C.K. Williams: Poetry for all seasons of life

[crudhousefull]

Some of the 'big' words he used made me cringe lol

[cathime]

a remarkable collection -- powerful, moving, engaging, inviting, memorable

[Cannibalzz]

This guy has great work- reminiscent of a young Wesley Willis

[marrietta09]

I do not think Williams is mediocre - I believe the point of writing is to create an experience for the reader, to communicate an emotional experience, not to be didactic and tell them how to think about something.

[hopkins4545]

Williams is a mediocre poet and sort of creepy

[Kimmathykay]

What book is this from? I must have it!

[Kimmathykay]

"This Happened" - Amazing!

[laurencecooper]

very annoying intro music - please change

[oddsource]

great poet... post modernism at its finest.

[72ve17]

wished he memorized his poetry so hecould pay more attention to the audience ( than looking down on his cheat cheat ) and its much professional that way

[Airave]

Grace is a Wonderful Thing!

As is Rocking Rhythms

with Human Passion.

Harlets shall stir Forever

and so should it be. Amen.

Release, Relief, Reproduction.

And Love.

[dorotwhy]

"This Happened" no words can express the way this poem reach inside me and grabbed. Tears.

[Cannibalzz]

I thought the first poem was great. After a while his style started to sound a bit repetitive.

[Dhragonfly]

why the f*ck is the video upside down?!

[ellynx85]

aprils fool!! hahah

[satyadao]

lol pranked?

[Dhragonfly]

@satyadao i didn't know it was possible to be pranked on youtube. aside from rick roll'd

[BERSERKERpoetry]

This is why people hate poetry. Rantings of pure indulgence and of no interest. Good for a tongue-in-cheek memoir, but hardly enough to raise an eyebrow as poetry. Hardly of any value whatsoever.

[CaptainZeep]

Pretty dismal stuff.

[Shalek]

I've been drenched in emotion.

[nashixe]

I find his scatological references too frequent in his work

[fassoulia]

2001!

[DevilOfTheLight]

Thats not poetry... Wtf?

[robillard130]

u obviously don't know anything about poetry

[DevilOfTheLight]

And you obviously dont know anything about grammar.

[agpshadow]

ZZzzzzZZZzzz

[purv989]

I wish more people agreed with Frost about poetry. "Writing prose is like playing tennis with the net down". It's too easy and boring.

[warwize]

Wow, awesome quote. Lol.

I should check out Frost more. I usually get bored with prose unless the author has some poetic aptitude.

[Chikinstick]

Absolutely incredible writing. He paints a very vivid picture in all of his poems that I can almost imagine myself living inside of them.

[Nihawmah]

REDNECK?

[airdreamlove]

I like the second one about the dresses.

[GrimSoul66]

ZZzzzzZZZzzz

[Chepsylogy]

Reminds me of my grandpa. Sweet!

[jabawisperill]

right on!

[Zetimenvec]

I rather dislike poetry, specially when it flows abnormally. It's like writing normally but you're too lazy to actually follow the forms of proper writing.

[Zetimenvec]

lol, isn't a bit silly to downthumb an opinionated statement?

[rkullberg]

Yes, but even more silly to downthumb a question.

[Mustahukkak]

A poet is too lazy to follow the forms of proper writing? Seriously? Poetry is a celebration of language, a play with words and sounds. Poetry creates and transcends lanugage. Be assured that in a good poem every word that is there, or isn't, is for a reason, and it has been put there with precision and elegance that is unheard of in regular prose.

[Zetimenvec]

no, poetry is a mockery of language. People who write poetry rarely have intention in every word, and the public who thinks they can find some hidden meaning are just deluding themselves. Poetry is popular because it's vague. That allows people to relate to it without the poet saying anything at all.

It's the same reason why so many girls fall for characterizations of enigmatic fictional characters. Most relevant example is that vampire guy from that twilight movie/book.

[Mustahukkak]

You obviusly are close minded, ignorant and arrogant. That is a deadly combination my friend, get over yourself.

