What matters to you most about poetry? Let me know! Keep in mind, I'm discussing one small facet of poetry in this video. I will likely create more videos covering other key elements later on. You can see me discuss poetry in more detail with my friend Bren Booth-Jones for the book launch of his latest collection, Blue Remembered Star, here: th-cam.com/video/mtFwKucMdik/w-d-xo.htmlsi=AdgCLscb0S7B2xZW
I have never been able to get into poetry, but I hope it will "click" someday. I will never give up! ;) I loved your story about your first experience with it as a child. What you said reminded me about writing lyrics. When I write those, I also feel like I turn something private into a public thing. :)
What a wonderful video! (And that comes from a person who reads very little poetry although incidentally I did read some Pessoa poems today). Hope the video does get a lot of views (and nice comments!) :)
The video is currently not reaching far, but I'm proud of it, and I'm proudest when hearing from those like you who leave such kind remarks. Thank you.
How lucky we are to have your thoughts on poetry and literature in general. And thank you for sharing my own work with your audience! I can’t thank you enough. Love that you dive into Whitman and your dad’s poetry in this video. “Strange music” is so apt!
Poetry is my way to understand/be in the world. I don't know 'why' poetry, but I lost my heart to it when a teenager, & the infatuation has only deepened as I've grown into an old man. I especially love the confessional poetic, the imperative to jolt in the 'truth' of a confessional 'I': Plath, Sexton, Levertov, Berryman, Lowell, Snodgrass... (Ted Hughes' 'Birthday Letters'!) Poetry is a quirky way of being in the world. Thanks for this spotlight on what is important.
There are moments available in poetry unmatched anywhere else. Those moments are similar to a late, late night with a friend, one in which you both finally speak something true. Perhaps that's why confessional poetry can hold such a special place, a place of intimacy. Thank you for the author recommendations. I will keep them all in mind.
I think a feeling of inner turmoil about anything you create is quite normal Ruben. As your unconscious desires surface and crystalize into something tangibly conscious often the shape or form can come as a shock to the system. A phantom whose reflection looks like you but is not. For me your videos are deeply impactful. It isn't what you say but the way you make me feel. There is a beauty in your passion, a sensitivity in your heart and a love for the written word that always inspires me to dive a little deeper into the depths of my own internal landscape. I always come away with the desire to read more, to write more and most importantly to share my love of these things more openly with the world. An introvert does not willingly raise anchor and sail to new climes but your videos helped me have the courage to risk running aground. Silly is not an adjective that belongs in your dictionary and certainly not one I would use to describe your Art. Thankyou, keep going, you are having an impact.
"A phantom whose reflection looks like you but is not"-that speaks. That resounds. There seems an unavoidable splitting: I cannot be all of me, only the filmable one. That is, I know, necessary and okay, but it is certainly also strange. The fact that I can still connect, if only in temporary portions of myself, with those like you is a genuine relief. So thank you for that.
Thank you for this video and your thoughts on poetry. I am a newbie in poetry but totally for art in all their forms. I love to be still, get confused, dive in, forget, learn, change perspectives and be blown away by it all. 💟
If one allows confusion without panic, a wavering loss-of-place but movement forward nonetheless, that is often where sublimity lies. Thank you for being here, for allowing yourself to travel with art a while. That is to be cherished.
I didn't think watching this video was a struggle at all. I enjoy your "rambling". Your videos are thought provoking and sincere and I find that refreshing. I admit I struggle with poetry, though, however the poetry you read from your friend's book was stunning. I look forward to reading it myself. Thank you for the time and effort you put into your videos. And thank you for sharing stories about your childhood and your father. It's real and honest and much appreciated.
The biggest mistake people make in approaching poetry is to assume it can be read like any other free hand, prose writing (in referring to verse) when in fact that's not the case. As a rules-based form of writing, the general public often misses the sophistication behind the elaborate construction of a poem, like the importance of rhythm, the varying sound patterns (high, low, or vice versa); line length as an indication of carefully measured wording. There's a reason poetry is for the most part curated by MFAs and PhDs these days, although an unfortunate one as well, making it less accessible
Agreed. There is much delicate choice-making in the succinct frame of a poem. This video focuses on the poet; a later video will likely focus on the poem itself, and thus the skeleton that holds it firm.
Certainly matters to me. When I get my channel going, I will begin with poetry. If one can learn to read it well, one can read anything. And yes, the trick is to dissect without butchering. Wordsworth is always warning us: “We murder to dissect.” But poems are like Osiris or Lemminkainen. They can be torn apart and resurrected. But the resurrecting reader needs the skills to see the thing whole. So we learn the tools that let us see things whole, and our cadavers come back to life. Lovely reading from Whitman, Ruben. But it’s to sing of myself AND the whole, right? Myself and “en-masse.” The body whole, and the body politic whole through it. The body elecrric in both. God, what a poem Song of Myself is! As for rambling: so much of what is best in us as humans emerges in such moments. There is great virtue in formal strictures, compression, economy-all virtues of great poetry. But poetry itself often codifies and redescribes with arresting vividness what we are reaching for when we ramble, looking for just the words, the ideas, that lie beyond and beneath whatever it is we realize we are saying. When we ramble we often try to connect diffuse things into a whole too diffuse to communicate easily. The poet’s miracle is to distill something like this. I loved the Donne allusion in that poem you read (the one about “systemic”). “Airy thinness”: “Like gold to airy thinness beat,” from The first poem I will talk about once I get going: “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” (“like gold to airy thinness beat”). As for pretentious: we are such an anti-intellectual society. Shame on anyone who says such a thing of or to you. You are the least pretentious BookTuber I know. You try so hard to make the difficult accessible, and you do it without any airs. You’re not trying to be smart, either-you are smart. Really goddamned smart. Wallace, when he was a teacher, advised a student trying too hard to be artsy to write a story about a child whose pet bunny had died. You caught that point wonderfully too.
