exact combo of opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. and that's pretty cool. Either way, not so lonely
A Russian native speaker here. Отстранение doesn't really mean defamiliarization. It's more like - taking a step back, not being (emotionally) involved into something. Отстраняться - the corresponding verb can mean moving physically away from someone. It's really hard to translate and I don't thing your essay suffers from this inaccuracy, but I thought you might be interested to hear about it. :) Thank you for your videos. I absolutely love them.
My favorite poem is "Flies" by Peter Hammill, it never fails to crack me up. Flies As I opened the back door, two flies were copulating on the cooker: I found this very significant. Late at night, my hand groped for the aerosol. They stayed together for the first few seconds, wings scorched in the sudden fire, minds disintegrating in the deadly mist. Quite suddenly, the male tore himself away from his penis and dropped to the floor. She remained, rolling around on the white enamel and then fell through a crack into the oven. Perhaps she had been a virgin and though this was what always happened. I ate my egg with a few pangs of conscience. Later that night these disappeared when another fly shat on me from the light bulb above my bed.
now i remember going into highschool with a newly grown fascination for writing poetry but by the time i graduated the urge to write at all had basically been destroyed almost a decade later i started writing things again, including some poetry thank you for this video ✒️
What is this madness - Matching syllables with flavors on the tongue We can't digest this fresh fermentation yet We drink her in We sip and sip We slaves to taste - Are we truly human consumers?
Thank you so much for this video! Poetry and english in general have never been my strongest subject and every time I'm forced to write a poem for class I always feel it's inadequate compared to my peers and my deeper meanings always feel shallow. You explain everything very clearly and I have no doubt that this video has helped me structure my poems better. You're definitely one of the best educational youtubers I've seen in a while, I have a feeling you'll go far on youtube. Now if you excuse me I feel like writing some poetry. P.S I loved Aud's artwork, you definitely should have her do more videos.
01:00 📚 Poetry doesn't require decoding a hidden meaning; appreciate poems at face value. 02:38 💡 Academic perception of poetry often imposes rigid rules and expectations. 06:31 🎭 Poetry's essence lies in evoking new emotions and thoughts through language. 08:30 🖊 Effective poetry uses concrete imagery to convey emotions rather than abstract concepts. 11:16 🌟 Detailed and specific imagery enhances the authenticity and impact of poetry. 15:15 🤯 Metaphors, similes, and symbolism in poetry create connections between disparate concepts, inviting readers to see things differently. 19:13 🚫 Avoid clichéd metaphors in poetry; strive to make fresh and unexpected connections. 19:42 📜 Metaphors are fundamental to poetry, creating new connections and overlaps between ideas. 20:49 🔊 Sound is crucial in poetry, evoking feelings and offering a new perspective on content. 22:32 🎶 Poetry's rhythm and melodic language engage readers and carry them through the poem. 23:30 📝 Traditional poetry rules can limit creativity; poets should prioritize evoking emotions and offering fresh perspectives. 24:30 🍲 Poetic elements are like ingredients in cooking; choose them purposefully to enhance the poem's effect. 25:29 🥓 Good metaphors surprise and engage, like unconventional food combinations. 26:46 🍽 Poetic presentation matters; unconventional formats can enhance the reader's experience. 28:12 📜 Accept that not everyone will appreciate your poems, but some will deeply connect with your work. 30:36 ✍ Start writing a poem by focusing on a concrete image or memory that inspires you. 34:59 💭 Use similes and vivid descriptions to enhance the imagery and sensory experience in your poem. 39:59 🏷 Choose a title that captures the essence of your poem, even if it's simple yet relevant. 41:28 📚 Poetry is complex yet accessible, aiming to evoke new emotions and thoughts by connecting seemingly unrelated things. 43:00 ✍ Experiment with words and language in poetry, exploring silliness, beauty, and connections between everyday experiences. 43:58 🎉 Consider celebrating National Poetry Month by participating in poetry-writing livestreams or sharing feedback to shape poems. 44:55 🎨 Acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of artists and editors who collaborate on video content. 45:55 💬 Engage with creators on social media platforms like Twitter and support them through platforms like Patreon for exclusive content and perks.
I cannot believe this content is for free. Say you read something so illuminating and so close to what you're looking for and you know it's backed up by knowledge? I replayed a few lines just to hear it over and over again. Now I'm thinking why am I even in my uni that teaches...(you know that sentence has to be carefully structured with no negativity but has a point?) How I wish you were my teacher! But I'll follow and watch every single one you upload. My new favourite teacher! ❤️
I had never felt like a story had been written about me until I read Howl by Allen Ginsberg. It felt like someone was describing me and the people I know and just saying it. Incredible experience.
This was the video I needed to rekindle my interest in both reading and writing poetry. Thank you! Would love a part two on the arduous process of revising and refining poems already written.
Great video that really summarizes some of my pet peeves when talking about poetry! Although, your example of a "bad" poem about metaphor, Iron, I actually really liked! I felt like the poem wasn't actually literally saying "there's a metaphor but I don't know it," it seemed like an ironic nod to what the metaphor clearly was, a metaphor for seeing if something would hurt you by doing something reckless, that the author used to imply something about their mother. Of course, maybe you're right and the poem did just suck, but for me it did give me an image that I found compelling.
This video lusciously and concretely unravels-deciphers poetry and makes it, or the making of it, much more accessible. The part where instructor actually writes is very helpful. I think I need to watch a couple more times. Thank you!!!
I think a good book i'd like to recommend is *The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky* ; its a bit of an older book (about 23 years old) but it's still extremely relevant. Its a short little guidebook that explains things in as plain a way as possible. Pinsky (a previous US Poet Laureate) has a great way of explaining some of the fundamentals of poetry. I really enjoyed reading it, and I'm currently rereading it. Otherwise, my own take on this video - i disagree with some of what you've said, especially about the forms of poetry being overly done and that it doesnt inspire deep feeling. I primarily write free verse and i've started to delve deeper into writing in other forms and reading poetry in non-free verse. Its honestly a wonderful experience for me. As much as i love the "inside" of the poem, the "outside" can do soooo much to inform the "inside." I think the true issue of how its being taught in school is how dry and sanitized it is. It takes away the emotion and standardizes what meaning academics say we should take away from different poems. I was thankfully one of those kids who could persevere through this dryness and love poetry and prose anyways, (with the exception of one 10th grade teacher who made me hate faulkner with a PASSION) but i didnt realize that my understanding of poetry was still stunted until i had this one professor in college. She completely transformed my understanding of poetry and she really encouraged us to find our own understanding in the poems and literature excerpts we read. I felt a lot more confident in being able to read and write a poem; she was actually the one who gave me the book i mentioned at the top. Poetry has theory to it, and though I am a big proponent of the idea that you don't need to abide by everything or even know much to start writing, knowing theory helps to further your understanding of how far your writing can go. I know there are so many stuffy terms in poetics, but thats the same for any craft or skill. The unfortunate thing is that so many academic places make it inaccessible to the beginner. Which is why i recommended the book that I did. Pinsky really tries to make poetry as accessible as possible while still being able to convey some of the basics in poetry. At the same time though, he doesn't decry older forms. There is something special in being able to connect to the people of the past in this way, in writing in the forms that they created. Or even just reading what they wrote. The more we allow alternate interpretation and readings of old poetry and plays and prose, the more that people will love it. Shakespeare is a great example; there are so many alternate versions of his plays that there is something for most people. There are even alternate ways of verbalizing them. And the same goes for his poetry. There are poets today that reference his works and create intriguing things that beg you to at least glance at his poetry with new eyes. Even just knowing how the original accent actually sounds makes the idea of his poetry more lively. I saw another comment here that said that they thought better terms were "effective" and "ineffective" poetry - and i heartily agree. People don't know how to read poetry with more intensive forms to it because a) they were taught in that dry, stuffy way, but also b) it just may not be an effective poem for them, whether its just at that moment, or ever. Poetry can absolutely be highly subjective, in matters of taste. Of course, there are objective ways to measure how "good" or "effective" a poem is, which is why poetry from Rupi Kaur, Atticus, and Gabbie Hanna are so decried about in the community - their poetry tends to be too vague, simplistic, and gives off the air of unfinished to the nth degree. But they are "effective" in drawing in an audience in some fashion or another. Even if they write "bad" poetry, they've been the doorway for some people into poetry. Which I think is a good thing; my opinions about each of those "poets," aside. Essentially, we just need to find new ways of presenting poetry and the theory of poetry to people. There is absolutely an objective way to analyze poems, just as much as there is a subjective way to read and find meaning in them. I definitely think more institutions should talk about slam poetry more, because it's so lively, and it encourages people to think about poetry as sounds instead of just words on a page. Sorry for the ling comment, i just really love talking about poetry.
