POETRY AND LANGUAGE

Your poetry does reflect a warm and a little bit vulnerable soul. )

Thank you very much, Boyana, for your read and comment. I appreciate your viewpoint.

"I chase clear notions not mere words  
that make my lines so nicely dressed  
and proud of their bombastic sounds,  
but their vague sense is scarcely guessed."  
 
This is poorly written nonsense.  
 
Leaving aside the facts (1) that it is the use of evocative and grammatically sound and felicitous language, not notions, (which have to be articulated in words to be grasped) that "dress up" lines in a poem nicely (i.e., make them worth reading) and (2)  that unless words are spoken out loud by someone, they don't have sounds, your syntax makes you say that your lines are proud of the fact that they " sound important but have no real meaning" (https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/bombastic).  
 
And given what appears to be your claim that your lines are nicely dressed (whatever that means) , it is also presumptuous.

"When words come frankly from the heart,  
they hold a treasure clear and warm."  
 
This, too, is nonsense. Not all words that come frankly from the heart are treasurable, let alone warm (or poetic).  Deeply felt expressions of hatred and that someone should be sexually degraded are not.  And their purpose is not to find a contenting home. It is cause harm.

Dear Baldwin,
1- Who said that words have sounds by themselves except you. Isn't there a reader to read them?
2- Can you explain to me where l said that my lines are proud?
3- The second message is a complete nonsense. Read it again, you will find out that it is.

"Dear Baldwin,  
1- Who said that words have sounds by themselves except you. Isn't there a reader to read them?"  
 
I did NOT say that words have sounds by themselves.  I said that they only have sounds when they are read by a reader.  Thanks for misreading what I wrote,  for basing your attempt to show that I said something stupid on that misreading and not on what I actually said.  and for providing more evidence that you are incapable of reading clearly what is said to you.  
   
"2- Can you explain to me where l said that my lines are proud?"    
   
One does not explain where something is said.  One points it out.  
    
In any case, did you mean to say "Can you explain to me how one could take what I wrote as saying that my lines take pride in being bombastic."?
   
Furthermore,  what you conveyed with your words was that the notions that you "chase" after make **the lines** that you try to express these notions in are not only ones that are well written ("dressed up nicely"  but proud of how bombastic (and therefore without meaning) they are.  
   
"3- The second message is a  [sic] complete nonsense. Read it again, you will find out that it is."  
   
So, leaving aside the fact that a message is either "complete nonsense" or it is not, you are asserting that if I (or you) said  "F U" to someone  I (or you)  was deeply (and justifiably) angry with never comes from deep within my (or your) heart and that fighting words like these are never the opposite of warm?

If I were truthful to myself  
I would admit  
the notions that I often “chase”  
 
(for instance, how an afterlife  
makes living now worthwhile;    
how Jesus is the source  
of human happiness  
how “man”s” desire for sex  
and wealth leads to calamity)  
   
when I intend to write some poetry  
are not all by themselves articulate  
or meaningful or treasure-filled,    
or when they're  ranked against  
some other notions people have  
in any way premier  
   
How could they be?  
   
For they're abstractions, solipsistic too
until I flesh them out    
in verses on a page (or upon a screen)  
and only then have weight and heft  
to move a reader to  agree they're worth
considering
If  these verses are then shaped  
by  phrases sumptuous,    
linguistically provocative, evocative,  
and clear  
   
and thus, unless they are,  
they don’t come near    
to “dressing up”  
the lines that I’m intent to write  
to make what’s now abstract  
concrete.  
   
And what is shown  
when I my notions finally formalize  
and concretize in only would-be rhythmed,  
force rhymed  lines  
of heart sourced words  
that typically stylistically  are not well graced,  
finessed,  
with literary skill and literary art  
or verbal elegance?  
   
It’s that I am content  
to write bombastically,  
and proud to let my readers know  
how much I lack  
inditing competence.

as Kant would note:  
 
Notions don’t dress up one’s lines  
let alone in niceties.  
 
It’s only when a notion’s sheathed in words  
that this occurs  
 
and then, unless  these words  
are shaped, construed, to sparkle verbally  
when they’re set out together each to each  
and peak in their arrangements on a page
without displaying solecisms or
some ghastly breaches
of good grammar’s golden rules  
or use of awkward phrases too  
that mars a poem’s prosody  
 
they’ll show  
a would-be, braggart  poet up  
as talentless, possessing no ability  
to fain construct a work  
that has a chance of being captivating,  
magical, so wondrous to a reader’s eyes  
as something worth remaining in  
a reader’s memory.  
 
P.S.  Thanks for the inspiration.

N.B. Don't mention it, my very dear friend, Baldwin.

How about showing me (in some detail) how and why my submission above is (or is not) a well-written piece, not to mention one that in terms of poetic art is (or is not) better than your "Poetry and Language" (which BTW does not seem to say much about how or why, to be poetry,  a writing has to display compelling language).

To tell you the truth, Baldwin, l consider your writing here does not have any relationship to poetry, and l am not ready to waste a second commenting on it. My time is very valuable to me.

But it fulfills all of **your** stated criteria for what a writing has to have in order for it to be poetry (i.e.,  a good subject --which it has since it is centered in, and is the same as,  one which you obviously feel is good).  good rhythm, and beautiful, not to mention witty,  language..  So, unless you want to open yourself up to the charge of being a hypocrite and a person who operates from a double standard),  you contradict yourself when you say that my submission has no relationship with poetry.

If I were to wager why you said that doing what I asked you to do  

(i.e., provide me with an honest and articulate critique of my submission) and thereby show me that you are the friend that you say you are since friends answer requests)  

would be a waste of your time,  I'd say that it was because you don't want to admit that my piece is linguistically and artistically better than your "poetry and Language" piece is and that you lack the talent to articulate why this isn't so if you think it's not.  

And as to your time, you seem to have enough of it to thank those who offer you praise not to mention to compose and post things in which your goal is to get rhymes rather than to actually deal with the subjects that the tiles you give your pieces promise you are going to be dealing with.

"[Words] seek a place that speaks their tongue    
and find it must be like their home."    
    
Even assuming (1) that words have their own language rather than that they are the elements of the vocabulary of a spoken /written language, and 2) that words are capable of intention, let alone have desires to obtain something,    what if their "home" is the speech of racists and supremacists and hate mongers and anti-Semites and pornographers?  Are they then things that hold "a treasure clear and warm"?

One more thing about your question-begging claim:

Is it not true
that often the outstanding place  
where words abide
and find their home’s within
are rants that come from hate-filled mouths
intent to slur, malign
what’s fine in other’s eyes,
to spur some people from
among the ignorant and misinformed
and prejudiced
to sin?

If you say "no",,
you show yourself  
so  wrong,
so Hallmark greeting card naive
that what you claim about  the character of words
is something that should never be
believed.

P.S.  Do you have any evidence that this piece does not deal with a subject that you think is an important one,  is not well set out metrically, and does not possess some sparkling language?  

My money is on the fact that you do not. But you could always prove me wrong by demonstrating (not asserting)  that this piece does not have the things that you yourself have stipulated a writing must have for it to be considered poetry.

Thank you very much, Lozzamus. It's really very kind of you.