I start with feeling here-the poet feeling their way through text and the reader feeling their way through connection to said text-but there are tools I could (should) cover, too, because each allows us more to work with, and, really, more to notice. I end up caring about these tools because of the feeling, so maybe that is why I start there (with feeling). Your channel will be a balance to my emotive fixation: a structure for one to lift upward by. I can't wait to have you here on BookTube. I consider you already a valuable partner in asserting a deep, close attendance to text. Yes, in Whitman, we sing from self to whole. We discern from the self, through the self, and communicate outward to others who themselves discern. In that moment of returning discernment, I see a return to self, then, and what each sees. I see that the whole is always 'known' from out the window of self, and Whitman, too, discerned and sang of the Civil War glory and despair, and of the workers, and of the self in parallel with all, but the self was always the discerner, and I think about that when I hear of wholes (and I think free-associatively of Wittgenstein arguing with Russell that there is no "world"). We could emphasize the 'en-masse,' but an accumulation of singulars remains, and I like to return to that center of individual selves perceiving. That's only a matter of emphasis, though. Of course, perception is molded by the whole, collapsed into being by it. I think I have a disposition wary of that collapse, for personal reasons.-At the end of all this writing I realize I am rushing through a complex position; I'll have to cover more carefully sometime later when I can, perhaps in a video.-And here I notice a return to rambling, and then think of a fitting poem: "To The Sea" by Anis Mojgani, which employs deviation and repetition to mimic the rambling being adored. Someone loves our rambling, and that is comfort.
I used to enjoy reading poetry posted online and writing it many years ago. Haven’t been able to find poetry books lately that I enjoy reading. That’s interesting that you say you mimicked your dad’s way of speaking because you do speak like a poet. Never noticed it before.
Thanks for this video. All I want from poetry is to have something communicated in a way that can't be done as effectively through fiction or essay form. A little beauty in turn of phrase would also be welcome.
I appreciate the vulnerability you shared with us in this video. That was very brave and very admirable. I have a few things I would like to comment on: 1) you kept talking about that barrier in connection between anyone and anyone else because of the façade one inevitably puts on, but you didn't talk about the barrier in connection with oneself and that is essential in how we view our connection to others. We spend a lifetime dissecting ourselves, going back to our inner child, putting in the work and often arrive at a place where we barely skim the surface. So isn't it natural that our connection to others is a performance, done through a lens, when we perform for ourselves all the time? 2) as a classical pianist, i relate to the experiences of a poet you described a lot. Classical music is dense and is convoluted and often obscure and unclear but also sometimes it speaks to people in ways we can't comprehend. Ive been doing it since I was 10 and I've spent years observing myself bleeding on the keys of my piano, often facing the inevitable dissociation in my identity between what I wish to perform, and what I want to say. Sometimes I spend 20 minutes repeating one single note for it to *just sound right*. And everyone is like it is just piano, it all sounds the same. It doesn't. Every person brings out a resonance in the instrument differently (which i think it can relate to that thing you said about the placement of emphasis on words and syllables when you recite the poetry). It is also something you do mostly by yourself, in a room, for hours, and something you grow up as a child doing and you gamble with your identity at the expense of a sound. And then you look back and say, I will gladly do it all over again. I often say I am in a toxic relationship with my piano, and that my piano is my spouse forever. Any partner will come secondary. 3) the third poem by your friend, the systemic one, is my favourite. It is so interesting in meaning and sonority. 4) i don't think you ramble. I actually do have a pet peeve with hearing people talk for a long time. I don't listen to podcasts or watch series with long episodes. Rambling to me is excessive repetition and mentioning things irrelevant to the main topic. You don't do either of those. Each word feels selected with care and placed exactly where it should be. But this kind of content doesn't appeal to a lot of people so i get it, i guess? I wish they would describe it more accurately though.
This is my favorite video of yours. I am making my way through your videos and needed to tell you this. As a poet and a human thank you. I hope you will have some more videos about poetry. Of course you can do whatever you want. I will watch it even if their is no poetry. But I really liked this.
I've never really been into poetry. I respect the skill, but it's never something that appealed to me. That being said there was always once piece that stuck with me throughout the years. It's a poem called Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe. I think I read it in middle school many, many years ago. I always thought it was so sad and tragic, but beautifully written. It's funny how something will stick with you like that even if you're not a fan of the medium itself.
The musicality of Poe is nearly unmatched. Go back to that piece when you get a chance. You'll probably hear it as much as read it. It's powerful in that ongoing resonance. I think that's a nice way to start with poetry, just to hear it, then sometimes the meaning will surprise you amidst the sound.
