Late Tuesday (actually early Wednesday, September 12, 2012)

[LinkEds & writers / {LinkedIn} Randy B.  -Randy B. H.

Multilingual, multicultural communications specialist

Greater New York City Area

Dear Randy:

I’m terribly sorry.

I didn’t realize that I’d been unclear–but I do now.

I filled out their questionnaire and went through their

spelling/grammar and ‘three styles’ exams, which was

much more ‘temp’-work-application -ish than I’d expected

(I’ve been a temp–it’s actually worse when one

has to spend the day there). But somehow I still thought

I’d be challenged somewhat by the work. By some miracle,

I was deemed good enough to bid on their jobs.

Then I went to their ‘Available Jobs’ page and saw,

as I described in my vague post, jobs that were specific

about the textbook being used, asking for specific numbers

of reference citations–and the dollar amount offers were

ridiculous.

I emailed them to ask if they felt that this work was ethical.

That’s when I got the stuff about ‘helping the students do

for themselves by giving a good example’.

But I thought it over and decided that was a rationalization.

I spent most my life in mail-marketing (junk mail, to you)

and I know a good rationalization for making money when

I hear one.

So all my jumping through their hoops was a waste of time.

I know I wasn’t clear about the details–but I thought it

was obvious I was doing anything BUT promoting them.

Sorry to distract from the thread–I shouldn’t have posted

at all, really–I’ve never been paid for any writing–unless you

count ad copy or copywriting/proofreading.

I may not belong, but I like the group, and your mediation of the thread.

*****

My comment on “The Necklace of Poetry” by  (Joe)/(Kenneth) Massingham joemassblog.com (WordPress)

On September twelfth, 2012  2 am

I like the image or concept, a threading together of words, rather than plain speech, but I wonder if we go at this poetry business from the back end–Poetry may be as animalistic an urge as dancing or singing, simply translated as a unique form that occurs within a pack of people who’ve recently adopted a sophisticated form of language, such as Greek and Romans, Persians.and whoever. But those origins are obscured by time and now we see the poem almost less about what the poets are doing and more about what the audience is hearing. It makes much more sense that way, but it may not necessarily be how it began–just a thought. We are a consumerist society, but things weren’t always so.

The fact that bad poetry might not attract an audience may have had no weight in a society in which the leaders and sophisticates saw poetry as something all civilized people did, like getting exercise. You know, clean mind, clean body, but in Latin.

To me it’s become painfully clear–implying that a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g is NOT poetry is just an argument looking for a pal. So I have long ago stopped myself whenever such sentences come to mind–besides, technically, it’s true–that’s where the argument comes from. After that it gets all semantic-al and abstruse.

There are levels of applied poetry and then there’s ‘ideal’ poetry. On one level there is the obvious, published poets (and their nobility, the Nobel-winners and poets laureate). On another level there is academic poetry, which is when serious students of literature sit at the feet of professors and try to satisfy their professors that (a) they’ve understood (and unquestioningly accepted as gospel) the prof’s ideas of good poetry and what makes great poets great and (b) have produced work that the prof accepts as displaying the prof’s teachings, articulated in verse.

On a third level there are jokers like myself, who write poems and share them with their endlessly patient family and acquaintances who are too polite to tell me to get lost. What some may label the ‘failure’ level I think of more as an amateur standing. One of the great advantages of this level is that I’m the best judge of how good my poems are–though I’m not averse to appreciation, when offered, or criticism for that matter (see ‘best judge’ comment).

Theoretically, there is a fourth level wherein a natural-born poet who takes it all very much to heart and whose sensitivity makes the readers’ lips tremble and their eyelids dewy, or stirs the heart of a teenage boy with meter and trochee and ‘on the six-hundred’, or simply suggests the soul of the sight of a bird ascending–that poet goes where destiny takes such people.

Now Ideal poetry is what high-school students write–it has a piquancy all its own, but can seem over-earnest at times. Still, where would love-struck teenagers be without Ideal poetry? And, once one has seen the elephant, they’ll be plenty of time to write more experienced verse.

I try to be honest with my poetry, which makes it deadly dull and often lacking any lyrical quality–in fact, I recently wrote a poem, read it back to myself a couple of times and, on a whim, translated it into an essay, with complete, grammatically-correct sentences. I couldn’t have changed or added more than ten words. I’m usually better than that, but I’m no P.B. Shelley.

I get nervous sometimes, letting a poem become slightly ambiguous, and sometimes end up drawing or painting an illustration as part of the page design or as a ‘companion’ illustration to the poem page. It’s like talking during charades, I know, but I’m not a stickler for poetry rules (of which there ain’t any anyhow).

You know, this is an awfully long ‘comment’ (and I hope I haven’t talked your ear off). And I hope you won’t mind if I cut and paste it onto my blog, seeing as how these are pretty general comments about poetry. Yours is a nice essay, too–thanks for sharing it.

Now to go read your second post….

[NOTE: I pity the fool who invites me into a thread. I’m embarrassed to say that these are only two of three thread comments I posted today. I don’t know who I think I’m talking to–all this unsolicited verbiage…. Be warned!]