Intro Post from snowynight

[snowynight]

I am snowynight and I will be your host this week.I love poetry because something about how it plays with the language and condense idea and image fascinates me. I have read poetry since I was very young, and they still catch my imagination to this day.

This week I 'd like to share about China and its literary theory about poetry. I remember in one Chinese literature lesson, my professor shares with us about the famous Nineteen Old Poems, 古詩十九首. They have been regarded as influential in the development of poetry in Ancient China. Interestingly, some poems contains theme that are quite amoral considering their historical context, such as 青青河畔草 – Green, Green, Grass on the Riverbank, where the female narrator entertains thought of adultry. Or 今日良宴會 – Today we hold a splendid feast, where the narrator shares his ambition of striving for richness no matter the cost. These however didn't lessen their literary value in ancient Chinese's eyes because they 're honest to what the poets feel, and the honesty resonates with the readers even today. Honesty 's the baseline how a poem 's evaluated. To those interested, I find a translation to all 19 poems here.

Discussion: When you read or write poetry, what does honesty mean to you, and how does it factor into your appraciation or creation?

Comments

[jjhunter]

Interesting question! Honesty to me is entwined with audio metaphors: it has to do with listening for whether something rings 'true' or is somehow in dissonance with me or the voice I am crafting for a particular poem. Something can be true for the poem that is not true for me, sometimes, and in being honest to the integrity of the poem sometimes I have to put my self and my opinions to the side in order to 'hear' what that line of thought/emotion has to say and then amplify it effectively with my diction and the patterns with which I arrange my words.

Honesty also has a great deal to do with respect when I am incorporating others and others' cultures/background/experiences/stories into my own work. If I am not respectful and humble, then including such feels dishonest because I feel like I am stealing in some way without acknowledging where something(s) came from.

[snowynight]

Thanks for yor reply! It's very interesting to hear your definition of the term. I also agree that honesty mean a lot when dealing with the Other.

[bookblather]

I agree about respect being necessary to honesty. Otherwise it feels very much like cultural appropriation, and that leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

[lnhammer]

I very rarely concern myself with honesty, but instead focus on what's called "authenticity" in current theory. Where by "theory" I mean not critical theory by creative theory, as discussed by writers and poets. Does it feel authentic to human emotions, like the speaker is "real." Does it prove itself on the pulse, to mangle Keats's wording.

I've always liked the authenticity of the Nineteen Old Poems.

---L.

[jjhunter]

Intriguing distinction, and one that aligns well with what I discussed in my comment in the other thread. You did a better job of articulating it, methinks.

[lnhammer]

Is that a mustache and goatee on Ms Lisa?

---L.

[jjhunter]

Yes! It's a color version of L.H.O.O.Q., aka Duchamp's modified Mona Lisa. Good eye -- not many people notice the subtle joke.

(I like it because it's an onion of an icon. At the first level, people assume it's the straight Mona Lisa, and conclude that I like art history (true). At the second level, my fellow art history nerds recognize me for one of them, and even those who don't necessarily get the context still recognize that I have a working sense of humor and a playful, subversive bent that generally flies under the radar. At the third level, the really geeky art history people who are familiar with the 'L.H.O.O.Q.' joke start wondering why I'm smiling through the icon and then they subsequently start making flattering assumptions about my appearance that I will neither confirm nor deny.)

Hmm...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I deal with many layers and flavors of truth. For me, honesty in poetry is not about "The Truth" but about a truth, or a set of related truths. It is possible to examine an issue from different sides and describe conflicting truths. (For example, "Love is great" and "Love sucks" are both readily recognizable as true, for different circumstances.)

What I will not do, and resent when other poets do it, is deliberate falsehood or distortion of facts; or the attempted obliteration or damage to other people's truths.