"Turn wheresoe'er I may, by night or day. The poems which I have read I now can read no more." Thank you for your insightful instruction! I came here to write better poems for my songs. I will certainly be revisiting your work for some time to come. Cheers!
I love this! I was honestly pretty opposed to poetry throughout school until one of my English teachers told me I had written a great poem. Now in college after going from music to creative fiction, I’ve landed myself as a poetry major. I’ve only taken two classes so far, but I’ve grown to love it so much. A part of what I want to do as a poet is to write very easily understandable pieces. My sister and I are both autistic and can find some of the harder metaphors in poetry hard to understand. I’ve found joy in reading good poetry and hope to be able to bring that joy to others who have been off put by the academic nature of poetry they’ve been conditioned to fear.
'And good poets - like food scientists - have studied enough and have learned enough about chemical makeup of the stuff they’re working with that they have a good idea of what will work and what won’t. There are always new things to discover, but they don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time they write a metaphor or pair two foods together.' Yes, yes, yes! This clicked with me so much! Thank you!
This is my favourite poem. “The Look” by Sara Teasdale:
Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.
Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.
That's a sweet one.
I discovered Sara Teasdale only a while ago, two months at most. She's really written so many endearing poems. One can definitely depend upon her if they'd like something soft, tender, and nostalgic. 😄
This sounds like such a lovely poem. Can you recommend me a book from the author? I would love to read some of her works.
@@araw_buwan ....as the FedEx or UPS shipping rates are quite steep, you'll have to pick up that package yourself.
"Haunts me still this day." just a suggestion.
@@gristlevonraben The duality of night and day is more fitting to represent the distance between two figures yearning for a physical romance but are kept at a distance. Hence why the focus of the title is 'The Look'. Haunts me still this day might be more expressively pleasing to listen to, but the poetic license taken by the author put more focus in the duality of the relationships (Haunts me (my) night//night and day) than in a focus of an individual's yearning. If the latter had been selected, it would be more fitting (haunts me still//still this day).
"You don't just blindly grab things out of your fridge and dump it all into a pot and it's dinner."
...
I came here to learn about poetry, not be personally attacked, Zoe.
but... casserole?
me side-eyeing my end-of-month galette
Anyone who says that hasnt been a college freshman
@@Rodrik18 yeah, homegirl's so smart she was a college sophomore her first year.
😂😂😂
I feel like her cat's confused on who why she's talking out loud when there's no one in the room 😂🤣
yea, it's like the bite on the chin is "ey, snap out of it, you're acting crazy"
The cat's like "Where are they at!?!?!"
Lol I thought the same thing.
Cats are intuitive and want to be around the action/their people usually so that makes some sense
I can hear the purring sound 😂
instead of separating poetry into "good" and "bad", i think it might be better to figure out what makes poetry "effective" or "ineffective" for whatever purpose/audience you have in mind! experiencing poetry, and art overall, is pretty subjective; your goals and priorities may vary widely depending on whether you're writing poetry to read aloud, be published, sort out your own feelings, etc
Yes thank you
It might be an interesting English assignment to have students find examples of poetry that they find effective or ineffective for them personally, and then explore/analyze how/what they find to be effective or ineffective.
I used to think that as well, but poetry does have structured parameters to adhere to. Step away from those guidelines and poetry can be twisted to a semblance of what determines what actual poetry even is. We can toss a football back and forth to our heart's content, but that still doesn't meet the criteria of an actual football game. That doesn't mean people shouldn't continue to write to their heart's content. It simply means that not everyone is going to hit the poetic mark as per poet policy even if only subjectively so in terms of what moves a given reader. Luckily for poets not everyone gives a running shit about poetry's policy handbook. 99% of people aren't literary grads. Some of the best poetry I've ever read was written by barefoot, pregnant house mom's and 9-to-5 working dads whereas some of the most pretentious drivel I've ever been force fed has been written by prominent poets. 😉
Not everything is poetry. If everything is poetry then what isn't poetry? And the classics didn't write in a pretentious way. They where trying to use the beauty of the language to say something. Themes like love, justice... are important.
@@eduardmanecuta5350 I don't see where I wrote or implied the statements that everything is poetry or that the classics were written in a pretentious way; i didn't intend to communicate either of those ideas! Apologies if that's what you took away from my comment. I was more trying to say how I think using the labels of "good" and "bad" might be limiting and inefficient for organizing/identifying poetry when peoples' tastes, experiences, and interpretations of art can all vary vastly from each other!
00:00 Introduction
2:19 Part 1: The What & The Why
07:45 Part 2: The How
08:14 On Being concrete & specific
14:42 On Metaphors
20:24 On Sounding good
23:25 On Purpose
28:24 Part 3: Writing a Poem
41:50 Conclusion
44:10 Greetings & Credits
Respectfully hoping that this will guide anyone through this edifying video essay!
LOVE MEANS ABANDONING COLORS TO BE COLORFUL (A Theosophical Rhymed Poem In English) in 2 minutes
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Thank u
Need one of these specifically for when her cats attack her/causes problems
up
Today I learned that I can't tell the difference between good and bad poetry lol
John Keats will help you. So will Tennyson.
Yeah, no, that "bad" poem legit almost made ne cry, and I'm supposed to teach children about poetry. I think the word moonlight triggers the German Romantics in all of us.
@@beethovenjunkie I'm very glad you said that! Are you German too? If so, can you recommend some German poems for me to check out?
@@chim-choo-ree Thanks for the tip, but I think I'll start with poems in my native language
@@quicksanddiver "Mondnacht" (Joseph von Eichendorff)
"Willkommen und Abschied" (Goethe)
Two poems that this reminded me of.
Title suggestion: "To bee or not to bee?", with the implication that a dead bumblebee isn't beeing anymore.
Also indicates who wrote it
That is genius
Schrödinger's Bee was also right there XD
There's very similar wordplay in Monty Python's Eric the Half a Bee:
But can a bee be said to be
Or not to be an entire bee
When half the bee is not a bee
Due to some ancient injury?
'TB or not TB? That is the congestion.' - Woody Allen
Writing a poem on camera is a literary power move. It would be intimidating but well done you.
This comment is gold!
My thought!
LOVE MEANS ABANDONING COLORS TO BE COLORFUL (A Theosophical Rhymed Poem In English) in 2 minutes
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i cant tell if im tripping too hard to understand what you are saying or if im dissecting it wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too hard
My notes:
- make the reader feel like they’re in the poem. Add specific details but don’t over do it
- show don’t tell
- metaphors: make new connections between things. Make familiar things strange and strange things familiar.
- think of poems as food: there are no bad ingredients but they don’t always work well together.
Thank you this is great ❤
And above all : Let go of good feelings and political correctness. This has nothing to do with poetry.
Perfect
Poetry can tell. For example:
“Take my head and roast my carcass. I have the body of a pig.”
I didn’t need to ‘show’ the gorey details of decapitation or the burning of a headless corpse OR implications of having a weird pig human hybrid body.
But you can still feel the poem, even though I ‘told’ it.
The problem comes when people don’t know when or how to tell and it reads like a manuscript.
damn great advice.What differentiates between gud poems and bad ones is the way the poet introduces the story.If your story isnt creative(Even small things with no story can be created with creativity), then the reader will lose interest.The second thing is how you narrate through it.This includes all the words you use.And here your point is really very important. Thank u 👏
"all pollen and puff" is such a wonderful line
I for one would love more poetry criticism!