As a suggestion perhaps for a future Patreon project I think we would all love a book club where you pick a book every 2 weeks or so which we can discuss (as we read) on a private forum/discord. And you making a video review of the book, perhaps also a guide to reading/understanding that book/author. Benjamin McEvoy does this but not really in a dedicated manner. And his videos are not for everyone as he tends to talk a lot without saying much, he puts a lot of effort into useless aesthetics (idk how to say it without sounding rude) unlike your style which is the exact opposite. I think it would be a success because procrastination is obviously a general issue and people tend to fulfill an action when it's money involved and when there's a group.
Wonderful suggestion! I haven't set up a Patreon yet, but these are the sorts of activities I want to keep in mind. Currently, my struggle is that of time: I work two jobs, one as an English teacher and the other as a book editor, and as you can imagine both of these jobs take up a lot of my time. Unfortunately, I am not yet at the place of being able to commit the devotion to this channel that I would like. If I start a Patreon, the sorts of bonuses on offer would have to be initially less time-consuming. That's partially why I haven't set it up yet. I don't quite know what I can offer in addition to these videos that I can remain consistent at doing. This is, of course, a circular bind, as the money I would gain through Patreon would ideally lead to my not needing to take on as much work, but the incentive for those donations would need to be there in the first place to reach that point (but I don't yet have the time to commit to those incentives). I sometimes fantasize about what this channel would be like if I could devote all my time to it. That seems a dream. Thank you for being here and for your excellent suggestions!
I agree, picking bonuses for a Patreon account must be really difficult especially if you're low on time. My suggestion was centered on Patreon only as a gateway to the private bookclub. No other incentives involved. Maybe a bookclub inspired by the material you teach your students. Sort of an online light version of your course. That way you won't waste as much time setting it up. Either way I'm glad I've found your channel and I look forward to your next video.
Thank you. It can be tough catching attention for one's poetry, as I'm sure you know. Even this video about poetry is having a tough time getting attention, but that's to be expected. Hard sell, poetry.
Thank you for this.There is so much I would like to say, but won't; simply because this is a comment & not a conversation. Unfortunately, or perhaps not (who is to know) my Mind's Eye is and always has been completely blind. Apparently, this is why so much of my past is shrouded in fog, unable to see my past, now I struggle to see where I am headed. Also, I happened to notice those two books on your shelves--books that sat for so long upon my shelves. The Man Without Qualities. One of my favorite books (in 2 volumes). A pity Musil died before completing it.
@@aadamtx I've got the latter on one of my wish lists & added the former. Anytime you would like to address the wide variety of styles that make up European Modernism, I am all in. Have you read Broch's The Death of Virgil? simply wonderful. Keep up the great work.
It takes time to get back to that space: it is a slow-moving current, poetry. My friend shared some of his favorites with me recently, and I found them helpful, if only a start, to allow myself back into that soundless singing. Here is the list he shared. I hope it helps you too: "America" by Tony Hoagland "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden “My Dead Friends” by Marie Howe "Landscape of a Vomiting Multitude" by Federico Garcia Lorca "[The Dark Collects]" by Ben Lerner "Dear Reader" by James Tate "Ars Poetica" by Aracelis Girmay "The Colossus" by Sylvia Plath "Harlem" by Langston Hughes "Romanesque Arches" by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robert Bly
Interesting comments on the relationship between music and poetry. I've sung Whitman and Tennyson - those two stand out, but I've done others. I think many folks are turned off by pietry because of the way it's taught, with a focus on form rather then meaning. What matters to me most? That the poem speaks to me. Eliot, Browning, Whitman, Dickinson, Shakespeare. The Southern Decadents, but not Wallace Stevens. Philip Larkin. Byron but not Shelley or Keats (and lord help me, Not Wordsworth). Poetry has to be relatable, primarily. Greetings from Split, Croatia, btw!
The hints of your life sound so full and adventurous-singing Whitman and Tennyson, wonderful! And now you bask in Croatia? You've been on a journey, my friend. I agree with much of your list of poets, though I'm surprised by Keats. I'm guessing he's too adherent to the Romantic trends of his day, too much mimicry and falsity in imagery? He certainly gets lost in pattern and detail and tropes in his mythological pieces, but I do find his lyricism magic in moments. Maybe I find myself wooed by his sorrow seeping through so much of what he writes and that desperate yearning to be great despite the limits of his condition and place (though his autobiography is perhaps what seeps through more in my reading of him).
Many years ago I decided I could either wait for other people to join in my travels or I could simply go by myself. Croatia iis a family history stop - I visited the church where my maternal grandparents wed and one aunt was baptized, but no family remain in the area other than distant cousins. As for Keats, I appreciate his lyricism but his themes do nothing me (as I sidenote, I've seen his deathbed in Rome). Whitman is like fullbodied coffee and is best declaimed in full voice - preferably to an audience. Keep up the good work - I'll send send some potential video topics when I'm back in Houston this weekend. And call me Tony - aadamtx sounds a bit formal 😁
'overly earnest' is much nicer than naked but I think they both apply. I am struggling to talk about poetry not because of stats but because of how personal everything feels. Any tips on how I can get over myself?
