I don't understand why people feel the need to be so deep and intellectual all the time. Mostly when I see people doing this they come off as completely pretentious or idiotic. It makes me wonder how many of these times these people are really "being themselves" and how much of it is just them trying to seem profound, intelligent, or, you know, just trying to fit in.
I'm taking a poetry class this semester. (I keep wanting to say quarter, but we switched over to semesters this quarter, so, um, I guess it's a semesquarter. It's a quarter but we're getting semester credits. Whatever.) I initially didn't want to take it for this very reason. It's mostly a workshopping class, and I knew it would mean reading a lot of... well.. deep, intellectual crap.
Our assignment for the poem that we had to turn in for this past workshopping session was we had to write a narrative poem. A poem that tells a story. How hard is that?
So I am reading through this packet of poems, and a good half of them are poems where the poet was trying so hard to be deep, or whatever, that their poems don't mean anything. Seriously. I've read them over and over again and I can't extract a single thread of meaning out of them. Sure, there is some beautiful language. They stuck a couple of words together in pretty ways. But it doesn't mean anything. And furthermore.. no narrative. Which is what the assignment was. In no way do these poems tell a story. And yes, I know, different people interpret things in different ways. But I tell you, there is no way that these poems can be interpreted so as to where they include a narrative. They just mean nothing. Pretty words stuck together.
Before you tell me -
Yes, I am sure they meant something to the author when they were writing the poem. But, um.. that is not how it works. And that is not how this class works. The reader is supposed to get something out of it. Preferably, the reader is supposed to get out what the writer put in to it. Or at least some glimpse of that.
What I am glimpsing is eye rolling agony.
Or maybe I just have no patience for pretension.
I'm taking a poetry class this semester. (I keep wanting to say quarter, but we switched over to semesters this quarter, so, um, I guess it's a semesquarter. It's a quarter but we're getting semester credits. Whatever.) I initially didn't want to take it for this very reason. It's mostly a workshopping class, and I knew it would mean reading a lot of... well.. deep, intellectual crap.
Our assignment for the poem that we had to turn in for this past workshopping session was we had to write a narrative poem. A poem that tells a story. How hard is that?
So I am reading through this packet of poems, and a good half of them are poems where the poet was trying so hard to be deep, or whatever, that their poems don't mean anything. Seriously. I've read them over and over again and I can't extract a single thread of meaning out of them. Sure, there is some beautiful language. They stuck a couple of words together in pretty ways. But it doesn't mean anything. And furthermore.. no narrative. Which is what the assignment was. In no way do these poems tell a story. And yes, I know, different people interpret things in different ways. But I tell you, there is no way that these poems can be interpreted so as to where they include a narrative. They just mean nothing. Pretty words stuck together.
Before you tell me -
Yes, I am sure they meant something to the author when they were writing the poem. But, um.. that is not how it works. And that is not how this class works. The reader is supposed to get something out of it. Preferably, the reader is supposed to get out what the writer put in to it. Or at least some glimpse of that.
What I am glimpsing is eye rolling agony.
Or maybe I just have no patience for pretension.
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toothpickmoe:
Totes. Nimble brains are extremely important. I saw it on the internet somewhere.
toothpickmoe:
Of course. The internet is serious business.