Tell Us About ... Poetry

Time again for the Global Writing Challenge on the second Thursday of the month.
My posts will go live a little early (to avoid collision with the silent films), so if the posts of the others are not live yet, please check back later.
The current membership consists of Deb’s World, Suzy Turner, Within a World of My Own, Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After, Marsha in the Middle, Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa, and me. It's fun to learn how differently everyone interprets a topic.
You can play along and link up with us!
If that's too short notice for you, maybe next time? Here are the prompts for the coming months:
October - Birthday
November - Superstition
December - Why do you blog?

Photo by Trust "Tru" Katsande on Unsplash

The prompt for today was "Poetry", chosen by Marsha.
Oh Marsha. If you asked me, I'd say don't have a poetic bone in my body. I have never written a poem myself, not even bad ones as a teenager - unless you count the group effort in our literature class - and the first thing I associate with poems is reciting them in German class, limericks in English class, and of course the various "Poesiealben" in my life, those of others and my own (if you don't know what those are, check out the link).

My first real encounter with poetry - except for nursery rhymes - was probably when I won this little book in the lottery of a church fest in the 70s.
I read the poems dutifully, all 28 examples of "great German ballads" as the subtitle tells us, (eight of them by Goethe, figures), because that's what you do when you win something (I also used the colorful plastic egg cups and spoons I won at the same fest), but the only one that really stuck was the fairy ballad "Erlkönig", possibly because of the creepy ending.

Having to recite and interpret poems in school didn't make them any more interesting to me. I have to confess that I often only started learning them by heart the day before which usually worked out fine. It happened only twice that I painfully stuttered my way through poems, Goethe's "Der Zauberlehrling" and Mörike's "Der Feuerreiter" (both of which are actually in this book). Isn't it weird how I still remember the embarrassment, but not the grades I got? The reason is probably knowing I deserved them both, but the embarrassment weighed heavier.
One year, I asked my German teacher what I'd get for reciting Schiller's "Die Bürgschaft". It had obviously been meant as a joke in a conversation, but she challenged the whole class to do that for an extra 1 (as small part of the "oral grade") and to her surprise about a third of the class did it. The ballad has 150 lines and I can only remember the first seven.
Don't dare ask me how much I remember of "Der Zauberlehrling"!

I like a lot of classical music, but when I still played the violin (in the 17th century) or sang in choirs (until the late 19th century aka before a thyroid surgery took most of my range away), I actively looked for it and now I stumble upon it.
It's the same with poems. I don't hate all poems that materialize in my path, on social media, for example, or as part of a novel.
These days, the only poems I read intentionally are by Bill Bilston. They materialized thanks to a friend sharing them on Facebook and stuck. Check out his homepage with the newsletter and you will probably understand why.
I even own one of his books (so far). That one won't surprise you, either.

What about song lyrics, though?
I found an article by René Ostberg on "Britannica" that ends with "The debate over whether songs are poems (or whether poems are songs) may never end. But no one can deny that poetry and music are art forms of universal power and beauty."
If lyrics aren't poems, what does that mean for a poem that has been turned into a song? Such as Franz Schubert's version of "Erlkönig"? Is it still a poem because a "poet" wrote it - and how do we define a poet? Can't a musician be also a poet? Feel free to debate that, but let me tell you that the German word "Poet" isn't used that much anymore, we say "Lyriker" instead. Exactly, just as in the English word "lyrics" for song texts which we call, well song texts, just in German.



Actually, we have a radio channel that has had a show called "Pop & Poesie" for a long time. You hear a song and the German translation. I always hated it because the translation was a voiceover and I wanted to hear the song. It became so popular, however, that the idea developed into "Pop & Poesie in Concert" in 2008. Actors and actresses perform the original and the German translations - open air in summer - and then a band performs the song. An important part of the concert is the interaction between moderator, performers and audience.
I hate crowds, so I have never been there, but in this format I can imagine you get to experience and feel song lyrics differently - like poetry.
There are certainly song texts I regard as such and I remember a lot more of those, believe me. So maybe there's a small poetic bone there after all.


Now let's see what the others have to tell us.

Amy uses poetry for fun with friends and family.  Her grandmother has a published book of poems and her mom wrote a Christmas poem each year for her cards. 

Suzy writes about the time she accidentally became a published poet, despite never really considering herself a poetry person!

Debbie looks back at posts from 2016 where she made poems using online magnetic tiles - it was part of a craze she went through!  Who knew it would prove useful 10 years later?

Sally shares some of her favorite American poets and poems.

Marsha writes about her two favorite poems.  I wonder if you’ll be surprised!

This month’s prompt threw Leslie for a loop.

Stop by her blog for more of the scoop.

Your turn! Poems - yes or no?


P.S. I forgot that I still remember some of Heinz Erhardt's poems, but since he was a German comedian, actor, poet, etc. you wouldn't know him, anyway.

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