This is a great question and one I struggle with myself: so much of my love for what I read is deeply personal. In this particular video I attempt to struggle openly, but I still don't feel I've hit the crux of what's necessary in communicating one's love for literature. There is so much to be said. When I think of your channel and your voice I don't think of you needing to get over yourself. I think more of your needing to embrace yourself: from the outside looking in your energy is so fascinating, your passions so distinctive, your expertise so one-of-a-kind-all the foibles you might notice are precisely what fascinates. I think, remind yourself how exciting imperfections can be-when you watch someone cross a tightrope, it is those moments of slippage that become most riveting; aim to walk a thinner and thinner line of yourself on camera, that part of yourself less-often seen and vocalized. Let us see that tightrope walk of confession such that we notice how rarely such a wandering is done. And wander and wander awhile: when you discuss a poem or a story, travel with it far away toward your other fixations; invite us into that doorway of your musings while you read; take us to those notes of marginalia that brim the edges of past pages. That's the funny thing: viewers care less about what we say than that we're saying it-we, the particular we, that unique us, not the phony pretender that seeks attention, the us that makes our channels our own and no one else's, the us that we are afraid to be-be that for the viewers. I feel the pressure, too, to have something to say, to analyze, to be clever, to be interesting, but the moment I follow those impulses I become stagnant and stale and too seen (my inner eye too self-consciously seeing and critiquing and seeing like a fisheye lens distorting myself into distended bigness). When I sit down sometimes I think, "Stop. Stop. Stop," and I'm talking to that self-critical self, "Just be honest, don't be smart, just be honest, don't pretend, just be honest," and it does become easier. Being honest brings out the unique in you, the irreplaceable. Play when you speak of poetry. Remember the play and the fun and the toying. Play with the camera and with your speaking. I remember being little and so frustrated when writing and drawing, always erasing, redoing, and my mom sat with me-sweetly hugging my frustrations tight to me-and told me to keep it, to stop erasing, to keep going with the faults. She wrote with me leaving in the errors and kept drawing the mishappen lines toward new vistas, and that memory sticks with me for its wholeness of creative being, and I chase that still. This BookTube thing is creative. We're in this, sharing, a creative joy for faraway strangers about creative acts tethered in bookish texts. I guess if I have any advice-and really who am I to give advice-it is only to stay in play and remind yourself of the fun of words (and you adore words, remember, you adore words, and thus you're here). But you don't need my advice! You've already got something special. People are just slow in finding special things.
Let's talk about this over email, and I'll share some possible prompts with you. ToReadersBusiness [at] yahoo [dot com] (can't type it out normally without getting flagged).
I think you WILL LOVE Arabic poetry. Not only it is a beautiful language even though modern poetry allows more space for free form, traditional arabic poetry is judged on meaning AND the internal music of the words, picked specifically to satisfy the meter. There are technically no syllables in arabic, and so that is the parameter it is judged on, and each word has its own musicality, which changes based on its placement in the sentence (arabic doesn't have traditional subject verb object form). It gets more interesting when you know the 16 forms of meters were theorized AFTER centuries of poets casually writing these poems (some of these poems are narcissistic though not gonna lie😂) in correct meter based on INSTINCT alone. The 16 forms were made as rules centuries later. I was lucky to grow up in a household that valued traditional arabic poetry. My mom used to make us memorize verses during sunday breakfast (the only time we were all together on one meal) which we still carry with us. She was not an arabic literature teacher, just an enthusiast and Aroud (the science of the music of arabic poetry) was one of our favourite passtimes. She taught me Aroud in grade 3 while we usually learn it at school in grade 9. It is insanely beautiful and so POWERFUL. Confidence is one of its hallmarks. And the romance is so unique we have modern songs using verses written in 5th century CE as part of the lyrics. Mahmoud Darwish's poetry is now gaining attention due to what is happening in pal4sti ne, but he follows free form. Still beautiful, though.
@@ToReadersItMayConcern and the thing is! That is the difference between arabic speakers and others, we love the poetry. We love hearing it. We love reciting it, even through, as you said, the inevitable cringe element. We repeat it. We post it. We translate it for english speakers. We still use it in modern songs. We even meme-fied some of it. Our relationship with our poetry is an intrinsic part of arabism, which I haven't seen in any culture at all, despite the fact that our dialects have strayed so far from traditional arabic. Imagine listening to a whole song in latin? And feeling moved by its meaning? (That is how modern linguists describe the schism between arabic dialects and traditional arabic, as going through the same process that latin and the romantic languages went through but we are observing it in real time).
@@Thetrilingualreader That sounds deeply beautiful. Thank you for helping me understand this. I'm not sure if I otherwise would without your summation.
@@ToReadersItMayConcern not a book, but I just skimmed through a few (free) google sources. There is "the phonology of classical arabic meter" , "meters and formulas: the case of ancient arabic poetry" and "pegs, cords and ghuls: meter of classical arabic poetry". I think they overcomplicated them a bit but i am a native speaker so what do I know 😂😂 I hope you enjoy them 🥰
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What matters to you most about poetry? Let me know!
Keep in mind, I'm discussing one small facet of poetry in this video. I will likely create more videos covering other key elements later on. You can see me discuss poetry in more detail with my friend Bren Booth-Jones for the book launch of his latest collection, Blue Remembered Star, here: th-cam.com/video/mtFwKucMdik/w-d-xo.htmlsi=AdgCLscb0S7B2xZW
I have never been able to get into poetry, but I hope it will "click" someday. I will never give up! ;) I loved your story about your first experience with it as a child. What you said reminded me about writing lyrics. When I write those, I also feel like I turn something private into a public thing. :)
What a wonderful video! (And that comes from a person who reads very little poetry although incidentally I did read some Pessoa poems today). Hope the video does get a lot of views (and nice comments!) :)
The video is currently not reaching far, but I'm proud of it, and I'm proudest when hearing from those like you who leave such kind remarks. Thank you.
