Young Writers Society

Brad--

Then how come people write stuff like that and post it in the poetry section claiming it to be poetry? :-p Of course, it isn't....


Best,
The Claw!

Clau--


I don't think "emo" is a valid class of poetry.


Best,
Brad

Oh, of course emo poetry is a class of poetry, sort of in the way that the cafeteria bagels can be considered food. The only difference is that the bagels are more memorable.

To further cadmium's analogy, you can go to a restaurant for Italian food, but you can't go to a restaurant for cafeteria food (putting aside the fact that you would be in a cafeteria if you did). I'd imagine that if you ordered emo poetry from a poetry anthology, you'd get a similar reaction as if you'd ordered cafeteria food in a fine Italian restaurant.

...But can't poetry be dark and sad? Isn't that what an emo is? When I refer to my poetry being "emo" I'm talking about the general tone or feeling to the poem, and you guys are all saying that emo poetry is just...obvious feelings of sadness and depression. Sometimes poetry can be dark and subtle, can't it?

nutmegan wrote:...But can't poetry be dark and sad? Isn't that what an emo is? When I refer to my poetry being "emo" I'm talking about the general tone or feeling to the poem, and you guys are all saying that emo poetry is just...obvious feelings of sadness and depression. Sometimes poetry can be dark and subtle, can't it?

Of course it can. The problem is when the poem leads on a road to nowhere, a path of "Watch as I melt into tears of my own mindless abominations". If you read writers like Edgar Allen Poe, their poems are laced with an array of emotions and themes, leaving the reader feeling that he has not been cheated into absorbing one concrete emotion - depression.

It all went down hill since Poe...
I don't think my poems are stunning, but I try to use you know at least two different emotions in each poem.
I'd probably rather read someone writing I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm sad over and over again than emo poetry. At least that has a point.

wooo!!!! emo poetry,what the heck is that????
it is just now that i learn about the existence of emo poetry
i,m just curious what is its content?maybe they're trying to tell people how their
life sucks and how they try so hard to make people believe that their life
is so miserable,,,,,hmmm i wonder what this emo poem made of.....

Sorry, but what do you mean by "navel-gazing"?

You can't class someone as an emo just because they think life sucks. Think about it. ''emo'' is an abbreviation for ''emotional''. I'm sure everyone here has feelings; or are you just robots? Seriously consider it before you speak.

---Luciano

The thing is, if you write a poem solely to explain what a miserable life you lead and what exactly the feeling of cutting oneself across the wrist is like...

nobody cares.

This is one of the greatest literary misconceptions, not just on this site but in general. No, all poetry is not simply for yourself and if you post something on a public website for reviewing, make sure that poem is supposed to connect with an outside reader in the first place. Emo poetry belongs in diaries and drawers in your bedroom, not outside where others have to sit through your reciting of woes. Emotion can be good, but public poetry must use that emotion to convey a message that applies to others as well.

A major difference between emo poetry and some real, "emo" poetry is such, I believe:

Emo: Oh, my life sucks!
Real: Oh, everyone's life sucks!

Also, emo and emotional are, at this point, so different that it's a small bit like calling the Nazis peaceful because the swastika used to be a sign for peace.

Another example:

Emo: Oh, my life sucks!
Real: How sad that things should happen this way.

And another:

Emo: Oh, my life sucks! (and I hate you!)
Real: Oh, my life sucks, and it is due to this particular person whom I hate, and rather than describe how dark the depths of my soul are, I will convey how this happened and why you should hate this person too through poetry that anyone actually cares about!

what's navel gazing???

and ypu can write emo poetry that is incredibly powerful... a massive majority of poems are emo in the sesne that they are sad or angsty or whatever. A good poem is creative in that it is original - not cliched, and if it does contain cliches, it does them in interesting and new ways.... reinventing the wheel if you will



death and bleeding etc are all powerful and respectable images... if used well.

what's navel gazing???

Snoink does a fabulous job of explaining this in her critique videos, if you care to dig them up and watch them. Navel gazing is more or less talking about yourself for no other reason than to talk about yourself. Very self absorbed.

Wiki:

It is well known in the usually jocular phrase directed towards self-absorbed pursuits: "contemplating one's navel" or "navel-gazers".

"Emo" poetry is often seen as navel gazing because readers perceive it to be a long list of sad facts and happenings for the author, with no real purpose or message behind the words.

It would still be navel gazing if the author gave a long list of great things they've done and that have happened to them and how they're all great. If it lacks a purpose other than to talk about the author, brag about the author, or seek sympathy/pitty for the author, it's navel gazing. Self-absorbed, in other words.

Poems about death can be very powerful if well written, poems about tragedy can send shivers down a person's spine. But such poems are not written to be navel gazing. Rather than focus on themselves the authors, they look at the bigger picture, the outside world. Even if it is about themselves, it does not focus on them and why you should feel sorry for them. Aet explained this bit better than I'm doing, so I'll leave the rest in his post.

emo poetry:
my life sucks
i cut myself
life sucks

good poetry just takes that and makes it sound pretty

AHahahah.
I find this discussion endlessly amusing, having been exposed to large amounts of emo poetry, sadly enough.

Emo poetry has weird, random line breaks, uses words like "darkness", "mirror", "broken", "moonlight", and makes excessive reference to things like broken wings and stuff. It also has little to no artistic merit and merely seems to quote other emo poems of the same caliber.

I feel like conjuring up an emo poem.

When I look down at
the knife's sharp blade against
my wrist, I wonder for a moment how
it all went so wrong. The darkness
in the bathroom is deep and
I can see the knife's reflection in
my mirror.
Moonlight comes through the window as
I make the first cut, and
It hurts a little but not as much as my heart does
as blood pours onto my floor, lit up by
the sadness my broken life has seen.



=D

compared to Howl, by Allen Ginsberg - dark poetry, but not quite so... crap.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz...


Beautiful stuff.

I think actually the biggest difference is that emo poems are all abstract. Real poetry has to use objects, situations or characters to convey things. Poetry that tells about feelings instead of showing is emo poetry.

I know I used to write emo poetry when i was like 12 or 13, its really a bit embarassing. But i remember thinking back then that I didn't UNDERSTAND how to make it any more sophisticated. I think thats why its so important to study poetry, it really helps you understand how it works.