LOVE MEANS ABANDONING COLORS TO BE COLORFUL (A Theosophical Rhymed Poem In English) in 2 minutes
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"I, for one, would love more poetic criticism."
Ask and it shall be given. 😝
Yes... gifted like criticism because it helps her to grow more as a poet and writer... you should check out her page .. she's a gifted one.. ua-cam.com/users/shortsCeaMlYEE4X4?feature=share
I think my favourite definition of poetry is "making the intangible tangible". It really put things in perspective for me.
LOVE MEANS ABANDONING COLORS TO BE COLORFUL (A Theosophical Rhymed Poem In English) in 2 minutes
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I mean... That can be done with prose too
There can also be prosaic poetry, so that does not mean much.
Alan Watts has an amazing quote like this "the whole art of poetry is to say what can't be said"
Yeah this is my definition of art 💛
This is a seminal work. You have made the single-BEST video about poetry I have ever seen. I have attended workshops by world-famous spoken word poets, I have read every book on poetry I could get my hands on, and I do not think that a single dollar of what I've spent is close to the value of this (free!) video you have just made.
Sincerely, thank you, because you have just taken this love of mine which has decayed into a skeleton I shoved in a too-small closet, and shown me an angel wearing a dollar-store skull mask.
I'm a spoken-word poet, and I am completely self-taught. I never went to school for poetry, I barely attended any poetry events, I mostly just holed up and wrote what I wanted to. So I felt really insecure about what I did and why I did it when talking with other poets…even when I've written stuff that has made people cry. I know that I write good poetry, but I never could express how or why that is. You have just vindicated every part of my practice, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm crying writing this comment because section by section you have just dismantled my bruised craft and pointed out how every piece shines in the moonlight.
Thank you so, so much. You are quickly becoming my all-time favourite youtuber. Also, I blame you bc now I need to create a patreon account and resist joining your highest tier JUST so I can learn more about poetry from you.
Thank you for such a wonderful comment, Albert. If your sentences in your comment are evidence of your poetry writing, then I bet you're an incredible poet, friend.
Keep up the good work, and I'm glad to have played even a small part in helping you hone your craft ❤
yeah, this is about the size of it.
between Zoe and Shaelin, and NK Jemisin's Masterclass course (which, money, unfortunately), i don't need anything else. :)
@@zoe_bee Hello Zoe. I'm your first UA-cam person
well now i think your comments gonna make me cry… spoken word poetry is one of the most beautiful art expressions.
LOVE MEANS ABANDONING COLORS TO BE COLORFUL (A Theosophical Rhymed Poem In English) in 2 minutes
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I actually really like a lot of the poets I read in school, especially Emily Dickenson. I don't always "get" the "meaning" of her work, but it connects to something inside of me and I like it. Some "classic" poems are really too wordy or pretentious, but many only sound that way because they're old. We aren't used to the way that they talk or the allusions they use, but to the audience at the time it was easily understood.
There are lots of great points in the video too and Zoe knows way more than I do for sure but please don't diss my faves
Hmm…
I agree haha this is a good video but very opinionated especially at the start, and her opinions are not facttt
Not every poem that is too wordy is meant to be pretentious. People write poems sometimes to explain feelings and thoughts or put them into words. Some thoughts and feelings are hard to explain and so when you put them into words they are hard to read and understand fully. Sometimes poets like to write poems that only a handful of people can understand, or sometimes only themselves can understand until they explain it to the world. Poetry can be like a diary, but you get to play with words. Taylor Swift is an artist who liked to include references in her lyrics that only fans could understand. Some lgbtq poets from history didn't outright write in their poems about their identity, they did it in a discrete way so that didn't get killed lol.
LOVE MEANS ABANDONING COLORS TO BE COLORFUL (A Theosophical Rhymed Poem In English) in 2 minutes
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saying Emily Dickinson is bad is just objectively a terrible take, and certainly not fact
So, I got inspired by this video and I tried something.
Title: Spell
In this little sanctuary of green and white
My eyes are drawn to you like a pole finding its opposite
And I watch your hands, pearly white
One pressing upon grey chords
The other elegantly curved around the wooden bow
Gently coaxing music out of the instrument against your shoulder
Flowing ever so softly like a mother’s lullaby
The wind carries the melody to me as it tousles your hair
Midnight flowing against daylight
In the contrast, that darkness seems to glow as bright as the sun behind you
My chest rises and falls with the bow and the tune
And I find that the violin isn’t the only thing under your spell.
I like this poem :) well done!
@@nady2296 Thank you! I'm glad you do!!
This is great 🙏
Heartwarming!! I loved this!!!
@@yochill6615 I'm glad you do!
I love writing poetry. It's the only artform I feel like I can keep to myself
I can throw some flowery language in my notes app and then never look at it again
I can freely express myself in a way that regularly structured paragraphs could never show
I can explain my emotions in a way that makes sense to me
It's something I've always struggled to do through drawings - and struggled even more with writing regularly structured stories or essays
This is also true for me, lol. I have a Notes on my phone full of more than a year’s worth of “drabbles”, often about the day I had or the thoughts I had that day or meditation on my religious reading. I don’t think I’d ever want to publish my poetry, because it’s a way for me to translate thoughts only for me, not for other people such as when I draw or write longer prose.
Aggressively affectionate cats are part of why I love this channel.
"put words together that sound weird"
mayonnaise candy
Ok, this might actually be the most thought provoking combination of words that I have seen all year.
@@timonix2 I got it from some more news
I must bleach thine eyes
You are supposed to make people feel and disgust is a feeling, so mayonnaise candy is a good poem.
sewer beer and burnt water
Just putting this here,
Cheddar cheese
On your apple pie
A pretty please
And a sweet goodbye
Apple pie and cheddar cheese is a dope combo
@@aaronzolotor430 No it is not. It tastes musty and gross
@@have7476 Thems there's fightin' words 😮😡
@@fruitygarlic3601 Absolutely!
This is so deep, and I'll tell you why think this...
🥧 🧀
That Iron poem is hysterical. The comedic effect of shrugging and saying there’s a metaphor in there somewhere is excellent.
Hearing your cat purring so much makes me unreasonably happy. My English class is currently doing poetry and I just submitted a poem I made about my feelings of anxiety and depression and how it feels to me. Hopefully it was pretty good.
∆This was a good poem
For your consideration, inspired by Desmond, I present “Ode to Loud Cat” :
Louder than a score of students snoring in a morning classroom
Or the surf upon a leeward beach by a naval base on Guam
Not an ’87 Corvette engine idling at an Exxon station
Not the stellar radio hums from the edges of Creation
Have you papers, bills or lessons calling urgently to thee?
No work or task or laundry hath priority o’er me!
All else must wait when I vibrate while plopped upon your lap
So I decree you cuddle me. 'Tis time to take a nap.
very nice. I appreciate the casual whimsy in context of a UA-cam comment, despite this being a legitimate poem, and I'll forever remember the gem you used to describe cosmic microwave background radiation as 'the edges of creation'
That's genuinely nice. Apt for the cat. 😁
Sweet!
I love this so much 😂
aww
I can definitely tell you're an excellent teacher. You have a natural ability to boil down big concepts until they're accessible.
I agree! This is excellent and with the help of a friend, I look forward to writing better!
"you don't want the garlic to be the only thing people remember from your food" tell that to my friend who once made garlic chicken with so much garlic that I could only taste garlic for the next two days
Food that sticks with you 🤷
I freakin love garlic. I would love that chicken
I once ate so much garlic that the next time I cried my tears tasted like garlic
That sounds great? XD
Tell that to Monica. 😅
This video is great as a starting point, but rules are meant to be broken and art is subjective. A lot of the things she talks about apply to a certain type of poetry, but you can completely ignore all of it and still make good poetry.
Artistic movements constantly change the rules in interesting ways, and the poets she says are good or bad aren't OBJECTIVELY good or bad, they just don't align with her contemporary vision of poetry.
Always remember that art can be whatever you want it to be, and this video gives you tools, not absolutes, for writing poetry.