How lucky we are to have your thoughts on poetry and literature in general. And thank you for sharing my own work with your audience! I can’t thank you enough.
Love that you dive into Whitman and your dad’s poetry in this video. “Strange music” is so apt!
“Make of them your heart’s bed” beauty emerging from a dark but brave and honest poem.
There is nothing better than earnestness. Rambling or otherwise.
Much agreed. Thank you for watching.
Poetry is my way to understand/be in the world. I don't know 'why' poetry, but I lost my heart to it when a teenager, & the infatuation has only deepened as I've grown into an old man. I especially love the confessional poetic, the imperative to jolt in the 'truth' of a confessional 'I': Plath, Sexton, Levertov, Berryman, Lowell, Snodgrass... (Ted Hughes' 'Birthday Letters'!) Poetry is a quirky way of being in the world. Thanks for this spotlight on what is important.
There are moments available in poetry unmatched anywhere else. Those moments are similar to a late, late night with a friend, one in which you both finally speak something true. Perhaps that's why confessional poetry can hold such a special place, a place of intimacy. Thank you for the author recommendations. I will keep them all in mind.
@@ToReadersItMayConcern: travel well, & look after yourself.
I think a feeling of inner turmoil about anything you create is quite normal Ruben. As your unconscious desires surface and crystalize into something tangibly conscious often the shape or form can come as a shock to the system. A phantom whose reflection looks like you but is not. For me your videos are deeply impactful. It isn't what you say but the way you make me feel. There is a beauty in your passion, a sensitivity in your heart and a love for the written word that always inspires me to dive a little deeper into the depths of my own internal landscape. I always come away with the desire to read more, to write more and most importantly to share my love of these things more openly with the world. An introvert does not willingly raise anchor and sail to new climes but your videos helped me have the courage to risk running aground. Silly is not an adjective that belongs in your dictionary and certainly not one I would use to describe your Art. Thankyou, keep going, you are having an impact.
"A phantom whose reflection looks like you but is not"-that speaks. That resounds. There seems an unavoidable splitting: I cannot be all of me, only the filmable one. That is, I know, necessary and okay, but it is certainly also strange. The fact that I can still connect, if only in temporary portions of myself, with those like you is a genuine relief. So thank you for that.
Thank you for this video and your thoughts on poetry.
I am a newbie in poetry but totally for art in all their forms. I love to be still, get confused, dive in, forget, learn, change perspectives and be blown away by it all. 💟
If one allows confusion without panic, a wavering loss-of-place but movement forward nonetheless, that is often where sublimity lies. Thank you for being here, for allowing yourself to travel with art a while. That is to be cherished.
Ah that was great. Very heartfelt. Thanks for sharing all that.
Thank you for seeing the value in it. 🙏
I didn't think watching this video was a struggle at all. I enjoy your "rambling". Your videos are thought provoking and sincere and I find that refreshing. I admit I struggle with poetry, though, however the poetry you read from your friend's book was stunning. I look forward to reading it myself. Thank you for the time and effort you put into your videos. And thank you for sharing stories about your childhood and your father. It's real and honest and much appreciated.
Thank you, Bridget. Your kindness is much appreciated as well.
The biggest mistake people make in approaching poetry is to assume it can be read like any other free hand, prose writing (in referring to verse) when in fact that's not the case. As a rules-based form of writing, the general public often misses the sophistication behind the elaborate construction of a poem, like the importance of rhythm, the varying sound patterns (high, low, or vice versa); line length as an indication of carefully measured wording. There's a reason poetry is for the most part curated by MFAs and PhDs these days, although an unfortunate one as well, making it less accessible
Agreed. There is much delicate choice-making in the succinct frame of a poem. This video focuses on the poet; a later video will likely focus on the poem itself, and thus the skeleton that holds it firm.
@@ToReadersItMayConcern Bring it on! Sounds exciting
Certainly matters to me. When I get my channel going, I will begin with poetry. If one can learn to read it well, one can read anything. And yes, the trick is to dissect without butchering. Wordsworth is always warning us: “We murder to dissect.” But poems are like Osiris or Lemminkainen. They can be torn apart and resurrected. But the resurrecting reader needs the skills to see the thing whole. So we learn the tools that let us see things whole, and our cadavers come back to life.
Lovely reading from Whitman, Ruben. But it’s to sing of myself AND the whole, right? Myself and “en-masse.” The body whole, and the body politic whole through it. The body elecrric in both. God, what a poem Song of Myself is!
As for rambling: so much of what is best in us as humans emerges in such moments. There is great virtue in formal strictures, compression, economy-all virtues of great poetry. But poetry itself often codifies and redescribes with arresting vividness what we are reaching for when we ramble, looking for just the words, the ideas, that lie beyond and beneath whatever it is we realize we are saying. When we ramble we often try to connect diffuse things into a whole too diffuse to communicate easily. The poet’s miracle is to distill something like this.
I loved the Donne allusion in that poem you read (the one about “systemic”). “Airy thinness”: “Like gold to airy thinness beat,” from
The first poem I will talk about once I get going: “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” (“like gold to airy thinness beat”).
As for pretentious: we are such an anti-intellectual society. Shame on anyone who says such a thing of or to you. You are the least pretentious BookTuber I know. You try so hard to make the difficult accessible, and you do it without any airs. You’re not trying to be smart, either-you are smart. Really goddamned smart.
