A LECTURE ON DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATURE OF POETRY AND NATURE POETRY BY GEMINI

A LECTURE ON DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATURE OF POETRY AND NATURE POETRY BY GEMINI

I'm Yusuf Balogun Gemini and it's an opportunity to wield the Rabbi tonight. But then, this topic is quite intertwined. To understand nature poetry however, we must understand the nature of poetry.
Gemini: The nature of poetry has to be relatable to the primary basics of the art itself - Poetry.

A musician said : "you think the world dey revolve around your bum bum". I actually propose the world rotates around our poetry.

The nature of poetry is however the basics of poetry - the component, the concept beyond that of what's taught in class.
I tell people, that poetry is not what's being taught in class. Poetry is divinity.
A prose is relatable and comprehensive. A careful, conscious study of a prose work would reveal its intents either via first person or the latter. Poetry is otherwise.
Poetry is not built on the number of epochs.

Poetry is built on the stanzaic form comprising of lines or verses but...
Not every poet is a poet. Not every poem is a poem.
[ The nature of poetry is beyond reading a poem and deciphering just a meaning. A good poetry will reveal other meanings different from that of the writer to you.
That brings us to the question - is there a bad poetry?

Actually, there's nothing seen as a bad poetry. It's just the literal conveyance of the mortal mind. Anything not worth being POETRY is not worth as being called poetry. Hence, for a poetry to be regarded as bad, its not poetry in the first place.
This brings us to the affirmation that poetry is poetry, we can only relate it in the length of Excellence. Hence, what distinguish poetry from a mere scribbling is what brings us to the nature of poetry
But.... who is a poet? Who can be a poet?
Everyone is a writer not everyone is a poet.

The problem in our mundane setting is that when we don't understand a piece, we regard it as being deep.
We don't even know the essence of "depth"... what it really connotes.
Joe doesn't write deep poems. Hollic doesn't write deep poems. I don't write deep poems. It's only regarded as being deep because we have broken the normal rule of poetry.
So as per my previous statement, I read some pieces sometimes which destroys the normal ethics of poetry. The argument has always been "Poetic license" but perhaps, we aren't aware that there's also "Poetic justice".  Besides, if you don't know the rule, don't break the rule.
Poetry is an ocean, it cannot be jumped into anyhow. And even the best diver do gets unfortunate sometimes. Eriata Oribhabor, the founder of Poets in Nigeria once posted a piece and his comrades demystified it as not being POETRY.
The nature of poetry is beyond just breaking sentences into lines.

It's about -
How well do you know your poetic devices?
How well can you employ your poetic devices?
What kind of audience are you looking forward to?
What kind of niche do you find yourself carving?
Is the piece for audience or for the money market? Poetic devices is beyond hyperbole, metaphor and simile.
A poem without poetic devices would become a prose or even worst, a baseless scribbling. A poem with excessive devices would make the poem a baseless scene of ego.
This brings us to the employment of poetic devices. Everything is tantamount to judicious balance and modesty.
Do we know what litotes is before using it in a poem? Do we know what synecdoche is before using it?  When you write
"The sky is bleeding", can you justify that line? Do you even know the devices that it entails?

Know the rule before breaking it!
A combination of elements always have a reaction or products as said.. I'm not a science student, Olamide can justify that angle better.

We also have combination of poetic devices and what it results to.
We have the reactant, the solution and the eliminating force. But then, that's a discussion for another day as I believe a good number of us are unaware of this.

That's what differentiates the poem of the dark ages from that of this modern century. A careful today of Cyphering and Gothic walls would reveal this concept but then, its a topic for another day.
Audience and market matters a lot. Many of us write for the money, many of us write for wide acceptance before the money. I wouldn't want to dig into this area as it concerns the social misdemeanor of writers in the 21st century. But..
Ask yourself this question - Do you write for the audience or for the market?
A poem for the audience is sometimes different from that of the market. I'd clarify this.
I once clicked a deal with a writing company, who booked me to write love poems at a percentage of a given amount. However, the form of these love poems are not to be totally decided by my choice or my style but by what the prospective clients seek.

If the prospective client needs a love poem that's written in the Sapine form, I have to study what that form of poetry is all about. And not based on my idiosyncratic style of writing love poems. Now, that's poetry for the market.
The problem with poetry for the market however is that it inhibits or limits creativity. What do I mean by this,If I write a love poem using the Wallace form, it is not because I want to write it. It's because I have to write it.
Despite the fact that it buttresses additional knowledge, it's a form of writing based on impulse and not normalcy. It's seen as experimentalism by poets but it has a cost - inhibiting of free flow of creative energy.
Now, what's poetry for the audience?
It's what most of us engage in.  I see it as the primary step of writing - giving your writings for mass audience to read, accepting criticisms, developing by the teachings and becoming a maestro.
We post poems on Facebook not because Mark Zuckerberg pays us in return. But because it's a passion, un channeled by coins.

In the long run, a poetry for audience would become a poetry for the market.
And finally, a maintenance of niche --
Are you known for love poems? Idiosyncratic poems? Narrative poems? Lyrical poems?  Even if you do random poetry, you'd have the best of all which earns you a constant feather. That's the niche.

Many of us are chameleons - changing colors constantly. Though we all adapts to literary environ, but you must be known for something.
Nature of poetry however is building a basic understanding of what poetry is and cannot be taught in a day.
Nature poetry however is a separate form of poetry, basically around the tellurian and indestructible form of cosmic surrounding...
The water, the land, the atmosphere... But it's a topic I'd really love to treat on another day.
My wife is complaining here. She needs me in the other room  Before I drop this rabbi, I would open the floor for questions.
I'm not done and dusted with this topic but this sugarcrush won't give me peace Don't be jealous o, thunderbolt is real
I would love questions to come in from audience, as it's the secondary baron of understanding.

Still abode of Yemoja,
ever pure like White Santana,
the beautiful maiden that steals
the color of daylight
and
ignites from the foots of Osumare..
the castle of Otranto
for the prince riding horse on the trail
and the boy starved of coins,
harmless -
except for the strike
of a rock.
splash! splash! splash!

GEMINI

I just wrote this as a nature poetry. Who can tell me the main theme of this piece?
The "maiden" in the piece is symbolic to a river.
Except for the intrusion of solid matters employed by man made factors, The river is quite undisrupted and still.

It's easily relatable because the river is a body we've grown used to - from the ages to the decades to the centuries to the gbogbo e
[Nature poetry explores the theme that are constant, existence based on mystic creation and huge basis for the survival of mankind.

Poems that centres on land, river, air, animals.. Nature at large is Nature poetry!
If a piece of art cannot be related to any form of terrestrial or astral events around the common man, then it's not poetry. Hence, the relativity of a poetry to the audience pinpoints it as a poem buttressed by the medium of expressionism. Know your audience before you face them.
I'm glad I'm able to sink words into the hearts of prolific aficionados.

ABOUT THE TUTOR:

Yusuf Balogun Gemini is a page/performance poet, prosaist, playwright, author and a lunatic. Former winner of Lagos State Spelling Bee competition (2010/2011), he's currently the initiator of War Against Plagiarism, the publicity officer for Poets in Nigeria and the pioneer of a literary body - Ardent Writers. His writings reflects Africanism and idiosyncrasy mostly, as he's an ardent follower of roots and traditions. He recently released his debut poetry audio "ORI" after getting a Yoruba Poetry award. His second poetry audio "Lagidigba" is set to drop on February 14. He runs the docudrama @tonguesofijora.

Thank you.