You really really really should learn the rules first though. There's a reason art classes are incredibly rigorous, with lots of theory behind it. This will make your art better, even if you don't use 90% of the "rules"
6:00
Tools not rules
As a fellow published poet, I appreciate this video on so many levels. You put exactly into words what I wish I could say to people when they talk with me about poetry, particularly the way they dislike it so strongly. So many people misunderstand poetry, especially due to what we were taught in school, as you said, so it is refreshing to hear a view much like my own.
Thank you so much!
ua-cam.com/video/OP9hLPJsbpA/v-deo.html
Have you ever put up any poetry piece before.
@@drippingpoetry6807 Yes! I have two books of my own poetry published currently. I'm working on two other books currently, one poetry collection and the other a novel. I also have individual poems published.
@@emelidion6056 that sound interesting... do you have any poetry on your page... you can probably put up a poetry piece by gifted... I know you'll love her stuff... she's beyond perfection with her writing.. take a look at her page... I'm sure she'd love some pointer from someone like you.. who've written a book and so much poetry...
Her poetry are so superb that it's like her words caress you... from skin to epidermis.. I love this one of hers.. ua-cam.com/video/hp1GNxvWbsQ/v-deo.html and also another..
Most bees are female!! But I'm just using this as an opportunity to recommend The Bees by Laline Paull. It's written from the perspective of a female drone and it's scientifically accurate and mind blowing and I suggest reading it any chance I get. Also The History of Bees by Maja Lunde if you're hungry for more Grade A Bee reading.
also!!! blind huber by nick flynn is from the perspective of a hive of bees if you'd like some more bee reading
I love Laline Paull's book and heartily second this recommendation!
@@lapatatadelplato6520 You're right! The worker bees are all females--neutral females, who have not been made fertilizable. The drones are male, and don't do shit, except mate. But they don't mate with their own queen--they mate with ANOTHER hive's queen (or queen-to-be)--AND THEY DO IT WHILE FLYING! (Do not try this at home.) And queens don't rule the roost (or hive); the workers do. They work democratically, working in committees, usually when scouting out a new place for a hive. Shelley used the bees in his great socialist poem "Men of England"--condemning the drones and exalting the workers (the future is female). This poem became the hymn of the British Labour Party.
Actually! The bee in the picture she shows is an eastern carpenter bee, which are actually solitary insects. Fortunately, the bee in the picture is a female based on the lack of a yellow nose, so Zoe is still safe. (PS: I have a great book recommendation on honey bees called The Lives of Bees by Thomas D Seeley. Trust me, I’m a beekeeper.)
@@paulschumacher1263 I thought there was only one male and they killed him after?
An analysis on poetics is not something I’d typically watch but you blow my mind with each video so I’ll watch literally anything you post
I have a doctorate in English with a focus on modernism. Admittedly, my dissertation is on Woolf and Lawrence, not specifically poetry, but I do teach a number of modernist poets. The straw man of Eliot you set up at the beginning belies the quality of much of his poetry -- even "The Waste Land." I think there's room to critique that poem as pretentious, but that pretentiousness is precisely because the allusions and languages that modernists of his stripe use are, to the common reader, alienating. It is not because the poem is a puzzle to be solved. Most modernists reject the idea that there is a "solution" to the poem. Barthes characterization of writerly texts (and indeed the death of the author) applies fantastically to modernist poetry.
The idea of poetry as a means of conveying one's own inner state to another is what leads many of my students to miss the brilliance of the work of an author like Sylvia Plath. They're so taken with the idea of the poem as an expression of a suicidally depressed woman in a failed marriage with daddy issues that they miss the thematic complexity of much of her work. To my mind, poems challenge our fixed conceptions, breaking open their thematic focus without resolving it. The expectation of resolution in any poem is anathema to my modernist understanding of poetry.
I think this speaks to having different tastes. There are different styles, genres, and goals writers have when they write poetry. I tend to like poetry, but my favorite poem was by a 16 or 17 year old writing about a second language. I didn’t have that experience but it still spoke to me a lot, and the language was, to me, beautiful
This argument only holds water if you like modernism though. Like no shade on modernist works, but the fact that a famous modernist work is good by modernist standards is... a tautology? Modernism can be challenging for the kind of poetry beginner she is targeting with this video.
Yes. It's sad that the regular person today will only see beauty in things in which they can see themselves. If they don't identify with it immediately, if it takes work and time, they will just disregard it. So one of the most excellent poems of all time becomes "pretentious" just because it takes time to understand it. The lazy narcissism of today is decomposing everything complex and special.
@@gomoestas >.< ur so goddamn right
I agree with you here, and I’d add that the idea that poetry is about “conveying one’s own inner state” only works for a narrow set of poetry, mostly in the tradition of lyric poetry. What about epic? What about romance? What about dramatic poetry? None of these forms can be said to be only about conveying one’s own inner state (which is not to say these forms are devoid of internality!). Honestly, I am convinced that most accusations of pretension are just cope from people who have encountered art which transcends their current capacity to comprehend. Being pretentious is of course a grave sin, but so is brute reductionism. Not every emperor has no clothes.
I find your takedown of T.S. Eliot's poetry bizarre. When he wants it to, it certainly captures emotion. You cite the ending of Prufrock, which is an excellent example of that. The parts of his poetry which are less easily accessible aren't 'bad', they're just designed for you to puzzle over and revisit them. You might not know instantly what the words themselves mean, but they will probably still make your feel *something*. Personally I think Eliot wrote the most arresting opening to a poem in all of literature: 'Let us go then, you and I/ When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table;'
Eliot never mocked the public for finding his work inaccessible. (He also wrote much less allusive and fun literature: take 'Cats'.) If anything he was harshest on his overly analytical critics... the footnotes he left on 'The Waste Land' were specifically designed to confuse them, and to inspire 'bogus scholarship', as he later called it.
You describe William Carlos Williams not liking Eliot as if he were representative of all of Eliot's contemporaries. Yes, he didn't like Eliot's poetry. WCW himself was a Modernist, and he felt threatened by the different brand of Modernism that Eliot espoused. Direct quote: 'It was a shock to me that he [Eliot] was so tremendously successful. My contemporaries flocked to him - away from what I wanted.' ... they were poetic rivals. That doesn't mean that Eliot had no contemporary admirers; far from it.
I also think it's quite ironic that a large part of your argument about how to write poetry is... directly borrowed from Eliot's own theory of poetry. The part about the 'music of poetry' could also be taken word-for-word from Eliot's essay 'The Music of Poetry'. Eliot believed that the best poetry was musical; that it blended emotion and intellect in equal measure. I think your dismissal of him is based on straw man logic.
Amen to that. I thought so too.
I'm so glad you said this because I felt that this video was too far in the other direction but you expressed it so much better than I ever could
You obviously are both a poetry enthusiast and an Eliot fan, so I can see why her notes about Eliot rubbed you the wrong way.
But I think her point there was that the common perception of poetry as something for and by academics isn't entirely accurate. While yes, TS Eliot wrote incredibly influential and often beautiful poetry, his was not the only salient poetic voice (as some might have been taught in High School). Yes, modernism was an important and pivotal movement, but poetry in 2022 operates in a different zone than Eliot. It is critical to recognize how his works brought us to the point where we are at today, but trying to directly emulate the style of TS Eliot produces poetry that, as she said, has been done before. Her goal is to reach prospective modern poets who feel somewhat isolated in their understanding of poetry, not to debate about movements throughout the history of poetry (a different video entirely). She aims to walk back the idea that all poetry has to inhabit an elevated, academic tone by somewhat playfully undercutting a traditionally upheld poet.
An understanding of Eliot can certainly inform someone's understanding about the history of poetry, how we got to where we are, but it is less useful when trying to understand how to write poetry today. Yes you can read Eliot and learn a lot from it, but his writing embodies the style of a different generation of poets that is somewhat "out of fashion" poetically. Her goal is to create a foundation upon which anyone can begin to craft their own work, not to educate someone about the way Modernists wrote (which is why a more contemporary example, like Ted Kooser, serves as a better model for how to create poetry today).
100% agree!!
Yess, Prufrock is my favorite poem, and for me, puzzling over a poem, playing that game with the poet, that’s the real fun of it. That’s what I love about poetry. That’s why I also love Emely Dickinson. Yes she is an enigma, and that exactly is makes her so interesting and fun to talk with through her poems. Complicated doesn’t mean good, but easy doesn’t mean good either.