[Zetimenvec]

I can see arrogant, but everything else is a non sequitur, and my arrogance only falls into the category of opinions. Whenever someone can drop some verifiable information on the table, my stature changes dramatically.

and in my opinion you're romanticizing a lazy art.

[Mustahukkak]

There is hardly any room for arrogance in facts. Ignorance comes from your lack of underestanding the structure and theories behind poetry. Close mindedness from your unwillingess to look at the issue from a different angle: you believe that an art form that has survived over millenia and is held dear by intellectuals is but a lazy sham, I would like to claim some sort of authority here, as I am a literature major. read a book on, say, metaphors and tell me that building them well is lazy.

[Zetimenvec]

oh dear, I seem to have struck a nerve of some sort. Metaphors are not a difficult thing to concoct. I will say that a simile is much easier in contrast. To write a poem thatll be received well all you have to do is be vague and use a lot of verbs. Even if you don't intentionally have a metaphor in there, someone will find one. let me show you

As a pit grew, great and steady

A chill fell, shallow and long

We grasped against the feeble air

but sadly no one there was able

to see the solemn glare

[Mustahukkak]

I grow tired of this conversation as it's not going anywhere. You despise what you don't underestand. How about this: you withdraw back to your misguided sense of superiority, I to my feeble-minded, meaningless poetry

[Zetimenvec]

I'm not saying it's meaningless, far from it. What I'm saying is that it's lazy. The value or meaning in poetry however doesn't come from the poet, instead it comes from the reader which gives it meaning to them, so that's exactly my point; That the poet is not the important aspect in the poem itself. They could've written anything and as long as it's vague, Which most poetry is, it'll be well received by other people.

[Mustahukkak]

That's just bullshit really. Sure there are overrated poets and poems, just as well as in any other art there are overrated things. But judging the whole media as fundamentally stupid because of that is like saying that music is a lazy art form because people like 50-cent.

[Zetimenvec]

I don't think there's a ratio of overrated poetry to professional poets like there is in any other art industry. If true that means that the fundamentals of poetry are not well understood such that people can't learn it effectively, poetry is a baseless art in such a way that it can't be done properly, poetry is a completely subjective art and the quality of poetry changes very little when you make the move from enthusiast to professional, or the some extra alternative I haven't considered.

[Mustahukkak]

All art is, as an expression of emotion, fundamentally subjective. Sure you can nail the techique in anything, but that doesn't make you an artist, it makes you a performer. Trying to create a difference between professional art and the art of an enthustiac is futile and demonstrates a materially based point of view. Kafka's books were never published during his lifetime, he didn't make a living by writing them: does that make his writing unprofessional and thus ultimately devoid of value?

[Zetimenvec]

no, I wasn't using the term professional as a way to lay down an iron curtain of standards and value. I was using it as a generalization, a way to simply what I was saying because being professional does retain slightly higher quality than just an enthusiast in almost all forms of art. I meant nothing more.

[Zetimenvec]

simplify*

[EvilSatanBox]

This particular poet is not the best example, but in many of the greatest English poems each word is deliberately selected for its literal and figurative meaning, its emotional impact, its etymology, its connotations and associations, the sound of it and so on. Yes, there's lots of lazy poetry out there, but there are also many poets who put painstaking effort into their work in order to convey a very specific meaning. Many of the greatest English poems are the opposite of vague.

[Zetimenvec]

now, I had absolutely no intention in that poem whatsoever because all I did was try to be vague, and I'm sure that someone can come up with some condeluded metaphor hidden in what I'm saying somewhere. It's not that great of a poem I'll admit, but I've seen professional stuff of this level. If an industry that's lasted for "over a millenia" is professionally of this quality, then my point still stands.

by the way, this is not a fact. This is opinion, and your failure to recognize that says...

[DAMOCLIES]

poetry pisses me the fuck off.

[kkrizzz]

How?!

[DerFlo4711]

I can relate!

[garvess]

You have to give it your undivided attention, think about it and understand it to appreciate it.

[zombiesmasher]

Beautiful!

[1trip711]

Pepe poo poo

[reliablebow]

very sweet, made me take notice with ease

[nasiayam327]

Poetry? great work but talented that he has to be anyway, good job and great strength in getting message across artistically.