Wallace, when he was a teacher, advised a student trying too hard to be artsy to write a story about a child whose pet bunny had died. You caught that point wonderfully too.
I start with feeling here-the poet feeling their way through text and the reader feeling their way through connection to said text-but there are tools I could (should) cover, too, because each allows us more to work with, and, really, more to notice. I end up caring about these tools because of the feeling, so maybe that is why I start there (with feeling). Your channel will be a balance to my emotive fixation: a structure for one to lift upward by. I can't wait to have you here on BookTube. I consider you already a valuable partner in asserting a deep, close attendance to text.
Yes, in Whitman, we sing from self to whole. We discern from the self, through the self, and communicate outward to others who themselves discern. In that moment of returning discernment, I see a return to self, then, and what each sees. I see that the whole is always 'known' from out the window of self, and Whitman, too, discerned and sang of the Civil War glory and despair, and of the workers, and of the self in parallel with all, but the self was always the discerner, and I think about that when I hear of wholes (and I think free-associatively of Wittgenstein arguing with Russell that there is no "world"). We could emphasize the 'en-masse,' but an accumulation of singulars remains, and I like to return to that center of individual selves perceiving. That's only a matter of emphasis, though. Of course, perception is molded by the whole, collapsed into being by it. I think I have a disposition wary of that collapse, for personal reasons.-At the end of all this writing I realize I am rushing through a complex position; I'll have to cover more carefully sometime later when I can, perhaps in a video.-And here I notice a return to rambling, and then think of a fitting poem: "To The Sea" by Anis Mojgani, which employs deviation and repetition to mimic the rambling being adored. Someone loves our rambling, and that is comfort.
Keep up the good work, man!
Thanks so much!
I used to enjoy reading poetry posted online and writing it many years ago. Haven’t been able to find poetry books lately that I enjoy reading.
That’s interesting that you say you mimicked your dad’s way of speaking because you do speak like a poet. Never noticed it before.
Thanks for this video. All I want from poetry is to have something communicated in a way that can't be done as effectively through fiction or essay form. A little beauty in turn of phrase would also be welcome.
I appreciate the vulnerability you shared with us in this video. That was very brave and very admirable. I have a few things I would like to comment on:
1) you kept talking about that barrier in connection between anyone and anyone else because of the façade one inevitably puts on, but you didn't talk about the barrier in connection with oneself and that is essential in how we view our connection to others. We spend a lifetime dissecting ourselves, going back to our inner child, putting in the work and often arrive at a place where we barely skim the surface. So isn't it natural that our connection to others is a performance, done through a lens, when we perform for ourselves all the time?
2) as a classical pianist, i relate to the experiences of a poet you described a lot. Classical music is dense and is convoluted and often obscure and unclear but also sometimes it speaks to people in ways we can't comprehend. Ive been doing it since I was 10 and I've spent years observing myself bleeding on the keys of my piano, often facing the inevitable dissociation in my identity between what I wish to perform, and what I want to say. Sometimes I spend 20 minutes repeating one single note for it to *just sound right*. And everyone is like it is just piano, it all sounds the same. It doesn't. Every person brings out a resonance in the instrument differently (which i think it can relate to that thing you said about the placement of emphasis on words and syllables when you recite the poetry). It is also something you do mostly by yourself, in a room, for hours, and something you grow up as a child doing and you gamble with your identity at the expense of a sound. And then you look back and say, I will gladly do it all over again. I often say I am in a toxic relationship with my piano, and that my piano is my spouse forever. Any partner will come secondary.
3) the third poem by your friend, the systemic one, is my favourite. It is so interesting in meaning and sonority.
4) i don't think you ramble. I actually do have a pet peeve with hearing people talk for a long time. I don't listen to podcasts or watch series with long episodes. Rambling to me is excessive repetition and mentioning things irrelevant to the main topic. You don't do either of those. Each word feels selected with care and placed exactly where it should be. But this kind of content doesn't appeal to a lot of people so i get it, i guess? I wish they would describe it more accurately though.
This is my favorite video of yours. I am making my way through your videos and needed to tell you this. As a poet and a human thank you. I hope you will have some more videos about poetry. Of course you can do whatever you want. I will watch it even if their is no poetry. But I really liked this.
That means a lot. Thank you. 🙏
Beautiful video ❤
Thank you for giving it a chance. I consider you among the best on BookTube, so your compliment means a lot.
I've never really been into poetry. I respect the skill, but it's never something that appealed to me. That being said there was always once piece that stuck with me throughout the years. It's a poem called Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe. I think I read it in middle school many, many years ago. I always thought it was so sad and tragic, but beautifully written. It's funny how something will stick with you like that even if you're not a fan of the medium itself.
The musicality of Poe is nearly unmatched. Go back to that piece when you get a chance. You'll probably hear it as much as read it. It's powerful in that ongoing resonance. I think that's a nice way to start with poetry, just to hear it, then sometimes the meaning will surprise you amidst the sound.
I am sorry for the legacy of your dad's struggles with poor mental health. I, unfortunately, empathise with your experience.
As a suggestion perhaps for a future Patreon project I think we would all love a book club where you pick a book every 2 weeks or so which we can discuss (as we read) on a private forum/discord. And you making a video review of the book, perhaps also a guide to reading/understanding that book/author.