0:00 The Alchemist" by Zoe Bee - Complementary example
8:50 "Unnamed Bad Poem" by Zoe Bee - Bad Example
10:06 "I do not need the kind of love..." by Rupi Kaur - Bad Example
10:38 "After Years" by Ted Kooser - Good Example
13:38 "Newcastle Bar & Grill" by Thea S. Kuticka - Good Example
17:07 For Annie" by Edgar Allen Poe - Good Example
18:05 "Yellow Tractate" by Brenda Hillman - Good Example
19:48 -"Iron" by Gabbie Hanna - Bad Example
21:41 "The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot - Good Example
29:39 "Ode to the Bumblebee" by Zoe Bee - Good Example
41:51 A patch of violets, visited twice" by Zoe Bee - Complementary Example
I like your cat
It's bright like oranges
Like autumn leaves
From the ground, now just four inches
its gentle mew, like squeaky door hinges
@@jonboynemo6288 its things like this that tempt one's youtube binges
I’m rick james bitches
@@ShadaOfAllThings gives more joy than all syringes
@@Awesomoso the foolish man, when seeing these comments cringes
I have seriously just within this last week been thinking seriously about how I need to learn to appreciate poetry. No joke. This video is showing up at the exact right time.
Mother THREATENS Desmond? threatens to remove him from the room? oh! oh! jail for mother! jail for mother for One Thousand Years!!!!
To the stocks!
The sanest viewpoint I have read on poetry and it’s purpose in our culture . Thank you for caring about the art form .
Poetry is painting,
with words.
Emotions in you.
I'm a poet by hobby (and hopefully by profession in the future) and I've found it interesting to see how different writers interpret similar prompts. When I was attending writing workshops in college, it's so cool to read vastly different things based on a picture of a cracked egg on sand. And to me, that's what's so cool about good poetry. It's very telling of how somebody communicates their emotions - and the good ones make me feel mind blown because nobody could've thought of it other than the writer.
Well.. that's the effect that gifted lil thang gives with her poetry...its like she can write a whole poetry piece from a droplet of water and a smile lol. ua-cam.com/video/hp1GNxvWbsQ/v-deo.html
Honestly I think a cliche well used can be wonderful, I think they're often unfairly maligned, but I can see how when we're talking specifically about poetry, anything too familiar risks being ineffective.
Hearing you talk about poetry is wonderful, I would love if you could talk more about the actual creation of metaphors. I was told I can write "like a mystic rat that speaks only in metaphor" and other people didnt understand my metaphors. I cant tell how much is my autism meaning I think differently, how much is me having little experience for poetry, and how much is just people I share it with.
I tried to write a poem about throwing a stick really hard, and feeling ascendance in that whipping motion in my arm since I couldnt explain the feeling well with other descriptors.
Throw and Fall
Run that stick thrower through the door.
Run that sick forest rain red.
Ridicule every bit of existence.
We rank the moments of this place by the weight of our foot prints.
Those foot prints dig through dirt, wet.
Wild how those thorns sting, stuck inside.
Prick the arm stinging scabs to be picked.
Stories of scars form from minds place in the woods.
Mind changes range from wind up to release.
It sticks to mine, the fleeting feeling.
What state of being there was waft into water.
We threw ourselves into the air. We wait to fall as we fly into our colorful rain.
I really like this!! Keep doing your thing, it’s working great so far in my eyes.
absolutely love the line "we rank the moments of this place by the weight of our footprints" !
i dont get it
WOW i love this. you have such a unique voice it’s so so vivid and gorgeous
@@user-mo7cd9jd8v I essentially intended it to be a series of vignettes, showing a trip into the woods. It is framed around just throwing a stick really hard, trying to draw upon memories of getting little cuts, scabs, and thorns and the memories as scars, how the place is remembered. I compared those permanent memories to the very fleeting physical feeling when you throw something, winding up, and snapping your arm forth. thinking finally about what was being thrown, and identifying with it.
thats kinda the rundown, a few months later the fact that thats the structure might not be the most clear, hopefully with understanding what it is it makes more sense.
I once wrote an entire poem just making onomatopeias of the sounds I heard on a walk, it was called Silence
can you share it? i would love to read that
@@belalaloca not really, it's in Dutch and also visual - the main text is in the middle, with sounds overlapping, sitting further away or closer, and bigger or smaller. Not easy to share over UA-cam comments haha
@@DaBezzzz ah alright. sounds super cool tho
I'm a songwriter. Everything I write starts with something I just think is kinda neat. Like I wrote about trans invisibility saying people filter out everything they don't like. They see the world in black and white. But we live in the rainbow past the clouds. For me, taking two common ideas and mashing them together, mixing metaphors but then it turns out it's actually an extended metaphor and the pieces fall into place, is what I like doing. I'm pretty proud of the result. These were the lyrics I wrote:
You see the world through filters
You see in black and white
You filter out the monsters
To help you sleep at night
But what if those were people
You filtered from your sight
Outside the world you know
Are the ghosts you still see through
If you remove the filter
We were always here among you
If you refuse to see us
We will once again fade out
Keep your greyscale sky
We will live in the rainbow past the clouds
A bit of introspection
Could help you see your flaws
Instead you use projection
Assume that we're the cause
You filter out the spectrum
You stay indoors
While outside the world you know
Are the ghosts you still see through
If you remove the filter
We were always here around you
If you refuse to see us
We will once again fade out
Keep your greyscale sky
We will live in the rainbow past the clouds
Transgender and translucent
I travel through the sky
Some see the faintest traces
Some see a different guy
I try to show you who I am
I try
But outside the world you know
Are the ghosts you still see through
If you remove the filter
We were always here around you
If you refuse to see us
We will once again fade out
Keep your greyscale sky
We will live in the rainbow past the clouds
Past the clouds
Past the clouds
Past the clouds
We will live in the rainbow past the clouds
This is beautiful, I could feel the point where the metaphor clicked in for me.
@@LunarShimmer aww thanks so much!
This is good, I felt that.
AS A TRANS BOY, I ACCEPT, WHERE CAN I STREAM? PLS DROP THIS
@@Jellenburg1997 I haven't actually released anything anywhere. I just write for myself.
After watching several of Zoe's videos (including her Lovecraft series), I was inspired... so I tried to capture the feeling of my anxiety. I haven't written poetry in years, so please go easy on me.
A storm lingers in the center of my skull,
Threatening to flood my thoughts with piercing pellets of ice-cold rain
My eyes cloud over as I gaze into the distance,
And in an instant, the rain begins to moisten my skin
The future looms like a vague, unidentifiable Lovecraftian horror,
Standing ominously on the horizon.
At times its overwhelming shadow fades into the surrounding darkness,
Allowing me a moment of respite in my ignorance
But a white-hot flash illuminates what I've feared all along:
One cannot know the unknowable.
And so I sit in my discomfort,
Twisting this truth around and around in my head,
Knowing that this knowledge I now hold is both a gift and a curse
How does one live with their uncertainty?
Is ignorance truly bliss?
Will I ever know for sure?
The rain falls faster and faster until my skin turns pink and raw
And the monster laughs a booming, evil laugh
Sometimes I think he enjoys my suffering;
But sometimes I think it was just thunder.
this is really cool!! For a standalone poem, it's a bit blunt, but this type of writing is absolutely perfect for a book of poetry! The best things I've ever read were written in a really similar way to this-
This, is magnificent.
Holy shit this is phenomenal can we please be friends
this is actually really similar to a thing I've been trying to describe for a long time!
You did an splendid job on this poem and I appreciate the effort that was clearly evident in your writing.
It's a really good poem! I prefer making my lines shorter and briefer but your stuff works too. By shorter I mean turning your "The rain falls faster and faster until my skin turns pink and raw" and spreading it in a few lines like "The rain falls/ faster and faster/ my skin turns/ pink and raw".
