Tales of Camelot

For sure.    
On the other hand    
it could equally  
potentially be  
there were unusual amounts    
of valor  
for the setting of  
time and place  
The mists of time tell us    
Supposition is valid.  
 
(Schrodinger's king?)  
🙃🙂

Thank you for your comment.  But speculation about what Arhtur's time may or may not have been like is not what I asked for when I said I wanted honest criticism -- i.e., articulate, evidence-backed statements about how and why the piece does (or does not) show poetic art and is (or is not) effective poetry.

It's, it's not criticism, honest or otherwise. Why must a statement be taken as criticism. That is not the only thing these comment boxes are for.

In this case it was just a random thought delightedly expressed for no other reason than that I wholeheartedly enjoyed the thoughts that your poem causes me to think. I like myth! I like religion! I like stories. I like fiction. I like truth. And I like everything in between!

If you don't want anyone to comment unless it's actually a critical (pro or con) remark in the poem, you ought to post a disclaimer below each of your poems. Otherwise people might post remarks meaning to be happy and friendly, not realizing that you don't wish to see such. If indeed that is the case.

"It's, it's [sic] not criticism, honest or otherwise. Why must a statement be taken as criticism.[sic  ?] "

What I said was that your statement of delight -- which I appreciate -- was not what I requested from readers .

And what part of the request for  "honest **critique**   -- i.e., articulate analysis of how and why a piece is (or isn't) well-written (which BTW appears at the top of the post)  -- is unclear?

I'm so surprised;
where is the poetry in what
You mention here?
You wonder if those people of past times
were as great as
what that thick mist of time could reveal them
or they were as you here suppose:
they were like most of those
we see in our present days.

Those characters have proved for long
they have been able to defy
all those long  years
whereas when we see what you write
we find it's void of any sense
that can convey it from today
to reach tomorrow that beholds
it with nausea and disgust
as you leave all the urgent thoughts
and look at this vapid import.

Given how Cloven_Zonkle reacted to my piece, it's hardly "devoid of any sense".  What's more, it's full of what you say a writing has to contain to be poetry -- imaginings.  That these imaginings do not please you is not proof that there's no poetry in what I "mention" in my piece, let alone that my piece is not poetry.

BTW, you show in what you write that your grasp of how to write good English is tenuous when you write

"You wonder if those people of past times
were as great as
what that thick mist of time could reveal them"

You should have written

"You wonder if those people of past times
were as great as
what that thick mist of time could reveal them ** to have been**"

for your lines to approach intelligibility.

And what I actually said was that the mists of time may have worked **to cover up** what they might really have been.  So once again you also show that you put words in my mouth and use what I did NOT say as the basis of your unfounded critique.

And what on earth is a "vapid import"

In any case, perhaps you'll show readers here what a poem about the denizens of Camelot should look like.

"Those characters have proved for long
they have been able to defy
all those long  years"

This is nonsense. The characters I speak of are dust.  So there is no way that they could defy anything.  It's the memory of them that has been kept alive by writers  whose subject was/is "the matter of Britain"  And if you'd take the time to read what these writers wrote about the figures that are or come to be central to the Matter of Britain (Lancelot does not appear in the stories of Camelot told by the earliest tradents of the tradition),  you'd see that the tales of Arthur and company are not consistent in their presentations of what their subject's character was like or how (and for what)  they should be remembered  

And what's with the deixis in your lines?

1- TO HAVE BEEN: is not necessary. The meaning is quite clear without it.
2- The mist of time revealed them in a way, and you suppose they were different. This is what l mention in my poem.

"1- TO HAVE BEEN: is not necessary. The meaning is quite clear without it."

No, it's not.

"2- The mist of time revealed them in a way, "

In **what** way?

"and you suppose [that] they were different."

I don't suppose anything.  I ask whether the mists of time have polished their images to be brighter than they actually may have been..

" This is what l mention in my poem."

What you mention in your submission (which is not filled with great imaginings) is that I

"... wonder if those people of past times
were as great as
what that thick mist of time could reveal them".

But this is not what I did.  And I did not speak of the "thick mists of time", let alone of  "them" having a revelatory function.

Old Joseph-Z
has charged me with
indecency
because I dared to  wondered if
the denizens of Camelot
were who he knew

without familiarity with sources that
are ancient
and thought primary

like those of Nennius and Gildas and
the Historia Brittonum or then
the Annales Cambriae,
poetic sources, too,
like triads Welsh
and then Y Gododdin
in which the legends grew

they had to be.

He does not know
that I am not alone in doing so.

In century 18th
the writer Thomas Percy called
queen  Guinevere
‘a bitch, a witch, a bold faced whore”

Other poets, tradents, too
have labeled them
as characters of shame
.
The substance of the stories told
through history
have changed.
They’re not, regarding who king Arthur was
or Lancelot
the Table’s mates,
and Guinevere,
consistent with themselves
and in regards to any glory that
we think these figures sure possessed
are often contradictory.

