Poems that don't rhyme...like or dislike based on mindset as opposed to conditioning?

Poems that don't rhyme...they don't do anything for me!

See, as someone who draws - and has a a rigid opinion about art; I liken "poetry", for the sake of analogy, to "drawing or painting". For some people when they draw or paint - what is important is that if X is the thing they're trying to render, then X is how it must appear to the viewer, in minute detail. That is also what I expect to see from a drawing or painting. Other people however think that drawing or painting should be an expressive act - that one should not be so constrained by 'contrived rules' and just create! Now not once in the thirty years I have lived have I recalled ever liking abstract expressionism - I really do find it disagreeable; moreover, many have tried to `open my mind' and failed.

I take the same view with poems, in that for me they have to rhyme, If I hit the end of an entire verse without seeing this rhyming structure somehow, I am disappointed - and ask myself why couldn't they have just set the entire thing, with respect to line length, etc... as one usually sets a piece of prose?
I am of course aware it is claimed that the rhythm contained within a poem isn't defined by how the end words of a line sound; but for me, the requirement that a piece of poetic writing must succeed in meeting a techincal constraint is of paramount importance. Like a drawing of a face must look exactly like that particular face (at the time it was drawn), for me a poem has to rhyme!

It is my position that to like or dislike certain thing depends on more than just familiarity (or lack of such) with them. That is, I assert that poems which rhyme, and poems that are free verse appeal to two different mindsets - one likes patterns and symmetries, technical and transparent structure - another that is creative, expressive, spontaneous, and dislikes constraint.

Thoughts?

Well, it is a matter of taste, hence yours is as respectable
as those who prefer otherwise.

Now, on a personal note: I agree with you when it boils down
to graphic arts. I simply cannot feel anything when I stand
in front of a canvas all painted in red and with a black spot
in the middle, with the title "Afternoon espresso seating in a
terrace in a Roman plaza". I always end up feeling that the
artist is an impostor and I have been ripped off 2 or 3 euros
of the museum entrance.

Same goes for "sculptures" of a TV with static on the screen,
a yellow rubber duck on top, and the title "Cash of Civilizations"
or stuff like that.

With poems, however, I do like non-rhyming ones, as long
as they are not what I feel it is "clowning", e.g.

Whisper
Cheerleaders;
a hair
--tracking field.
Oh my! Oh my!
Respect.

That stuff makes me feel like the abstract paintings, lol

Then again, I love the "strength" of words and their heavy
cultural value. I am a verbal person, rather than a graphic or
musical person.

Originally posted by Agerg
Poems that don't rhyme...they don't do anything for me!

See, as someone who draws - and has a a rigid opinion about art; I liken "poetry", for the sake of analogy, to "drawing or painting". For some people when they draw or paint - what is important is that if X is the thing they're trying to render, then X is how it must appear to the viewer, in minute det ...[text shortened]... her that is creative, expressive, spontaneous, and dislikes constraint.

Thoughts?

Representation is a lie. Abstraction frees line and color from servitude to representation and allows the viewer a direct, unmediated experience of them.

Originally posted by Agerg
Poems that don't rhyme...they don't do anything for me!

See, as someone who draws - and has a a rigid opinion about art; I liken "poetry", for the sake of analogy, to "drawing or painting". For some people when they draw or paint - what is important is that if X is the thing they're trying to render, then X is how it must appear to the viewer, in minute det her that is creative, expressive, spontaneous, and dislikes constraint.

Thoughts?

Right on! I share your feelings entirely. Call us rigid, but the other forms whether literature, pictoric or musical are real swindles banking on people's stupidity and/or fear of admitting stupidity. Hence lots of people fear being branded unenlightened should they state the obvious. A one hour long concert of middle c fading after being played once hardly compares with Beetoven's Eroica, but there are those, including a poster above, who will tell you it's all "perception". I sure don't know what art is, but I sure think I can tell what art isn' or rather what isn't art!! I think Seitse has it right! As do you!

"Representation is a lie. Abstraction frees line and color from servitude to representation and allows the viewer a direct, unmediated experience of them." Rwingett

Were the above true then why bother looking at art at all? If it's all a lie and abstraction frees art then only abstract art would be art to the exclusion of all other art. Always viewing art as servitude to this or that and a world view that self applauds allegedly breaking such "abstract" bonds! Absurd!