Nice cat purring ASMR vid! There was some poetry stuff you forgot to edit out but it's still really relaxing anyways
😂😂
Oddly I found the “purses and bottles of after shave” much more engaging than the longer explanation, which i found dull and needlessly long. The problem with poetry is that it’s so wildly subjective that you feel excluded when everyone agrees that it gives off one idea and you went the opposite direction. For me, identifying a store by purses and bottles of after shave is more interesting because it raises the question of why that would be the go to description, while the “good” example is just “oh some atmosphere, how artistic”
Same, I don't know any of the brands either which also strained my interpretation a bit
I thought the "Iron" poem was good actually, and tound most of what is said on the video pretentious
Poetry is not something that can be good or bad objectively
Yes! Some of this felt alienating and confusing to me.
It's interesting to learn about and hear different perspectives, but the use of terms of "bad" and "good" feels too decisive and ignores the subjectivity of art more than I would personally prefer. To each their own, but it sucks to feel excluded.
LOVE MEANS ABANDONING COLORS TO BE COLORFUL (A Theosophical Rhymed Poem In English) in 2 minutes
ua-cam.com/video/BHxiSMWL6h4/v-deo.html
On this exact topic, I once wrote a poem on my fear of turning like some of the pretentious poets we read about, and also in general about my fear of being an incapable poet in the first place who pretends they're good. I resolve the poetry by basically telling myself that I'll still write even if I probably have no clue and I'll not always get that much inspiration, because I like to write, despite everything
It's embarassing to share but I felt like it was too much of a coincidence that I came across this video out of the blue. It's simple and straightforward compared to other poems I made, but if I can inspire even just one person, that's good enough for me!
Title: Bad Poetry
"Looking far outside, yet so near,
I gaze and hear, as I write and fear
of ending there, in a tone-deaf glow,
in that tone-deaf chamber, that we all know.
Will you look at me?
Are those eyes of content?
Or is it just a farse as you
Hide your contempt?
I'll write bad poetry, and so will we all,
Pretending to know, as words come rough.
I'll keep writing wearily, wording each thought,
Pretending to be, as if that'll be enough."
I feel the same way except it's about doing visual art. Constantly wondering if it's actually any good lol. Good poem btw!
“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.” - Nietzsche on poets
And thank you for posting this. We are soon going to be passing out awards for the Griffin Poetry Prize in Canada, and I have just made the mistake of buying a collection by one of the nominees.
Not sure why I bothered. Most of the modernists stick their heads so far up their own behinds that they enjoy the view.
Neitzche saying that about poets is hilariously ironic 😂
O Man! Take Heed!
O Man! Take heed!
What does the deep midnight say?
‘I was asleep, asleep -,
I have awoken from deep dreams: -
The world is deep,
And deeper than the day imagined.
Deep is its grief!
Joy, deeper still than heartache!
Grief says: Perish!
But all joy seeks eternity -,
- seeks deep, deep eternity!’
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Translation: Richard Stokes
@@nilsar4357 Hey similar people know each other well
What book was it?? You can’t just say that and not reveal.
I read poetry statistics recently. Canada buys mostly Instapoets, so whoever won the Prize most likely didn't sell all that much anyway. Rupi outsells everyone with her noems.
"This is why I don't have the cats in here when I'm filming, because AAHH" had me literally loling. Much needed laugh today.
When she was talking about metaphors and cliches and stuff I couldn’t stop thing about WAP and how it compares sex to junk food, like Marconi and cheese or McDonald’s, even “get a bucket and mop” kinda evokes the image of like a fast food worker
Bro that's not what it is
@@Bixnood69 no
@@adie9314 yes
@@Bixnood69 how do you know bro you an poetry major
LOOOOOOOOL
"you don't just blindly grab things out of your fridge, dump it all into a pot, and its.....dinner'"
boy do i have news for u
I just heard that Zoe said that😟
Hey Zoe!
I'm teaching a poetry course to 10th graders right now and I loved much of what you had to say here. I'm all about breaking down misconceptions about poetry and the misguided idea there is a secret meaning to unlock. Poetry offers SO many pleasures!
I gotta say, though, your assertion that T.S. was a bad poet is a tad... subjective, to put it mildly. He definitely appears to have been a dick, and he definitely believed poetry should be difficult, but neither of these seem to speak to the quality of his poetry. While Rupi Kaur is a poet you can read on the airplane or before bed and get some good feels from, Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a poem that requires attention and can be returned to throughout one's life, revealing something different every time. It's been one of my favorites since I read it in 10th grade myself just cause I enjoyed the texture of it. After all, there are gorgeous images, intriguing metaphors, and sonic beauty just waiting to be soaked in. There are also lots of allusions and complex meaning for those who enjoy the intellectual joys of poetry as much as the physical or spiritual. Just because a poem is challenging, doesn't mean it's bad, my friend. I urge your followers to give poetry--in "school" poetry--a second look after learning from all you offer here. : )
With respect,
a fellow English teacher
Very astute, fair and interesting.
Never seen someone write poetry live as they explained their trail of thought. It was very nice. Such a pretty poem.
i write lots of things just for myself, ive always struggled to call them poetry, its mainly to remind myself what something i was feeling or seeing was like, because i can not picture things in my head and my memory is often failing, but i think having watched this video will help me put more of what the feeling or sight was like into these thing i write. thank you 💜
thanks for saying Rupi Kaur is bad. That meant a lot to me.
This taught me that all my online classes would be improved with my Profs' pets on camera
An excellent way to know your video is having an impact is just to look at all of the spontaneous poems people are writing in the comments. You inspired your viewers to create! That's one of the best things a UA-cam video can do. Thanks!
Rupi Kaur has always been so hyped in my opinion. Her poems seemed wrote by a child to a child. 😅
You have actually made me go back to my poems and realized there are actually fine for a non-writer at all. I'm musician so, they pretty much looks fine
After having seen your process, I learned two things about my own writing:
1. This kind of poetry is not my style.
2. I need to rethink my approach to metaphors.
Which kind of poetry is not your style?
@@sparklyananas7205 without riddles and takeaways, I guess? Just writing pretty words for the sake of it.
I think you can still do fun stuff with the fire-love cliché
Love is like taking a shit after taco tuesday
Hot, painful and full of corn
See? Riveting
inspiring 😌
...............my eyes have been blursed.
😂😂😂🏆
this is a more concise and effective poetry lesson than I've had in the three years of my writing degree??? thank you so much?
I wrote a poem for school once where I was meant to compare two similar things I think, I can't remember the name of the type of poem, it's been a while. Anyways I decided to go the weird route and compare two things that were actually seen as quite different, but in a way, the same; a desert and an ocean. I spoke about how they were both beautiful, yet unforgiving, how even the vast stretch of lifeless blue of the waters or the endless rivers of burning, shimmering gold were really filled with life and beauty. How their nature was unfeeling and seemingly frigid, hostile, and without compassion; they could both drown you at a moment's notice, yet cradled life like no other. The words to describe them couldn't be expressed as gentle, really, but maybe something else. Not loving, either, but something else, something new. From these unforgiving stretches beneath the sky they held something that grew in so many colours; red, green, blue. Yet in the night when the cold came you'd expect the wintery bite of ice or frost to eat and consume what was left of it. But no, their survival was less like a storybook, and more of a canvas painted with grey, blue, and white. Not a story from beginning to end, but spattered with unseen life.
Or maybe she was right, and it was a dumb poem lol
I love how you broke down writing a poem by ACTUALLY talking about your though process with the bee!
people like you and those that hold these ideas are the reason I write poetry only for myself. I don't want to measure up to your ideas of what is good. I don't care.
But I do find it interesting what you had to say about the topic. I generally appreciate your perspective and videos. But listening to you on this made it clear again to me, why I don't show others.
I totally understand what you mean.
Maybe it’s best you keep it to yourself if you can’t handle other opinions I guess
I think writing poetry is like giving your readers LEGOs, but not the thematic ones
Oh yes. Sometimes reading poetry is like stepping on LEGOS...
Btw, i'd completely support this channel doing more literature stuff while also mixing in leftism, i think itll be good
Absolutelyyyy
Only if there's cats.
completely agree^^
I see Infinite Jest sitting there... 🙄
Yes! This is why I love this channel. And the cats.
Thank you for helping me see poetry in a new light. I have been writing and thinking the wrong way.
