Your favorite famous poem

[Cgk]

Hi Mixi,

Niyaz is a band. They mix persian traditional music with western beats. The singer is Iranian who grew up in India and has moved to the U.S.A. in her teens. Many of their lyrics are ancient and medieval poetry. They chose that name because it has the same meaning to many people, even to those who are at war with each other. I don't understand their words, but the singer's voice is full of emotion and the melodies carry me away into a different time and place. I know you can't watch YouTube, so I'm adding a link in case you are interested enough to check them out. You can hear many of their songs there.

www.niyazmusic.com/

Claudia
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[Cgk]

Hi Ralf,

I'm sorry I misunderstood you. It was probably the "all it does" part of the sentence that threw me. :-)

I thought it was a good example of how a poem or a piece of art can mean much to one person, and nothing to another. Too bad it was all based on a misunderstanding, lol.

Claudia
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In the land of the ignorant, the biggest fool is king.

[Mixmixi]

Hi Claudia,

Don't get frightened, but I couldn't understand what they were saying, I mean this band, Niyaz. They are not talking in Persian! But the music, is really traditional, you know, their instruments in making the song is unique. I mean in Persia, we have over than 4000 types of musical instruments, and the biggest point about them is that, each of them can be used by it's creator only. Nobody else doesn't know who to use them. The background music of that link you gave me was completely Persian without any benefit from the western style, the song name was "beni beni" and I don't know what it means! Thank you anyway, it's was amazing for me too.

P.S: I think she is talking in Indian, or Pakistani or maybe Afghani, but for sure she is not talking in Persian.

Mixmixi
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Let's make a deal; I'll correct every single one of your grammatical mistakes AND YOU DO THE SAME FAVOUR FOR ME.

[Cgk]

Hi Mixi,

don't worry, I'm neither frightened, nor disappointed. I wouldn't understand the lyrics anyway. They state on their website that the words are ancient and medieval and of different languages. It doesn't matter. The sound and rhythm and the vocals make me feel their music rather than understand it, which is perfectly fine by me.

Claudia

P.S. They play more songs than just Beni Beni on their website. Some are accoustic, others mixed with electronics. :-)
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In the land of the ignorant, the biggest fool is king.

[Cgk]

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Here is a poem written by me, which kind of fits the subject. It is "modern", I believe, but like it or not, I'm posting it anyway. :-P

Road at Corinth
by Claudia Lingstädt-Kukulka

This is not smog-eaten Athens:
No, this firmament is a huge pot
Above an almost-Utopia,

Filled to its brim with royal-blue ink.
Here, amid toppled roofs, rubbles
And ruins of what had once towered

Over any human dignity,
Stones become oracles, even spooks!
They present us with a valedictory

Sensation: some sentimental pride.
But these columns, Doric or not,
Seem to have lost their true purpose.

They merely cast Apollo's ghost
Upon earth that every tourist tastes.
Each year a piece of them may go

Missing inside a pocket or a purse.
The dead city's voice is unconcerned;
It will not tell. It only embraces

Experts in this aesthetic field,
Which is surrounded by pebble-strewn
Sands and plenteous pastures.

When it speaks to us, it lies
Very Olympian, enticing us to think
Of romantic stories, heroic tales.

Yet we listen, hearing ourselves
Being one of these Gods or legends
As we walk past temple remnants

And our all too narrow fancy
Starts to stretch into a path as endless
As the road at Corinth.
_________________
In the land of the ignorant, the biggest fool is king.

[Mixmixi]

Hi Claudia,

My favourite part:

Yet we listen, hearing ourselves
Being one of these Gods or legends
As we walk past temple remnants

Mixmixi
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Let's make a deal; I'll correct every single one of your grammatical mistakes AND YOU DO THE SAME FAVOUR FOR ME.

[Cgk]

Hello Mixi,

thank you for your feedback and letting me know your favorite lines. :-)

Claudia
_________________
In the land of the ignorant, the biggest fool is king.

[Cgk]

[Hoadong]

Hello,

I would like to know more about poetry. Hope you will help me about this. Please tell me the definitions of poetry, which you have read and liked most and why you liked them, or your own opinions about poetry.

Sometimes some people use the word "poetic" to comment on something that could be a landscape, a piece of writing, a painting or whatever, which is maybe not a poem, but other time some people can comment on a poem that it is not poetic. What do you think about this?

Thank you.
_________________
Hoadong

[Ralf]

Hi Hoado,

To give you a simple definition, poetry does not necessarily need full sentences or punctuation and expresses your feelings aesthetically.

Here's an example for what I find poetic.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
(William Shakespeare)

And this is what I think is not really poetic:

I don't know what I'm doing wrong
Maybe I've been here too long
The songs on the radio sound the same
Everybody just looks the same
But then last night was so much fun
And now your sheets are dirty
The streets are dirty too but
You never look back over what you've done
(Johnny Borrell)
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[Cgk]

Hello Hoado,

everybody has a different definition of what a poem should be like. There are a few things that most poets would agree on. For example, poetry is a literary art form in which language serves as a tool to portray and relay inner feelings, thoughts, ideas, ideologies, or fantasies in an aesthetic and elegant manner. Creativity is of great importance. Words are to poet what paint is to a painter.

I personally enjoy poems that evoke pictures or even go so far as to create a movie in the mind. I like them to have meaning, but to me it is not a necessity. I like them best if the meaning or meanings are only hinted or expressed symbolically, which makes a work thought-provoking. Simple rhymes and limericks can also be nice, but most often they are very straightforward. I read them and perhaps like them, but they don't "tickle my brain", and therefore I forget them. They tell you what the writer wants to tell you, and that's about it. If you want to master the art of "show, don't tell", poetry is the way to go. Even if you never become a great poet or get published anywhere, it is a good idea to at least give poetry a try.

There is a huge difference between Shakespeare and Johnny Borrell, and I don't just mean the different time era (Shakespeare is a 16th/17th century poet, Borell is contemporary) in which they work(ed). When I read Johnny Borrell's stanza, I thought of a song lyric rather than a poem. Ralf, is he a musician?

Claudia
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In the land of the ignorant, the biggest fool is king.

[Cgk]

P.S. What makes a work "poetic", I suppose, is that it is often expressed in a romantic, vague, symbolic/picturesque way, and kind of metaphorical.
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[Ralf]

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[Hoadong]

[Ralf]

Pleasure, Hoado. It was about time you got introduced to Shakespeare's most famous sonnet :)
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