Originally posted by scacchipazzo
Right on! I share your feelings entirely. Call us rigid, but the other forms whether literature, pictoric or musical are real swindles banking on people's stupidity and/or fear of admitting stupidity. Hence lots of people fear being branded unenlightened should they state the obvious.

I think it's quite the reverse. Many people seem to fear they're secretly being mocked by abstract artists. Better to discount the lot out of hand than risk being made to look the fool. It's safer that way.

Originally posted by Agerg
That is, I assert that poems which rhyme, and poems that are free verse appeal to two different mindsets

The idea that poetry which doesn't rhyme is ipso facto free verse is simply wrong. Many, many poems over the millennia haven't rhymed. By dismissing anything without rhyme as "free verse" you are lumping Catullus, Beowulf and Basho with emo Ginsberg wannabe's. That, I hope you'll agree, would be a grave mistake.
While it is true that free verse does not have rhyme (where would it?), that is not its defining characteristic. The real nature of free verse is that it has no metre - not foot-based, not accented, not even simply syllabic. None. From this it follows that there is no point in it rhyming, either, but the essence is the lack of a metre. IMAO, this also means that there ain't such a thing as free verse.

As for MAO, I don't mind if a poem doesn't rhyme, as long as it doesn't rhyme with intent. In classical Roman poetry, rhymes didn't occur. Oh, Romans knew what rhyme was - but they usually avoided it. And their poetry is none the worse for it. Early English poetry didn't have rhyme, either, but abounded in alliteration. Many people now see this as cheesy and childish; read the Beowulf and tell me that they're right!
Not rhyming by accident, or if you can't be bothered, that's a different matter. That's just laziness. Even worse is having rhyme all through your poem, but skipping it in a few verses where you couldn't find a good one. Rhyme, or do not rhyme. Don't start and then fail. Better not to have rhymed from the beginning.
If you can't, or don't want to, find full rhymes for all your verses, no problem. Use assonance instead, or consonance - but keep it up! Few things say "hack poet" more clearly than a Pindaric ode full of well-found assonance, and in the penultimate couple, one perfect rhyme. (One of those few things is when said couple doesn't even assonate...) Again: I don't care how it's done, as long as it's done well.

So, no, I don't think that rhyme makes a poem. What makes a poem is metre. This doesn't have to be the strict ca-THUMP-ca-THUMP of iambic pentameter. The stress-based, but syllable-free metre of much Middle-English poetry does just fine. So is the stressless syllable-counting of Japanese poetry. Doesn't matter which a poet chooses, as long - again! - as he keeps it up. Write a stanzaic poem in ragged lines of 1-4-7-4-7-1 syllables: fine, if all your stanzas fit the mould. Write a single sonnet: fine. Write it, not in the English pentameter, but in French alexandrines: sure, but - don't switch to pentameter after the volta.
And that's why I claim that free verse doesn't exist. Free verse has no metre, and is therefore indistinguishable from prose, hacked randomly into pieces.

This
is not hard at
all to
DO
as you can see, and as
just about anyone
can write,
(and does
(oh, tedium!))
in high school poetry classes.
Such is free
vois.

The above took me little more time to write than it took you to read. The vast, vast majority of free verse is neither better nor worse than it. Would it have been better if I had spent five minutes with a rhyming dictionary, to add a few spurious, forced rhymes? Surely not! It would then have had repeated sounds - it would, even, have had a hacked-together structure - but that's all it would have had. Rhyme, superimposed on broken prose, adds rhyme, not rhythm. It makes a rhyme, not a metre, not a poem.

Free verse is not poetry, not because it lacks rhyme, but because it lacks metre.

Richard

Originally posted by rwingett
Representation is a lie. Abstraction frees line and color from servitude to representation and allows the viewer a direct, unmediated experience of them.

Symagro fremlemm pontic oh! shtrup calacata de frenz.

Richard

Originally posted by rwingett
Representation is a lie. Abstraction frees line and color from servitude to representation and allows the viewer a direct, unmediated experience of them.

I would agree that representation is artifice, but I don't know that I would go so far as to say it is untrue, let alone intentionally so. Inaccurate, perhaps, but I think "lie" is too harsh a concept.

