why do endless comps exist?
You have misunderstood my complaint completely. I am not complaining about things I haven't tried. I am complaining about categorizing something that is not a competition as though it were a competition.
The fact that I mentioned that I don't read things or enter comps or challenges has nothing to do with the point of this thread. When I look through the list of comps, I look for an interesting title that I feel might inspire me to write a poem. 3-5-3 does nothing to inspire anything in me, but hat's beside the point. The reason I started this is because I don't want to sift through dozens of non-competitive challenges to find actual competitions.
Their existence doesn't bother me at all and I have not in any way suggested they should not exist. I made it quite clear that hey should simply have a different category. If I go to the store to buy apples but all of the fruit is piled into one bin, I am not going to be happy that I have to dig through a mountain of oranges and bananas and grapefruit and peaches and nectarines and every other variety of apple that exists to find the one kind of apple I enjoy eating. Never ending challenges are a fine thing, I just have no interest in participating in them. They have just as much a right to exist as comps with winners selected, but they are a different flavor of fruit.
JJ
Atakti said:For the love of words.
I find myself bemused that you complain about something you haven't tried. I write free verse 99% of the time, but once in a while will take part in these challenges. If writing free is whipping down the open road, perhaps restricted writing is an engine inspection. Like those amazing guys that can strip a car down to nuts and bolts, poets can check the parts, re-align the smallest thoughts, and put it all back together again.
OK so endless comps could be renamed challenges, point taken. Also, I agree, it would be cool to see more discussion threads, but not esoteric ones about what DU is or isn't, I feel those tend to be self-defeating.
Thanks for the concern! What goodies can you bring to the party?
The fact that I mentioned that I don't read things or enter comps or challenges has nothing to do with the point of this thread. When I look through the list of comps, I look for an interesting title that I feel might inspire me to write a poem. 3-5-3 does nothing to inspire anything in me, but hat's beside the point. The reason I started this is because I don't want to sift through dozens of non-competitive challenges to find actual competitions.
Their existence doesn't bother me at all and I have not in any way suggested they should not exist. I made it quite clear that hey should simply have a different category. If I go to the store to buy apples but all of the fruit is piled into one bin, I am not going to be happy that I have to dig through a mountain of oranges and bananas and grapefruit and peaches and nectarines and every other variety of apple that exists to find the one kind of apple I enjoy eating. Never ending challenges are a fine thing, I just have no interest in participating in them. They have just as much a right to exist as comps with winners selected, but they are a different flavor of fruit.
JJ
Atakti said:For the love of words.
I find myself bemused that you complain about something you haven't tried. I write free verse 99% of the time, but once in a while will take part in these challenges. If writing free is whipping down the open road, perhaps restricted writing is an engine inspection. Like those amazing guys that can strip a car down to nuts and bolts, poets can check the parts, re-align the smallest thoughts, and put it all back together again.
OK so endless comps could be renamed challenges, point taken. Also, I agree, it would be cool to see more discussion threads, but not esoteric ones about what DU is or isn't, I feel those tend to be self-defeating.
Thanks for the concern! What goodies can you bring to the party?
Atakti said:
Sure, poetry offers much to those who write. Poets can do that offline. On this interactive poetry site though, we can challenge and encourage each other - comments, comps, exercises and discussions. What is it exactly that you think needs to change? You seem very passionate about how to define poetry.
I don’t have a passion for definitions but maybe you perceive one lurking.
(God forbid)
On the other hand I note your division into poetical activity outside DU and such activity within it. Is that so? If yes, should such a division exist? (apart from the "interaction" stuff, that is).
I may have misunderstood this place as being not solely for the benefit of poets but also of the general public. So discussions (and poems) towards that end would be welcome (and you already indicated so).
Of course I know that poetry's dirty secret is that it is only read by poets, but it was not always so. Poetical concern, imo, has turned its back to people's needs and aspirations. It pretends to be esoteric and self-defining. Its subject matter is always the self and it doesn't even do a good job out of it or achieve any artistic result to write home about. Why should anyone care to read poetry at the end of the day?
