Bainting and Boetry

[poliphilo]

'I hate bainting and boetry too! neither the one nor the other ever did any good!' George II 

I hate bainting. I went to an exhibition at the local art gallery a couple of days back and it was full of the stuff. Mainly landscape baintings- pretty pictures in the pastoral and sublime modes that went out of date with Constable and Turner.

And as for boetry- don't get me started!  I review it. People need to be told that putting the names of shiny things- like rainbows, crystals and the moon- in a piece of writing does not ipso facto make it poetic.

The mistake is to go after Beauty. Beauty is always stale. It repesents last year's consensus.  Go after Truth instead.

Bah!

P.S.  O.K.  I know I'm misapplying the quote from George II.  I just find it so delicious. He wasn't complaining about bad art. He was complaining  about a  painting by Hogarth- a goodish painting- because he didn't like its politics.  

Comments

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

there was a girl in my workshop and all her poems involved: the moon, jazz music, Paris, and sex (in various combinations). i wanted to strangle her.

how does one get to be a reviewer of poetry?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I answered a couple of adverts. One was put out by a small magazine and one by a website. The editors were asking for reviewers and I said, here I am.

Reviewing poetry brings in even less money than writing it. But you do get to keep the books.

The website (in case you want to check it out)is http://www.nhi.clara.net/online.htm