[stylist] Reflections on Bill's poem and poetry in general

[Donna Hill]

Robert,
When I consider the collection of songs/prose/poetry/art that I truly love,
I find that they are culled from many genres. If I look at any genre in its
global completeness (country music, opera, modern poetry, suspense novels,
etc.) I would have to say that I like very little of what is out there. I
think good art (in the general sense) transcends genre. Perhaps, you haven't
read enough poetry to come across the good stuff. I particularly like Billy
Collins. RFB&D (now Learning Ally) has a book called "Sailing Alone Around
the Room." It's absolutely wonderful. Each piece is like a vignette, a slice
of life imbued with the author's humor perspectives and emotions. I'd love
to read it in Braille to see what he does with line breaks, but I would love
him, if he had written these in paragraph form.

Song lyrics are indeed poetry, and as a songwriter, I find that there are
very few percentage-wise that have any real significance to me. Fortunately,
there are many songs out there, and enough that I love and relate to to last
a lifetime. For me, it is the words that make or break a song. If a melody
is good, it doesn't need lyrics. If stupid words get written to that melody,
it's a shame or an eyebrow-raiser. If excellent words find an excellent
melody, that's heaven.


I think the only form of art that seems to have more winners than losers are
colonial and Victorian architecture and Renaissance and Baroque music. But,
maybe time has culled out the duds.
Donna
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Robert Leslie Newman
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2012 10:27 AM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: [stylist] Reflections on Bill's poem and poetry in general

Bill and others 

Bill- Your poem is one of the types of poetry that I can actually follow
from start to finish. And you know --- as I thought that last sentence out,
and am putting the rest of this paragraph together, I am --- wondering what
is in my makeup that can make it so that some poetry I can stick with and
feel that I can actually understand and perhaps even like? Mostly, I just
don't get what poets are getting at! Bill's type of writing constructs short
phrases consisting of wording that is for me, clear and it doesn't like hurt
my brain to fathom. In saying that, I mean, I usually cannot
follow-see-understand or like most poetry. Is it --- like taste, as in what
pleasures me? Is it a mind thing, as in that hard-wired ability to make
mental connections which end up in the understanding of the world? Or is it
a reflection of my world experience; the nature - nurture thing and this is
the experience/nurture part of it which makes it so I get or cannot get and
like poetry? Like I know there really is a very serious human thing in the
assents of the various forms of language be it spoken or sung or written ---
and yes, even in those other representative forms, like art as in painting,
sculpture, etc.  Yes, I'm wanting to like poetry. 

Another thought- to me, most song lyrics are like poetry; more
representative than actual story-line or conversational. Usually it is the
notes that move me, not the words. 

..The house is quiet, I sit at the kitchen table, the rain patters on the
roof, and I indulge in examination of me and life.



Robert Leslie Newman
Personal Website-
Adjustment To Blindness And Visual impairment
http//www.thoughtprovoker.info
NFB Writers' Division, president
http://www.nfb-writers-division.net 
Chair of the NFB Newsletter Publication Committee 



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