Dear Baldwin, sir,  
I don't care if these ancient characters could be  
good people or most horrid ones  
but what l said was that  
they could stay for so long  
from ancient years till now  
such famous sorts of characters  
that people liked to read about.  
I liked to compare ancient arts  
with what is written nowadays  
In our present time.  
Will the new writers have the chance  
to make their writings stay as long  
if they keep writing such nonsense.

Where did I say that the characters I speak of are no longer written about or no longer of interest to anyone?    
 
"what l said was that    
they could stay for so long    
from ancient years till now    
such famous sorts of characters    
that people liked to read about. "    
   
Actually, this is not what you said.  What you said was  
 
"Those characters have proved for long  
they have been able to defy  
all those long years".  
 
which is nonsense for the reasons I already gave you.  
    
And what's with "they **could** stay for so long"?    Not only do you need to say where "they" could stay "for so long" for this remark to be intelligible, but you should also have said "they have long remained (and still remain) a subject of writers' imaginations " as well as given a reason why they "could" stay for so long where ever it was/is that they have "stayed", to show that your grasp of how to frame your intended point in coherent and intelligible  English is as good as you think it is.    
   
Moreover, if what you intended to say was that these characters would not have remained over time a subject of interest if they had not originally been as glorious as you think they were,  you haven't said it.  Furthermore, this claim is not true.  Lots of ancient people who were anything but glorious have been and remain of great interest to readers and writers    
   
And what nonsense is "such" nonsense when compared with ancient "arts"?  What reasons do you have for making this claim?

Please tell me how this:  
   
I liked to compare ancient arts    
with what is written nowadays    
In our present time.    
Will the new writers have the chance    
to make their writings stay as long    
if they keep writing such nonsense.  
   
(which is a separate thought about what you like to do that is wholly unrelated in subject to what comes before it)  
   
serves, as you assert it does, to make the false and poorly written claim stated here:  
   
I don't care if these ancient characters could be  [were?]  
good people or most horrid ones    
but what l said was that    
they could stay [?] for so long    
from ancient years till now    
such famous sorts of characters    
that people liked to read about.    
   
clear.  It certainly does not do anything to make those lines convey what you presumably wanted to convey, namely    
   
"the reason that  
these characters  
have been and are still now  
the subject of a writer's thoughts  
is that they're of the sort  
that people liked to read about."    
   
And how does the fact that something is written in a certain meter release you from following Ezra Pound's dictums that are regarded among published poets as true and obligatory, namely, that "poetry must be as well written as prose" to be effective. and that " ‘Rhythm MUST have meaning’: ‘It can’t be merely a careless dash off with no grip and no real hold to the words and sense, a tumty tum tumpty tum tum ta’"

Here is a what inspired my piece

Arthur is gone . . . Tristram in Careol
Sleeps, with a broken sword — And Yseult sleeps
Beside him, where the westering waters roll
Over drowned Lyonesse to the outer deeps.

Lancelot is fallen . . . The ardent helms that shone
So knightly and the splintered lances rust
In the anonymous mould of Avalon:
Gawain and Gareth and Galahad — all are dust!

Where do the vanes and towers of Camelot
And tall Tintagel crumble? Where do those tragic
Lovers and their bright-eyed ladies rot?
We cannot tell — for lost is Merlin’s magic.

And Guinevere — call her not back again
Lest she betray the loveliness Time lent
A name that blends the rapture and the pain
Linked in the lonely nightingale’s lament,

Nor pry too deeply, lest you should discover
The bower of Astolat a smoky hut
Of mud and wattle — find the knightliest lover
A braggart, and his Lily Maid a slut;

Hic Jacet Arthurus Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus by Francis Brent Young

I challenge you, Joseph, to write a piece on Arthur that in form, style, and language is as well written and evocative as this one is.  And in case you say that you will note dictated to, I remind you that you once dictated to me that if I were to show myself as a poet, I need to show that I could write lines in perfect trochaic (which I did).  So unless you want to show yourself as a person who abrogates to himself a privilege he will not grant to others. show now that you actually have the talent to write well on this topic.

My writing is very coherent, but written rhythmically. You criticise it as if it were prose. Although it is iambic, it is very clear, but you concentrate on a part of the sentence without considering what is before or after. Read the whole lot , and you find it clear.

OK.  But leaving aside the fact that the two submissions you posted in this thread are not consistently metered and that what precedes and follows the lines I said  did not make sense, let alone convey what you intended to say,  do NOT serve to make their meaning clear,    
 
I note that if you are as capable as you claim you are in writing sound iambic lines about interesting topics that can easily be seen as coherent and contextually comprehensible,  it should be easy and desirable for you to write a faultlessly iambically metered poem about a topic you proclaim is as interesting as the character of Arthur or the denizens of Camelot is that is as coherent as it is evocative and whose lines are absolutely clear in meaning.   So let's see you do it.    
    
Cue the excuses for not doing so.