Your video has definitely made me a better poet than I was before I watched it. I am going to improve my poetry with this new insight.
Thank you soo much
getting a master's degree in writing (14 years ago now) burnt me out on writing poetry pretty hard... this video is so restorative. thank you 🌹🐝
Hsve you ever considered doing a book of poetry... gifted lil thang does some great poetry pieces ua-cam.com/video/hp1GNxvWbsQ/v-deo.html
Songwriter trying to escape a rut here, devouring this perfectly timed video!
Yo same! I stopped writing music because I got sick and burned myself out. But like Travis Meadows said, when you push it down, it comes out sideways - so here I am neck deep into poetry lol
You write songs.. cool... does rhafnmean you dabble in poetry as well
@@drippingpoetry6807 It inherently does
@@jackquentin1950 you should check out gifted lil thang... she's a progedy... her poetry is beyond this world...
@@jackquentin1950 Pet fun
ua-cam.com/video/GGOk--CYP68/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/7CnK1vPseak/v-deo.html
That poem again but in the style of poetry Zoe doesn’t like:
“I poked a bee on my window screen
To see if it was still alive.
There’s a metaphor there somewhere,
I guess?”
I feel like I really started to 'get' poetry when I got to hear it read out loud. It really changes from "nonsense words in a page" to "awe inspiring harmony with feelings and music and meaning"
Man, whenever I watch this video I feel so inspired. This is a little poem I just wrote:
I stand, silently looking upon visages of pompous pasts
I am filled with admiration
I ask my anxious self:
Will I too be one day carved by masterful hands
out of delicate alabaster,
to be silently looked upon, by future visionaries?
Will I in the search for glorious immortality
just end in the eternal lines of those six thousend figures,
who are magnificent alone but mediocre when together?
Is it just part of being human, of having only one pair of eyes,
that you construct the, oh so, obvious lie of
"I can be outstanding"?
But I see, as I walk across this path,
the kind demeanour of an elderly philosopher,
eyes closed, mouth half opened.
Her pores so lifelike, yet still just
an image of a past I can never meet.
But I know, this is not the smile
of a philosopher, who after six
decades of work, just found the great formula,
the great Axiom of Morality.
No, this is the smile of
an old lady, accepting mediocrity,
understanding, what I did not yet understand,
that a single pair of eyes can still see a lot,
can still see a miracle.
Thank you for your work :)
How did you know I was thinking about getting back into writing poetry for the first time since middle school? Damn you, Zoe Bee!
I watch critiques of bad poetry (like gabbie's) and it's fun and all, but I think you have the knowledge and ability to create content that is more constructive. Maybe instead of "_________ 's poetry is bad" content, you could make "(insert bad poetry device here) poetry is bad and here's how to fix it" content. Then it doesn't feel like you're attacking one person, but addressing a common problem found in several places. Metaphor laziness and pretentious abstraction might be good places to start, since you mentioned both in this video.
Thanks for being awesome, and I'll watch no matter which direction you choose! :)
I have a bumblebee, that's actually a cat,
because just like schrodinger's
to check is to know if she's dead or alive.
You thought of the same idea as me! When she described the concept, I also thought about the fear of attempting to make a measure that would stick the object to a state.
you're making me miss my pretentious-wattpad-poetry days. i was so in love with words. so eager to explore every possible sentence and text structure and the emotional effect it would have on me and my abstract internet friends, so motivated to... create. i really miss it. thank you :)
also, loved the ending poem! the flower/disgust-contrast and the little animal lives - amazing.
You were completely unfazed by the entrance of your cat and its mission to find a comfy spot. I salute you!
I' e been a writer for a long time, mostly for magazines etc. and I've just recently been searching for something a bit more enriching. Poetry was something I'd never tried in any serious way until just this week. I'm still exploring it and learning but I'm enjoying it.
This was fantastic, I’ve been pretty put off by poetry in the past because I’ve always experienced it as either the Tumblr style marketable and shallow stuff or academic poetry that just made me feel dumb. This was actually really informative, also I love the staging and lighting and ESPECIALLY the cat thank you
I admire your composure when the cat climbs up onto the chair, I would forget my entire script right there.
My favorite poem is one I read in like 8th grade that I can't find anymore but it went something like this.
Refrigerator Light
I forget
about her
as soon
as I
shut the
door.
If anyone can find who actually wrote this and make sure I am writing it correctly I would be forever grateful.
Umm.............😑😑😑😑🤔
I never thought of it like that
The name is refrigerator light?
I am not familiar with the poem, but it sounds like something that William Carlos Williams would have wrote - he is known for shorter poems about everyday, seemingly mundane things.
IM JUST COMMENTING TO SAY I LOVE THE CAT PURRS OMG PLEASE DONT EVER REMOVE THEM. I always miss my cat during the day so it was a nice surprise, also i just enjoy your videos in general
The cat putting is like the best calming asmr. When I wanna relax and think about art I wanna be purred at always now.
19:48 "do not do this" idk, that humorous delivery was pretty amazing.... 😂😂
Really, my problem is that I can't tell good poetry from bad. It's all good to me.
Bubbles of blueberries burst on the stem
My fingers purple enjoying the sweetness again
Nobody can haggle if I've eaten them all
Not the birds, the boys or the butcher's wife
Then it's all good. Your experience of poetry is literally the only thing that matters, it's poetry
@@zyaicob I guess, it's just having enough differing experiences than everybody else can be pretty isolating. why don't I understand other people? Am I missing something? It makes me feel less human than everyone else...maybe it's just me
@@mathisverycool7240 well for one thing, you can think of it this way. I have this experience- if i believe it to be valid, then the fact that it isn't common doesn't matter, because my purpose is to be the one who has this experience for the sake of the collective benefit to humanity this experience provides. You can also learn, eventually, that you are not alone in any one aspect of your humanity, and simultaneously unique in the totality of your humanity. In other words, there's no single opinion, like or dislike, etc. that you have that is unique to you. Someone else likes any thing you like or has any opinion you hold, but there's no one that has your exact combo of opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. and that's pretty cool. Either way, not so lonely
A Russian native speaker here. Отстранение doesn't really mean defamiliarization. It's more like - taking a step back, not being (emotionally) involved into something. Отстраняться - the corresponding verb can mean moving physically away from someone. It's really hard to translate and I don't thing your essay suffers from this inaccuracy, but I thought you might be interested to hear about it. :)
Thank you for your videos. I absolutely love them.
My favorite poem is "Flies" by Peter Hammill, it never fails to crack me up.
Flies
As I opened the back door,
two flies were copulating on the cooker:
I found this very significant.
Late at night, my hand groped
for the aerosol.
They stayed together for the first
few seconds, wings scorched in the sudden fire,
minds disintegrating in the deadly mist.
Quite suddenly, the male tore himself away
from his penis
and dropped to the floor.
She remained, rolling around on the white enamel
and then fell through a crack into the oven.
Perhaps she had been a virgin
and though this was what always happened.
I ate my egg
with a few pangs of conscience.
Later that night these disappeared
when another fly
shat on me from the light bulb
above my bed.
BRILLIANT
now i remember going into highschool with a newly grown fascination for writing poetry
but by the time i graduated the urge to write at all had basically been destroyed
almost a decade later i started writing things again, including some poetry
thank you for this video ✒️
What is this madness -
Matching syllables with flavors on the tongue
We can't digest this fresh fermentation yet
We drink her in
We sip and sip
We slaves to taste -
Are we truly human consumers?
Thank you so much for this video! Poetry and english in general have never been my strongest subject and every time I'm forced to write a poem for class I always feel it's inadequate compared to my peers and my deeper meanings always feel shallow. You explain everything very clearly and I have no doubt that this video has helped me structure my poems better. You're definitely one of the best educational youtubers I've seen in a while, I have a feeling you'll go far on youtube. Now if you excuse me I feel like writing some poetry.
P.S I loved Aud's artwork, you definitely should have her do more videos.
As an anarchist poet and writer, I am so happy with your content so far!! Keep it up!
01:00 📚 Poetry doesn't require decoding a hidden meaning; appreciate poems at face value.
02:38 💡 Academic perception of poetry often imposes rigid rules and expectations.