In short, social life is mainly about politics. Sorry, for another dirty word, but poetry (at least that of the English speaking world) has become non political, in a distorted effort of self-purification.
On a more technical note (outside comps which could be classified as the "undeclared" 15th big category), yes, categorizing poetic output in 14 sub-categories is a little restricting to say the least. What are we after here? 14 straitjackets? In my mind it is completely artificial and arbitrary. Every human brain's poetic output is a category in itself by the very nature of it.
Why should I not view these artificial divisions as super market labels: Cheese, pasta, meet, sugar etc, will suffice equally well, but DU is not the worst in the market; I know of another place where poetry has only two headings: Erotic & Non-Erotic, so I'm not really that desperate in here.
So, I would propose a brand new category: "Politics and Sex" poems. (Don't tell me that it is already provided for cause it isn't, and of course, I had to put "sex" in it for how else could it be a popular category?)
Finally, as an example, quoting historian Michael Wood from BBC History Magazine-June 2015 (page 21), you may see a relevance to my point about politics and poetry:
"I dreamed that Greece might yet be free," Byron had written on the battlefield of Marathon, reflecting on the paradox that the English heirs of Greece (as he saw the Philhellenes, those fascinated by Greek culture) were free but the Greeks themselves were slaves. It was one of those moments where poetry did indeed help change the world, giving a voice to European philhellenism and in the end prodding the Europeans to direct military intervention in order to create an independent state.
P.S sorry JJ, you made very good points which have nothing to do with the ones I raised, so perhaps your thread has been not taken in your intended direction, but that's how conversations progress, and I believe that still is not irrelevant to raise my points in your thread,cause I think it is a good point that Atakti made: To challenge each other, so thanks for the hospitality.
Sure, poetry offers much to those who write. Poets can do that offline. On this interactive poetry site though, we can challenge and encourage each other - comments, comps, exercises and discussions. What is it exactly that you think needs to change? You seem very passionate about how to define poetry.
I don’t have a passion for definitions but maybe you perceive one lurking.
(God forbid) On the other hand I note your division into poetical activity outside DU and such activity within it. Is that so? If yes, should such a division exist? (apart from the "interaction" stuff, that is).
I may have misunderstood this place as being not solely for the benefit of poets but also of the general public. So discussions (and poems) towards that end would be welcome (and you already indicated so).
Of course I know that poetry's dirty secret is that it is only read by poets, but it was not always so. Poetical concern, imo, has turned its back to people's needs and aspirations. It pretends to be esoteric and self-defining. Its subject matter is always the self and it doesn't even do a good job out of it or achieve any artistic result to write home about. Why should anyone care to read poetry at the end of the day?
In short, social life is mainly about politics. Sorry, for another dirty word, but poetry (at least that of the English speaking world) has become non political, in a distorted effort of self-purification.
On a more technical note (outside comps which could be classified as the "undeclared" 15th big category), yes, categorizing poetic output in 14 sub-categories is a little restricting to say the least. What are we after here? 14 straitjackets? In my mind it is completely artificial and arbitrary. Every human brain's poetic output is a category in itself by the very nature of it.
Why should I not view these artificial divisions as super market labels: Cheese, pasta, meet, sugar etc, will suffice equally well, but DU is not the worst in the market; I know of another place where poetry has only two headings: Erotic & Non-Erotic, so I'm not really that desperate in here.
So, I would propose a brand new category: "Politics and Sex" poems. (Don't tell me that it is already provided for cause it isn't, and of course, I had to put "sex" in it for how else could it be a popular category?)
Finally, as an example, quoting historian Michael Wood from BBC History Magazine-June 2015 (page 21), you may see a relevance to my point about politics and poetry:
"I dreamed that Greece might yet be free," Byron had written on the battlefield of Marathon, reflecting on the paradox that the English heirs of Greece (as he saw the Philhellenes, those fascinated by Greek culture) were free but the Greeks themselves were slaves. It was one of those moments where poetry did indeed help change the world, giving a voice to European philhellenism and in the end prodding the Europeans to direct military intervention in order to create an independent state.
