deepundergroundpoetry.com
THE PRECIOUS PRESENT
THE PRECIOUS PRESENT
Enjoy your life and live for now;
The present yields your choice and joy.
It is the time when you can choose
all what you want to be amused.
You can weave actions as you like
and change the colour or the style.
You don't say if, or l wish that
it had been or if l'd have luck.
You fear the future that seems vague
with what the coming days intrigue
to strip you of what you have gained
to start anew when you are old.
You are my pleasure if l can
defeat the two foes that are cruel.
The past with its handwritten facts;
the future with its flailing whips.
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
____________________________________
.
Enjoy your life and live for now;
The present yields your choice and joy.
It is the time when you can choose
all what you want to be amused.
You can weave actions as you like
and change the colour or the style.
You don't say if, or l wish that
it had been or if l'd have luck.
You fear the future that seems vague
with what the coming days intrigue
to strip you of what you have gained
to start anew when you are old.
You are my pleasure if l can
defeat the two foes that are cruel.
The past with its handwritten facts;
the future with its flailing whips.
BY JOSEPH ZENIEH
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
____________________________________
.
Published 29th Sep 2021
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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Commenting Preference:
The author encourages honest critique.
30th Sep 2021 1:09am
"You can weave actions as you like
and change the colour or the style."
Did you mean to write "their colour" and "their style " (i.e. of actions that you say one can weave)? Your use of deixis here (THE colour, THE style) is poor writing since it cannot help but raise the question "the style and colour of what"?.
And if you did, do actions have colours, let alone ones that can be changed?
and change the colour or the style."
Did you mean to write "their colour" and "their style " (i.e. of actions that you say one can weave)? Your use of deixis here (THE colour, THE style) is poor writing since it cannot help but raise the question "the style and colour of what"?.
And if you did, do actions have colours, let alone ones that can be changed?
30th Sep 2021 11:27am
Dear Baldwin,
You weave actions, and they make you appear in a certain form and colour according to your actions. You can change your style from one form to another. Actually, my poetry is written for those who can understand poetry, and have deep, good feelings to understand it. It's not written for those whose feelings are mere grudges. Sorry, Baldwin.
You weave actions, and they make you appear in a certain form and colour according to your actions. You can change your style from one form to another. Actually, my poetry is written for those who can understand poetry, and have deep, good feelings to understand it. It's not written for those whose feelings are mere grudges. Sorry, Baldwin.
But you don't speak of a **person** changing colours or styles, let alone only appearing to do so. You speak of **actions** being made to do this. If you wanted to say that the actions that people engage in give persons certain colours (or more accurately, give their character certain hues), you haven't done so. To say that actions are things that can be acted upon by the same person who performs engages in them is an absurdity.
And who it is your poetry is written for has little to do with whether it is well written.
Now what about how your deixis not only is poor writing but serves to prevent those for whom you write from thinking that you write clearly and lack a sense of what you should have written if you wanted to convey more felicitously (and without imposing on readers the necessity of having to figure out what you were aiming at) the meaning that you thought your line conveyed.
In any case, thanks for sending me yet another attack upon my person instead of a thoughtful response that actually dealt with the points I raised in my message to you.
Perhaps you'll avoid the cheap shot and give me a straight answer to this question:
What deep meaning can a reader take from your submission?
And who it is your poetry is written for has little to do with whether it is well written.
Now what about how your deixis not only is poor writing but serves to prevent those for whom you write from thinking that you write clearly and lack a sense of what you should have written if you wanted to convey more felicitously (and without imposing on readers the necessity of having to figure out what you were aiming at) the meaning that you thought your line conveyed.
In any case, thanks for sending me yet another attack upon my person instead of a thoughtful response that actually dealt with the points I raised in my message to you.
Perhaps you'll avoid the cheap shot and give me a straight answer to this question:
What deep meaning can a reader take from your submission?
30th Sep 2021 3:51pm
Dear Baldwin,
1-Is there an action not related to a person? Are we talking about actions related to animals or the air?
2- ls there poetry without figuring out some ideas?
3- The meaning l give in my poem is to enjoy the present as much as one can.
1-Is there an action not related to a person? Are we talking about actions related to animals or the air?
2- ls there poetry without figuring out some ideas?
3- The meaning l give in my poem is to enjoy the present as much as one can.
"1-Is there an action not related to a person?"
Yes. But that's not the issue.
"Are we [??] talking about actions related to animals or the air?"
Given your syntax, you are talking about unspecified actions being acted upon.
"2- ls there poetry without [readers having to engage in] figuring out some ideas?"
Yes. Poetry is communication though the use of certain linguistic and literary features that leads people to see with their eyes shut and to experience something. And as Auden noted, it should be written at least as well as the best prose is written. To the extent that, because of the way you write, readers have to guess at /figure out for themselves what you intended to convey and do the work necessary to fill in any conceptual gaps or unexpressed thoughts that you manage to populate your submissions with, you've not only disrespected your readers by failing failed to communicate well, but have not done your job as a poet, let alone one who claims he wants to insure that his submissions are easily perceived as meaningful and things from which readers can derive deep meaning.
.
"3- The meaning l give in my poem is to enjoy the present as much as one can."
Did you mean that the **topic** of your submission is that people should enjoy the present since it is really all they have?
In any case, this isn't an answer to my question. I did not ask you what "meaning" you intended to present to readers. I asked what deep meaning they might be able to take away from your submission, especially if, as you imply, you wrote in a way that your idea could not be understood without readers working to figure out what it was.