06:31 🎭 Poetry's essence lies in evoking new emotions and thoughts through language.
08:30 🖊 Effective poetry uses concrete imagery to convey emotions rather than abstract concepts.
11:16 🌟 Detailed and specific imagery enhances the authenticity and impact of poetry.
15:15 🤯 Metaphors, similes, and symbolism in poetry create connections between disparate concepts, inviting readers to see things differently.
19:13 🚫 Avoid clichéd metaphors in poetry; strive to make fresh and unexpected connections.
19:42 📜 Metaphors are fundamental to poetry, creating new connections and overlaps between ideas.
20:49 🔊 Sound is crucial in poetry, evoking feelings and offering a new perspective on content.
22:32 🎶 Poetry's rhythm and melodic language engage readers and carry them through the poem.
23:30 📝 Traditional poetry rules can limit creativity; poets should prioritize evoking emotions and offering fresh perspectives.
24:30 🍲 Poetic elements are like ingredients in cooking; choose them purposefully to enhance the poem's effect.
25:29 🥓 Good metaphors surprise and engage, like unconventional food combinations.
26:46 🍽 Poetic presentation matters; unconventional formats can enhance the reader's experience.
28:12 📜 Accept that not everyone will appreciate your poems, but some will deeply connect with your work.
30:36 ✍ Start writing a poem by focusing on a concrete image or memory that inspires you.
34:59 💭 Use similes and vivid descriptions to enhance the imagery and sensory experience in your poem.
39:59 🏷 Choose a title that captures the essence of your poem, even if it's simple yet relevant.
41:28 📚 Poetry is complex yet accessible, aiming to evoke new emotions and thoughts by connecting seemingly unrelated things.
43:00 ✍ Experiment with words and language in poetry, exploring silliness, beauty, and connections between everyday experiences.
43:58 🎉 Consider celebrating National Poetry Month by participating in poetry-writing livestreams or sharing feedback to shape poems.
44:55 🎨 Acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of artists and editors who collaborate on video content.
45:55 💬 Engage with creators on social media platforms like Twitter and support them through platforms like Patreon for exclusive content and perks.
Thanksssssss
I cannot believe this content is for free. Say you read something so illuminating and so close to what you're looking for and you know it's backed up by knowledge? I replayed a few lines just to hear it over and over again. Now I'm thinking why am I even in my uni that teaches...(you know that sentence has to be carefully structured with no negativity but has a point?) How I wish you were my teacher! But I'll follow and watch every single one you upload. My new favourite teacher! ❤️
I had never felt like a story had been written about me until I read Howl by Allen Ginsberg. It felt like someone was describing me and the people I know and just saying it. Incredible experience.
This was the video I needed to rekindle my interest in both reading and writing poetry. Thank you!
Would love a part two on the arduous process of revising and refining poems already written.
Great video that really summarizes some of my pet peeves when talking about poetry! Although, your example of a "bad" poem about metaphor, Iron, I actually really liked! I felt like the poem wasn't actually literally saying "there's a metaphor but I don't know it," it seemed like an ironic nod to what the metaphor clearly was, a metaphor for seeing if something would hurt you by doing something reckless, that the author used to imply something about their mother. Of course, maybe you're right and the poem did just suck, but for me it did give me an image that I found compelling.
I don't understand why this doesn't have more views than it does. Criminally underrated.
This video lusciously and concretely unravels-deciphers poetry and makes it, or the making of it, much more accessible. The part where instructor actually writes is very helpful. I think I need to watch a couple more times. Thank you!!!
Nice to find another member of the Pilot G2 fan club
I think a good book i'd like to recommend is *The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky* ; its a bit of an older book (about 23 years old) but it's still extremely relevant. Its a short little guidebook that explains things in as plain a way as possible. Pinsky (a previous US Poet Laureate) has a great way of explaining some of the fundamentals of poetry. I really enjoyed reading it, and I'm currently rereading it.
Otherwise, my own take on this video - i disagree with some of what you've said, especially about the forms of poetry being overly done and that it doesnt inspire deep feeling. I primarily write free verse and i've started to delve deeper into writing in other forms and reading poetry in non-free verse. Its honestly a wonderful experience for me. As much as i love the "inside" of the poem, the "outside" can do soooo much to inform the "inside."
I think the true issue of how its being taught in school is how dry and sanitized it is. It takes away the emotion and standardizes what meaning academics say we should take away from different poems. I was thankfully one of those kids who could persevere through this dryness and love poetry and prose anyways, (with the exception of one 10th grade teacher who made me hate faulkner with a PASSION) but i didnt realize that my understanding of poetry was still stunted until i had this one professor in college. She completely transformed my understanding of poetry and she really encouraged us to find our own understanding in the poems and literature excerpts we read. I felt a lot more confident in being able to read and write a poem; she was actually the one who gave me the book i mentioned at the top.
Poetry has theory to it, and though I am a big proponent of the idea that you don't need to abide by everything or even know much to start writing, knowing theory helps to further your understanding of how far your writing can go. I know there are so many stuffy terms in poetics, but thats the same for any craft or skill. The unfortunate thing is that so many academic places make it inaccessible to the beginner. Which is why i recommended the book that I did. Pinsky really tries to make poetry as accessible as possible while still being able to convey some of the basics in poetry. At the same time though, he doesn't decry older forms. There is something special in being able to connect to the people of the past in this way, in writing in the forms that they created. Or even just reading what they wrote. The more we allow alternate interpretation and readings of old poetry and plays and prose, the more that people will love it.
Shakespeare is a great example; there are so many alternate versions of his plays that there is something for most people. There are even alternate ways of verbalizing them. And the same goes for his poetry. There are poets today that reference his works and create intriguing things that beg you to at least glance at his poetry with new eyes. Even just knowing how the original accent actually sounds makes the idea of his poetry more lively.
I saw another comment here that said that they thought better terms were "effective" and "ineffective" poetry - and i heartily agree. People don't know how to read poetry with more intensive forms to it because a) they were taught in that dry, stuffy way, but also b) it just may not be an effective poem for them, whether its just at that moment, or ever. Poetry can absolutely be highly subjective, in matters of taste. Of course, there are objective ways to measure how "good" or "effective" a poem is, which is why poetry from Rupi Kaur, Atticus, and Gabbie Hanna are so decried about in the community - their poetry tends to be too vague, simplistic, and gives off the air of unfinished to the nth degree. But they are "effective" in drawing in an audience in some fashion or another. Even if they write "bad" poetry, they've been the doorway for some people into poetry. Which I think is a good thing; my opinions about each of those "poets," aside.
Essentially, we just need to find new ways of presenting poetry and the theory of poetry to people. There is absolutely an objective way to analyze poems, just as much as there is a subjective way to read and find meaning in them. I definitely think more institutions should talk about slam poetry more, because it's so lively, and it encourages people to think about poetry as sounds instead of just words on a page.
Sorry for the ling comment, i just really love talking about poetry.
roses are red
violets are blue
why "cliche" is, like, "bad"
I have no clue
"Turn wheresoe'er I may, by night or day. The poems which I have read I now can read no more."
Thank you for your insightful instruction! I came here to write better poems for my songs. I will certainly be revisiting your work for some time to come.
Cheers!
I love this! I was honestly pretty opposed to poetry throughout school until one of my English teachers told me I had written a great poem. Now in college after going from music to creative fiction, I’ve landed myself as a poetry major. I’ve only taken two classes so far, but I’ve grown to love it so much.
A part of what I want to do as a poet is to write very easily understandable pieces. My sister and I are both autistic and can find some of the harder metaphors in poetry hard to understand. I’ve found joy in reading good poetry and hope to be able to bring that joy to others who have been off put by the academic nature of poetry they’ve been conditioned to fear.
'And good poets - like food scientists - have studied enough and have learned enough about chemical makeup of the stuff they’re working with that they have a good idea of what will work and what won’t. There are always new things to discover, but they don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time they write a metaphor or pair two foods together.'
Yes, yes, yes! This clicked with me so much! Thank you!
I like the first half, but I do think that poetry is reinventing the wheel every time, otherwise we settle with cliches.