P.S sorry JJ, you made very good points which have nothing to do with the ones I raised, so perhaps your thread has been not taken in your intended direction, but that's how conversations progress, and I believe that still is not irrelevant to raise my points in your thread,cause I think it is a good point that Atakti made: To challenge each other, so thanks for the hospitality.
Peter_Pan said:[quote-303071-slowgasm]What about comps that end but no award given what do we do with those?
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/forum/competitions/read/8080/
What would YOU do to the host who abandoned the party?
Set up a comp "roast the lost host" and ask for poems of revenge.
The abandoned comps eventually hit the voting list.[/quote]
But once a comp hits the vote list, we can only have 5 in vote status at a time, and for some reason it takes weeks and even months to vote one to closure. The more members that participate in voting, will help them to move off the list faster, though.
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/forum/competitions/read/8080/
What would YOU do to the host who abandoned the party?
Set up a comp "roast the lost host" and ask for poems of revenge.
The abandoned comps eventually hit the voting list.[/quote]
But once a comp hits the vote list, we can only have 5 in vote status at a time, and for some reason it takes weeks and even months to vote one to closure. The more members that participate in voting, will help them to move off the list faster, though.
I think you've raised an excellent point Poetryman.
The solution and outcome, in time mind you, is either re-format DU so that endless competitions are made into a new self-standing category something along the lines of 'endless games' to avoid linguistic errors, or stay as endless competitions in the competitions in an oddball and unorthodox way.
Either way it sounds like the endless comps need an award and medal system, so that if you contribute 'x' amount of posts to the competition you get an award in recognition.
The first idea of making the endless comps a stand-alone section seems the best idea, given the popularity and lengthy nature of them. As of now they are somewhat lost to time in the competitions section.
Though of course bear in mind that it seems the Webmistress, Hallowed be Her Title, has already plans to reformat DU concerning how it looks on devices, so this idea will most likely be delayed. Yet when the Webmistress, Divine of DU, delivers it is mana from above.
The solution and outcome, in time mind you, is either re-format DU so that endless competitions are made into a new self-standing category something along the lines of 'endless games' to avoid linguistic errors, or stay as endless competitions in the competitions in an oddball and unorthodox way.
Either way it sounds like the endless comps need an award and medal system, so that if you contribute 'x' amount of posts to the competition you get an award in recognition.
The first idea of making the endless comps a stand-alone section seems the best idea, given the popularity and lengthy nature of them. As of now they are somewhat lost to time in the competitions section.
Though of course bear in mind that it seems the Webmistress, Hallowed be Her Title, has already plans to reformat DU concerning how it looks on devices, so this idea will most likely be delayed. Yet when the Webmistress, Divine of DU, delivers it is mana from above.
Yes, a dash of idiocy it seems. I completely blanked the "competitions" link, though the endless comp sifting still exists in the "forum: competitions" link. There is now an anti-endless problem as within the "competitions" link the endless comps are relegated to the 2nd page to clog that up.
Praise be! The Divine Sight is upon our words. Our kinda pointless words given the simple solution sated above by the Webmistress.
Praise be! The Divine Sight is upon our words. Our kinda pointless words given the simple solution sated above by the Webmistress.
I never got past the first few pages of comps and gave up not realizing that the 9 pages of comps after the first page of actual competitions were all endless. The first page is really the only page of the comps. I guess it makes sense that there would be so many pages of endless comps, since they just keep piling up and never end. But I still don't get the point of calling them competitions. For some reason I am even more annoyed by the idea that there is only one page of competitive competitions and 9 pages of poetry challenges that will never go away and just keep piling up forever. It's like ancient cemeteries that stack generations of bodies on top of he old ones...
It was always "competitions and challenges" but that's too long a term for a navigation link.
The full forum title/description states:
DU Poetry Competitions Forum
Challenges set by members
Sounds like there's a usability issue here as people haven't been able to easily find what they were looking for. Perhaps both links should default to showing "ending soonest".
The full forum title/description states:
DU Poetry Competitions Forum
Challenges set by members
Sounds like there's a usability issue here as people haven't been able to easily find what they were looking for. Perhaps both links should default to showing "ending soonest".