And while I'm speaking about questions, let me ask you a "yes or no" one (that I'll wager you won't answer, or that if you do respond to it, it will be with a red herring):
Are the phrases "the colour" and "the style" in these lines of yours
" You can weave actions as you like
and change the colour or the style."
examples of deixis?
Yes. But that's not the issue.
"Are we [??] talking about actions related to animals or the air?"
Given your syntax, you are talking about unspecified actions being acted upon.
"2- ls there poetry without [readers having to engage in] figuring out some ideas?"
Yes. Poetry is communication though the use of certain linguistic and literary features that leads people to see with their eyes shut and to experience something. And as Auden noted, it should be written at least as well as the best prose is written. To the extent that, because of the way you write, readers have to guess at /figure out for themselves what you intended to convey and do the work necessary to fill in any conceptual gaps or unexpressed thoughts that you manage to populate your submissions with, you've not only disrespected your readers by failing failed to communicate well, but have not done your job as a poet, let alone one who claims he wants to insure that his submissions are easily perceived as meaningful and things from which readers can derive deep meaning.
.
"3- The meaning l give in my poem is to enjoy the present as much as one can."
Did you mean that the **topic** of your submission is that people should enjoy the present since it is really all they have?
In any case, this isn't an answer to my question. I did not ask you what "meaning" you intended to present to readers. I asked what deep meaning they might be able to take away from your submission, especially if, as you imply, you wrote in a way that your idea could not be understood without readers working to figure out what it was.
And while I'm speaking about questions, let me ask you a "yes or no" one (that I'll wager you won't answer, or that if you do respond to it, it will be with a red herring):
Are the phrases "the colour" and "the style" in these lines of yours
" You can weave actions as you like
and change the colour or the style."
examples of deixis?
30th Sep 2021 7:39pm
1- You try to define poetry according to this or that poet. For me poetry can't be defined. Each poet writes in his own style. What's important to me is to express deep, meaningful ideas in a beautiful style. Where is your poetry in general from these two items?
2- For me, poetry can contain figures of speech, images, similes, metaphors,...etc., so it is necessary at times to figure out some ideas.
3- I leave the yes/no question to you to answer, saying why.
2- For me, poetry can contain figures of speech, images, similes, metaphors,...etc., so it is necessary at times to figure out some ideas.
3- I leave the yes/no question to you to answer, saying why.
"1- You try to define poetry according to this or that poet."
Yes, and definitions of what poetry is and what it aims at from Pulitzer Prize winning poets have more than a little weight (especially given their track record of publication and professional accolades over against yours [cue the irrelevant tu quoque response to this remark about my track record]) and are certainly worth trying.
"For me poetry can't be defined".
If it can't be defined, then it is impossible to distinguish it from any other type of writing and therefore no one would ever be able to say, "Ah look, here's a poem, and not a piece of graffiti or a traffic light" and be right in their declaration.
"What's important to me is to express deep, meaningful ideas in a beautiful style."
So you recognize that there IS such a thing as a "beautiful style" and that it is a feature of poetry. But if poetry can't be defined, then how do you know how it should be written, let alone that what you write IS poetry no matter what kind of ideas you express and what style you employ to express them?
More importantly, the question is not only what you think this "beautiful style" looks like, but whether what you write possesses and displays it.
"For me, poetry can contain figures of speech, images, similes, metaphors,...etc., so it is necessary at times to figure out some ideas."
But metaphors and images and similes -- which you rarely if ever employ -- are literary devices that have, when used properly, the function of clarifying and making more vividly concrete and understandable what one is speaking about. They do not make aspects of what one is writing about something that has to be figured out.
"3- I leave the yes/no question to you to answer, saying why."
And just as I predicted, here's a dodge of my yes or no question. What's here -- i.e., a text book example of use of the fallacy known as shifting the burden of proof -- is something that strongly indicates that J-Z doesn't know what deixis (something which I've explained to him a number of times) is , what it does in a reader's mind when used, and how it is a mark that a speaker/writer does not know how (or care) to communicate well with an audience.
Cue the ad hominem and the tu quoque.
Yes, and definitions of what poetry is and what it aims at from Pulitzer Prize winning poets have more than a little weight (especially given their track record of publication and professional accolades over against yours [cue the irrelevant tu quoque response to this remark about my track record]) and are certainly worth trying.
"For me poetry can't be defined".
If it can't be defined, then it is impossible to distinguish it from any other type of writing and therefore no one would ever be able to say, "Ah look, here's a poem, and not a piece of graffiti or a traffic light" and be right in their declaration.
"What's important to me is to express deep, meaningful ideas in a beautiful style."
So you recognize that there IS such a thing as a "beautiful style" and that it is a feature of poetry. But if poetry can't be defined, then how do you know how it should be written, let alone that what you write IS poetry no matter what kind of ideas you express and what style you employ to express them?
More importantly, the question is not only what you think this "beautiful style" looks like, but whether what you write possesses and displays it.
"For me, poetry can contain figures of speech, images, similes, metaphors,...etc., so it is necessary at times to figure out some ideas."
But metaphors and images and similes -- which you rarely if ever employ -- are literary devices that have, when used properly, the function of clarifying and making more vividly concrete and understandable what one is speaking about. They do not make aspects of what one is writing about something that has to be figured out.
"3- I leave the yes/no question to you to answer, saying why."
And just as I predicted, here's a dodge of my yes or no question. What's here -- i.e., a text book example of use of the fallacy known as shifting the burden of proof -- is something that strongly indicates that J-Z doesn't know what deixis (something which I've explained to him a number of times) is , what it does in a reader's mind when used, and how it is a mark that a speaker/writer does not know how (or care) to communicate well with an audience.
Cue the ad hominem and the tu quoque.
