Juxtaposing two different poets.

This is just for discussion. If it interests you, then respond. If you think this image is very weird because there are two very quote-on-quote *different artists standing beside each other, then don’t respond.

Here’s the question I posed:

What similarities do these two have? What type of works do they write? Do you think they are similar? Do you believe them to be different? Share this because you might think it will pose an interesting question. One might point the guy on the left and say, “Who the fuck is that?” Another might say about the image on the right, “Who the fuck is that?” Some may say, “Who are they?”

It’s so cool to juxtapose two different artists who existed during different times. I think contrasting is more fun than comparing. Because then you can think about all you know about the artist on the left, and the artist on the right.

It may be silly to you, but it’s interesting to me.

Envision them making a song together.
Envision them just having a cup of tea together—just having a casual conversation.

We are simply discussing their differences because one may pose the same question I posed in my quote, even though I knew both artists, and I explained who they are, or who they were if you want to talk past tense.

:D

March 18th, 2014

i’m ignorant tbh – idk who the person on the right is lol.

March 18th, 2014

@Negrostotle

Beat you to it!

March 18th, 2014

@CLOUDS – You’re not ignorant, man. You can move closer to these two images and see what similarities they have based on what they are doing. Pretend you are a photographer. Then, you could easily apply what you know about photography to these two influential people. If you know about writing, or literature for that matter, you can apply all that you know about writing or literature to this.

I bolded nouns because they’re labels. Say you label yourself ignorant, then you would be fulfilling every thing that an ignorant person does. You are intelligent. Label yourself intelligent. Think about these two, and reply to it. No one will judge you. This is only the internet. Really.

March 18th, 2014

I don’t know the guy on the right either (probably know who he is, just haven’t seen him)

March 18th, 2014

@CLOUDS @LoMd

Lol the guy on the right is Ezra Pound. As soon as I saw a picture of him I couldn’t forget him – dat mustache.

@Negrostotle

As for comparing the two – I think Tupac is very imagism but he consciously likes to give us an image and then go beyond it. E.G. Coming back to rap a second verse on Hit ‘Em Up, pretending to go to the chorus in “All Eyez on Me” and then switching it into an extended verse (which is fucking awesome), and so on.

I see Tupac criticizing the lack of rawness in Pound’s pieces, and I think rawness is the word Pac would use, which Pound would resent since he thinks images are so raw. Recall Tupac’s comments on Shakespeare (who wrote “the rawest stories”) and Pound’s orders to a student/disciple of his to go through Shakespeare’s sonnets and eliminate the superfluous words (which, as you can imagine, is horrendous).

Pound would find Pac to use extraneous lines that should’ve been cut.

March 18th, 2014

@Bradapalooza – Let me just tag you real quick, lol.

This is what I love to see. Discussion. Questioning. Like what a lot of people do when they immediately assume things, like Socratic Irony.

March 18th, 2014

@Negrostotle

You totally lost me with last sentence and the reference to Socratic irony, although I know the term. I’m confused.

Anyways, to go further, I frequently see references to older artists, many of which may or may not actually be there. For example, I wrote a very long (but not long enough) essay on Ginsberg because I was reading “Transcription of Organ Music” and it felt like Keats thrown in a blender to me. I already knew the Blake connection w/ Ginsberg, and I suddenly thought that the first five poems of the book Howl (“Howl,” “A Supermarket in California,” “Transcription of Organ Music,” “Sunflower Sutra,” and “America”) were kind of like Keats’s process of crafting the odes but with different results: Keats culminating in triumph with “To Autumn” – one of the perfect poems in English and Ginsberg feeling the world is doomed and switching from the long following style of “Howl” to the short declarative of “America.” My actual argument didn’t reference Keats at all because, although I think the reference is there, it would have weakened my paper to have included it because there was no strong evidence (and I still wrote a 9-10 page paper when the professor was expecting about a five page paper).

I think it’s one of my best papers, and one I recently had one of my favorite professors comment on so I could learn to improve further, and he gave some great criticism along with obviously pointing out that 9 pages for 5 poems is overly ambitious. He did say that I convinced him on three poems, which he thought was extremely impressive, and makes me feel pretty good since I’ve written 9 page papers on single sonnets before, and “Howl” is a massive poem, and the others are all atleast longer than a sonnet; so I knew I wasn’t doing them full justice.