Benjamin McEvoy does this but not really in a dedicated manner. And his videos are not for everyone as he tends to talk a lot without saying much, he puts a lot of effort into useless aesthetics (idk how to say it without sounding rude) unlike your style which is the exact opposite.
I think it would be a success because procrastination is obviously a general issue and people tend to fulfill an action when it's money involved and when there's a group.
Wonderful suggestion! I haven't set up a Patreon yet, but these are the sorts of activities I want to keep in mind. Currently, my struggle is that of time: I work two jobs, one as an English teacher and the other as a book editor, and as you can imagine both of these jobs take up a lot of my time. Unfortunately, I am not yet at the place of being able to commit the devotion to this channel that I would like. If I start a Patreon, the sorts of bonuses on offer would have to be initially less time-consuming. That's partially why I haven't set it up yet. I don't quite know what I can offer in addition to these videos that I can remain consistent at doing. This is, of course, a circular bind, as the money I would gain through Patreon would ideally lead to my not needing to take on as much work, but the incentive for those donations would need to be there in the first place to reach that point (but I don't yet have the time to commit to those incentives).
I sometimes fantasize about what this channel would be like if I could devote all my time to it. That seems a dream.
Thank you for being here and for your excellent suggestions!
I agree, picking bonuses for a Patreon account must be really difficult especially if you're low on time.
My suggestion was centered on Patreon only as a gateway to the private bookclub. No other incentives involved. Maybe a bookclub inspired by the material you teach your students. Sort of an online light version of your course. That way you won't waste as much time setting it up.
Either way I'm glad I've found your channel and I look forward to your next video.
I wish your friend all the best with his book launch!
Thank you. It can be tough catching attention for one's poetry, as I'm sure you know. Even this video about poetry is having a tough time getting attention, but that's to be expected. Hard sell, poetry.
Thank you, David! We had a lot of fun making it. Checking out your channel now!
@@brenboothjones I’ve just subscribed to yours, and looking forward to it.
Thank you for this.There is so much I would like to say, but won't; simply because this is a comment & not a conversation. Unfortunately, or perhaps not (who is to know) my Mind's Eye is and always has been completely blind. Apparently, this is why so much of my past is shrouded in fog, unable to see my past, now I struggle to see where I am headed.
Also, I happened to notice those two books on your shelves--books that sat for so long upon my shelves. The Man Without Qualities. One of my favorite books (in 2 volumes). A pity Musil died before completing it.
The Man Without Qualities is also one of my favorites, which I read decades ago. Try some Heinrich Mann and Berlin Alexanderplatz!
@@aadamtx I've got the latter on one of my wish lists & added the former. Anytime you would like to address the wide variety of styles that make up European Modernism, I am all in. Have you read Broch's The Death of Virgil? simply wonderful. Keep up the great work.
The Death of Virgil has long been on my tbr list, but I've read Broch's The Sleepwalkers. Too many books, too little time!
Thank you for another great video! Will definitely be looking into some poetry to sit down and read, if anyone has suggestions please leave a reply!
It takes time to get back to that space: it is a slow-moving current, poetry. My friend shared some of his favorites with me recently, and I found them helpful, if only a start, to allow myself back into that soundless singing. Here is the list he shared. I hope it helps you too:
"America" by Tony Hoagland
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden
“My Dead Friends” by Marie Howe
"Landscape of a Vomiting Multitude" by Federico Garcia Lorca
"[The Dark Collects]" by Ben Lerner
"Dear Reader" by James Tate
"Ars Poetica" by Aracelis Girmay
"The Colossus" by Sylvia Plath
"Harlem" by Langston Hughes
"Romanesque Arches" by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robert Bly
Interesting comments on the relationship between music and poetry. I've sung Whitman and Tennyson - those two stand out, but I've done others. I think many folks are turned off by pietry because of the way it's taught, with a focus on form rather then meaning. What matters to me most? That the poem speaks to me. Eliot, Browning, Whitman, Dickinson, Shakespeare. The Southern Decadents, but not Wallace Stevens. Philip Larkin. Byron but not Shelley or Keats (and lord help me, Not Wordsworth). Poetry has to be relatable, primarily.
Greetings from Split, Croatia, btw!
The hints of your life sound so full and adventurous-singing Whitman and Tennyson, wonderful! And now you bask in Croatia? You've been on a journey, my friend. I agree with much of your list of poets, though I'm surprised by Keats. I'm guessing he's too adherent to the Romantic trends of his day, too much mimicry and falsity in imagery? He certainly gets lost in pattern and detail and tropes in his mythological pieces, but I do find his lyricism magic in moments. Maybe I find myself wooed by his sorrow seeping through so much of what he writes and that desperate yearning to be great despite the limits of his condition and place (though his autobiography is perhaps what seeps through more in my reading of him).
Many years ago I decided I could either wait for other people to join in my travels or I could simply go by myself. Croatia iis a family history stop - I visited the church where my maternal grandparents wed and one aunt was baptized, but no family remain in the area other than distant cousins. As for Keats, I appreciate his lyricism but his themes do nothing me (as I sidenote, I've seen his deathbed in Rome). Whitman is like fullbodied coffee and is best declaimed in full voice - preferably to an audience.
Keep up the good work - I'll send send some potential video topics when I'm back in Houston this weekend. And call me Tony - aadamtx sounds a bit formal 😁
'overly earnest' is much nicer than naked but I think they both apply. I am struggling to talk about poetry not because of stats but because of how personal everything feels. Any tips on how I can get over myself?