As far as freeing line and color, aren't these essentially representatives of something else themselves?

Originally posted by Agerg
Poems that don't rhyme...they don't do anything for me!

See, as someone who draws - and has a a rigid opinion about art; I liken "poetry", for the sake of analogy, to "drawing or painting". For some people when they draw or paint - what is important is that if X is the thing they're trying to render, then X is how it must appear to the viewer, in minute det ...[text shortened]... her that is creative, expressive, spontaneous, and dislikes constraint.

Thoughts?

I agree. A poem that does not rhyme...seems like a crime!😏

Originally posted by Agerg
Poems that don't rhyme...they don't do anything for me!

See, as someone who draws - and has a a rigid opinion about art; I liken "poetry", for the sake of analogy, to "drawing or painting". For some people when they draw or paint - what is important is that if X is the thing they're trying to render, then X is how it must appear to the viewer, in minute det ...[text shortened]... her that is creative, expressive, spontaneous, and dislikes constraint.

Thoughts?

Mary Mary, how does your garden grow?
Turtle shells and Cockle bells........
and one fking onion.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I would agree that representation is artifice, but I don't know that I would go so far as to say it is untrue, let alone intentionally so. Inaccurate, perhaps, but I think "lie" is too harsh a concept.

As far as freeing line and color, aren't these essentially representatives of something else themselves?

The painting by Rene Magritte, 'Ceci n'est pas use pipe' (This is not a pipe), exemplifies the situation succinctly:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_F7i70fSPrGU/Sr557qSzrGI/AAAAAAAADEY/BZCX0YU0GnM/s400/magrittepipe.jpg

Representational art, whether you call it an artifice or a lie, is a distraction. It is mere clutter. It is an illusion which acts to shield the viewer from having to deal with the painting on anything but a superficial level. It is an obfuscation which allows the viewer to stick to an appraisal of the mere 'artifice' involved and content himself with saying that, yes, this is a pipe, before moving on to the next piece of artwork.

The goal of an artist should be to strip away all the clutter of illusion in order to get to the truth. If a painting of a pipe is not a pipe, but paint on a canvas, then the artist should try to engage the viewer into examining that painting for what it is, and not what it is not. He should present the viewer with a minimum of distraction and clutter and engage him with the essentials. Color, shape and line, freed from servitude to a false representation, should be viewed for their own sake. Line, for example, freed from the involuntary servitude of delimiting the boundary of illusory shapes, would be considered on its own merits. Without the mediating distractions of mere artifice in place, the viewer could let the painting seep beyond his intellectual defenses and enable him to experience color, shape and line on a deeper, more primal level.

Originally posted by rwingett
The painting by Rene Magritte, 'Ceci n'est pas use pipe' (This is not a pipe), exemplifies the situation succinctly:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_F7i70fSPrGU/Sr557qSzrGI/AAAAAAAADEY/BZCX0YU0GnM/s400/magrittepipe.jpg

Representational art, whether you call it an artifice or a lie, is a distraction. It is mere clutter. It is an illusion which acts to shield ...[text shortened]... defenses and enable him to experience color, shape and line on a deeper, more primal level.

Interesting, but at what point does the deconstruction end? As I asked, is the paint to be trusted, the stroke? Don't we get to the point where the only authentic art is not saying/doing/thinking anything at all--- not even a blank canvas, no canvas at all?

I tend to like more art that self-imposes a certain constraint on itself. Whether it is the artist which conforms to the cubist constraint to highlight perspective or the poet who rhymes or alliterates to flesh out fluidity or rhythm. It has to have a purpose that I understand and can relate to, though. I wouldn't presume that this is the author's rather than my own fault, but it prevents me from enjoy it regardless.

Regarding the imposition of self-constraints, there is a wonderful film call The Five Obstructions which is based on exactly that premise. Remaking the same film 5 times under 5 different constraints.

Originally posted by Palynka
I tend to like more art that self-imposes a certain constraint on itself.

This phrase would make Freud's delights.

Can I psychoanalyze you?

Originally posted by Seitse
This phrase would make Freud's delights.

Can I psychoanalyze you?

Please!

But aren't psychoanalysts just projecting their own selves unto other people's lives?