#Thus

I’d rather compare than contrast – the opposite of what you suggest in the opening post. The ways Pound and Tupac fit together rather than contrast – which I think, in this case, is the more interesting discussion.

(I should state my biases: I don’t like to argue for an individual GOAT but I have a group of people I consider GOAT in their own ways – Tupac is in my list as one of the GOATs, although I imagine I’ve thought about why Tupac is so great much more than the vast majority of people and could explain my opinion in-depth unlike a lot of Tupac lovers; I admire Pound and consciously make an effort to use his teachings and poetry to strengthen my own images in fiction writing, but I haven’t read his Cantos and I think the incident regarding Shakespeare marks his flaws in being unable to see the beauty of styles other than his): I think Tupac has some of the greatest opening lines in hip-hop and imagine Pound would have admired Pac’s ease and brevity with which he opens numerous tracks (rendered as I would write them based on Pac’s delivery instead of a smoother long line)

Now I could make miracles with pimp hoes
It’s instrumental, waiting for the nymphos.
That’s the intro.

Shoot when you rush me;
Walked up and touched me
Why – do you want to fuck me?

Just cause I’m paid in the worst way?
True.

  • What'z Ya Phone #

So many battlefield scars
while driven in plush cars;
This life as a rap star is
nothing without heart.

Was born rough and rugged,
addressing the mass public:
My attitude was “fuck it”,
Cause motherfuckers love it.

  • Ambitionz Az A Ridah

It’s on me
But still:
I’m having memories
of high speed when the cops crashed
As I laugh, pushing the gas while my Glocks blast.

We was young and we was dumb—
But we had heart
In the dark,
Will we survive through the bad parts?

  • Runnin'

I could go on – but I see Pound liking all of these lines.

March 19th, 2014

@LoMd @CLOUDS Some of the first things I annotated for Poetry Genius were Ezra Pound poems. Check them out if you have a minute:
Cino– quite a simple one
Near Perigord– bit more complicated

But yeah, this is an awesome topic and I’m really glad you posted it. Since we’ve already got some comparisons, I’ll have a go at contrasting– probably the biggest charge levelled at Pound’s poetry (obviously you could level some pretty massive charges at his politics) was that he aspired to a language that was out of date and elitist– he was an American poet trying to Make It New, but he looked to dead European languages for inspiration. With Pac, his work was inherently accessible and relatable– I think this is a large part of the appeal of rap, and particularly important for such a socially conscious rapper.

Can I throw my own artist contrast out now?

March 19th, 2014

@stephen_j_p – No. You can keep going. This is what this is about. Discussion. :D

March 19th, 2014

@Negrostotle
@stephen_j_p

Riffing off of Stephen’s post. Yes, Pound looked towards Occitan (sp?) and Egyptian and so on, and he almost always opts for a complex latin via french word instead of something germanic, but with imagism while influenced by Japanese (“In A Station of the Metro” = Pound’s version of a Haiku) he was brief. Some of his other stuff – not so much – so I think, dismissing political views (wasn’t pound associated with the KKK at one point?) – that if 2pac and Pound met, the interaction and reception would vary drastically based on their respective ages.

I see good things with any version of Pac w/ imagism young Pound. The other place I see oppurtunity is old CAC Pound writing Cantos (which as I said, I haven’t fully read) getting along with Me Against the World and after Pac. Me Against the World Pac wouldn’t quite work – but Ambitionz of a Ridah" Pac’s I don’t give a flying fuck but I’m going down with style and portraying real shit attitude seems pretty similar to Pound’s Cantos* mood.

March 19th, 2014

He wasn’t associated with the KKK as far as I know, but he did lose his shit politically. He broadcast propaganda for Mussolini in WW2 and said really disgraceful things about Judaism (which he regretted in his final years, though obviously that’s no real mitigation).

Another point of comparison is maybe how they both developed a very idiosyncratic engagement with politics in their mid-careers. I’m thinking of Thug Life and Pound’s obsession with artistic patronage and opposition to fractional reserve banking.

March 20th, 2014

bump.

March 31st, 2014

How about:

{Rapper} // {Poet}

April 3rd, 2014

Saul Bellow and Nas, because they fuse highly allusive, stream of consciousness prose with street hardened storytelling.

Dashiell Hammett and Raekwon, because of their cool, detached approach to crime and violence.

April 3rd, 2014

@stephen_j_p I haven’t read up on Thomas Hardy…yet. Are you saying they are more the same than different? Or vise versa?

April 4th, 2014