This is a great question and one I struggle with myself: so much of my love for what I read is deeply personal. In this particular video I attempt to struggle openly, but I still don't feel I've hit the crux of what's necessary in communicating one's love for literature. There is so much to be said.
When I think of your channel and your voice I don't think of you needing to get over yourself. I think more of your needing to embrace yourself: from the outside looking in your energy is so fascinating, your passions so distinctive, your expertise so one-of-a-kind-all the foibles you might notice are precisely what fascinates. I think, remind yourself how exciting imperfections can be-when you watch someone cross a tightrope, it is those moments of slippage that become most riveting; aim to walk a thinner and thinner line of yourself on camera, that part of yourself less-often seen and vocalized. Let us see that tightrope walk of confession such that we notice how rarely such a wandering is done.
And wander and wander awhile: when you discuss a poem or a story, travel with it far away toward your other fixations; invite us into that doorway of your musings while you read; take us to those notes of marginalia that brim the edges of past pages. That's the funny thing: viewers care less about what we say than that we're saying it-we, the particular we, that unique us, not the phony pretender that seeks attention, the us that makes our channels our own and no one else's, the us that we are afraid to be-be that for the viewers.
I feel the pressure, too, to have something to say, to analyze, to be clever, to be interesting, but the moment I follow those impulses I become stagnant and stale and too seen (my inner eye too self-consciously seeing and critiquing and seeing like a fisheye lens distorting myself into distended bigness). When I sit down sometimes I think, "Stop. Stop. Stop," and I'm talking to that self-critical self, "Just be honest, don't be smart, just be honest, don't pretend, just be honest," and it does become easier. Being honest brings out the unique in you, the irreplaceable.
Play when you speak of poetry. Remember the play and the fun and the toying. Play with the camera and with your speaking. I remember being little and so frustrated when writing and drawing, always erasing, redoing, and my mom sat with me-sweetly hugging my frustrations tight to me-and told me to keep it, to stop erasing, to keep going with the faults. She wrote with me leaving in the errors and kept drawing the mishappen lines toward new vistas, and that memory sticks with me for its wholeness of creative being, and I chase that still. This BookTube thing is creative. We're in this, sharing, a creative joy for faraway strangers about creative acts tethered in bookish texts. I guess if I have any advice-and really who am I to give advice-it is only to stay in play and remind yourself of the fun of words (and you adore words, remember, you adore words, and thus you're here).
But you don't need my advice! You've already got something special. People are just slow in finding special things.
Let's talk about this over email, and I'll share some possible prompts with you. ToReadersBusiness [at] yahoo [dot com] (can't type it out normally without getting flagged).
@@ToReadersItMayConcern Just sent you a test email, check your spam.
I think you WILL LOVE Arabic poetry. Not only it is a beautiful language even though modern poetry allows more space for free form, traditional arabic poetry is judged on meaning AND the internal music of the words, picked specifically to satisfy the meter. There are technically no syllables in arabic, and so that is the parameter it is judged on, and each word has its own musicality, which changes based on its placement in the sentence (arabic doesn't have traditional subject verb object form). It gets more interesting when you know the 16 forms of meters were theorized AFTER centuries of poets casually writing these poems (some of these poems are narcissistic though not gonna lie😂) in correct meter based on INSTINCT alone. The 16 forms were made as rules centuries later. I was lucky to grow up in a household that valued traditional arabic poetry. My mom used to make us memorize verses during sunday breakfast (the only time we were all together on one meal) which we still carry with us. She was not an arabic literature teacher, just an enthusiast and Aroud (the science of the music of arabic poetry) was one of our favourite passtimes. She taught me Aroud in grade 3 while we usually learn it at school in grade 9. It is insanely beautiful and so POWERFUL. Confidence is one of its hallmarks. And the romance is so unique we have modern songs using verses written in 5th century CE as part of the lyrics.
Mahmoud Darwish's poetry is now gaining attention due to what is happening in pal4sti ne, but he follows free form. Still beautiful, though.
I had heard of Arabic poetry's musicality but not had it explained so clearly before. Thank you!
@@ToReadersItMayConcern and the thing is! That is the difference between arabic speakers and others, we love the poetry. We love hearing it. We love reciting it, even through, as you said, the inevitable cringe element. We repeat it. We post it. We translate it for english speakers. We still use it in modern songs. We even meme-fied some of it. Our relationship with our poetry is an intrinsic part of arabism, which I haven't seen in any culture at all, despite the fact that our dialects have strayed so far from traditional arabic. Imagine listening to a whole song in latin? And feeling moved by its meaning? (That is how modern linguists describe the schism between arabic dialects and traditional arabic, as going through the same process that latin and the romantic languages went through but we are observing it in real time).
@@Thetrilingualreader That sounds deeply beautiful. Thank you for helping me understand this. I'm not sure if I otherwise would without your summation.
@Thetrilingualreader Is there a book that you know of for English readers that goes into this in more depth? Even if its dense, I would be interested.
@@ToReadersItMayConcern not a book, but I just skimmed through a few (free) google sources. There is "the phonology of classical arabic meter" , "meters and formulas: the case of ancient arabic poetry" and "pegs, cords and ghuls: meter of classical arabic poetry". I think they overcomplicated them a bit but i am a native speaker so what do I know 😂😂 I hope you enjoy them 🥰