American Poet?

[A String]

So I got in an argument with my brother today. There was some debate as to the title "The American Poet" given to Jim Morrison. Now don't get me wrong here, I like The Doors, but I belive there are far better candidates for this title. Any input on this one? My pick would have to be Bob Dylan.

[Tedster]

How 'bout Carl Sandburg or Woody Guthrie for a couple? Walt Whitman? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Perhaps some of the cowboy poets? Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg?

[Werewolf by Night]

I love the Doors and all, but to consider JM the foremost poet rep for the US is kinda taking things in a rather smallish, limited scope. If JM had only been known as a poet of the written page, and had never been the front-man and original darkling prince of rock 'n' roll, he would probably not be particularly well known at all. To imagine him relegated to obscurity in such a case might be understating things.

[Dawill]

If were talkin "musician/poets" My vote would go to Paul Simon. There are many other great ones though. Dylan and Morrison among them.

[NMcGuitar]

What?!?! Nobody mentions Joey Ramone??

 

I agree with Caev, that if Jim Morrison hadn't been fronting a somewhat experimental band, he probably wouldn't have gotten all that much notice. I think his real talent & strength was in bringing a strong poetic sensibility (imagery, wordplay, use of language, use of free-verse, etc.) to pop music. When this was combined with the unconventional directions (not to mention the psychedelics! ) that the rest of the band took, the whole really did become much more than the sum of it's parts. Morrison was the focus of the group, so people tend to credit him as that "whole" sometimes.

[Teahead]

If Robbie Kreiger hadn't written "Light My Fire" then perhaps Caevans point would be reality? He was well read and he wrote some good lines, but Jim doesn't represent the best of American poetry.

 

For me Morrisons appeal lay in his live performances. He was a great frontman, could keep a crowd in the palm of his hand. The rest of the time, he usually had a drink in it, or his dick.

 

Tea.

[DIAMOND DUST]

Tom Waits!!!!!!!!!

[Werewolf by Night]

Originally posted by DIAMOND DUST:

"Tom Waits!!!!!!!!!"

Yeah... .

 

Man, I love songs like "Sixteen Shells", "Mr Siegel". The first time I heard "On The Nickel"- a live solo-performance on piano, on SNL or Letterman or some such late-night TV show- I almost cried, it was so beuatiful and just perfectly different. But familiar, too.

[Darklava]

http://www.poetryconnection.net/images/Emily-Dickinson.gif

 

Hey lets give props to the weaker half

just joshing.With out cheating can you guess who this is?

[DIAMOND DUST]

Originally posted by Caevan O'Shite:

Originally posted by DIAMOND DUST:

"Tom Waits!!!!!!!!!"

Yeah... .

 

Man, I love songs like "Sixteen Shells", "Mr Siegel". The first time I heard "On The Nickel"- a live solo-performance on piano, on SNL or Letterman or some such late-night TV show- I almost cried, it was so beuatiful and just perfectly different. But familiar, too.

I plugged 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six

and a Black Crow snuck through

a hole in the sky

so I spent all my buttons on an

old pack mule

and I made me a ladder from

a pawn shop marimba

and I leaned it up against

a dandelion tree

 

And I filled me a sachel

full of old pig corn

and I beat me a billy

from an old French horn

and I kicked that mule

to the top of the tree

and I blew me a hole

'bout the size of a kickdrum

and I cut me a switch

from a long branch elbow

 

Chorus

I'm gonna whittle you into kindlin'

Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six

whittle you into kindlin'

Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six

 

Well I slept in the holler

of a dry creek bed

and I tore out the buckets

from a red Corvette, tore out the buckets from a red Corvette

Lionel and Dave and the Butcher made three

you got to meet me by the knuckles of the skinnybone tree

with the strings of a Washburn

stretched like a clothes line

you know me and that mule scrambled right through the hole

 

Repeat Chorus

 

Now I hold him prisoner

in a Washburn jail

that stapped on the back

of my old kick mule

strapped it on the back of my old kick mule

I bang on the strings just

to drive him crazy

I strum it loud just to rattle his cage

strum it loud just to rattle his cage

 

[Billster]

Originally posted by DARKLAVA:

http://www.poetryconnection.net/images/Emily-Dickinson.gif

 

Hey lets give props to the weaker half

just joshing.With out cheating can you guess who this is?

Emily Dickinson

[Werewolf by Night]

Originally posted by billster:

Originally posted by DARKLAVA:

http://www.poetryconnection.net/images/Emily-Dickinson.gif

 

"With out cheating can you guess who this is?"

"Emily Dickinson"

Naaa, 's'th'chick from poetry connection, man. She's a cutie, inna vintage-babe-sorta-way.

 

(Beats Betty Rubble fantasies.)

[John O. Lennon]

Don Van Vliet/Capt. Beefheart.

 

If you don't know who he is, you owe it to yourself to check his music & lyrics out.

[Shoes]

You hardly know a day goes by . . . in the cardboard cutout sundown . . . the moon popped up like a gallery duck . . . sipped up gold from the sunny cup . . . and longhorns sawed the buggy grass . . . and a cowboy blew a harp sitting on his chapped ass!

 

The things that get burned into your brain when twisted tend not to cut loose!

 

ey captain..

 

This is the list of great American Eccentrics!

Fortunately the Great American Poet has a very short life span. That being the period during which his material reflects the very present in which it is composed.

Beyond that point it's all mere reflection of a life that once was and that's history.

 

That was my brief stint at being a poet.

my time is done.

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by Tedster:

How 'bout Carl Sandburg or Woody Guthrie for a couple? Walt Whitman? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Perhaps some of the cowboy poets? Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg?

, Ted!

 

How about Shel Silverstein. Denise took Lilly to Media Play last night and with all the Veggie Tales, etc. CD's to choose from, Lilly chose Shel Silverstein reciting his own poetry, some to guitar accompanyment. He was a heck of a writer and speaker.

[Werewolf by Night]

Y'know, I was gonna cite Shel Silverstein, and Dr. Seusse/Theodor Geisel!

 

Sometimes I like Kerouac, sometimes I almost agree with the sentiment regarding his work as being not writing, but merely typing!

 

Man, some of Ray Bradbury's prose is so beautiful, it reads as sheer poetry to me! Strange how he gets confiningly pigeonholed as a "science fiction" writer!

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by Caevan O'Shite:

Y'know, I was gonna cite Shel Silverstein, and Dr. Seusse/Theodor Geisel!

 

Sometimes I like Kerouac, sometimes I almost agree with the sentiment regarding his work as being not writing, but merely typing!

 

Man, some of Ray Bradbury's prose is so beautiful, it reads as sheer poetry to me! Strange how he gets confiningly pigeonholed as a "science fiction" writer!

Doh! How could I leave out Ted Geisel?!?

 

I'm also a big Ray Bradbury fan.

[Shoes]

If this is open to simply listing American Poets I guess you could toss in John Prine, John Hiatt and even John Denver if you wanted to play fast with the rules.

I'm just not knowledgeable enough about contemporary American literature, poetry or songsmiths of this day and age. There certainly has been a lot of shit going down in the last decade and I just don't know who's documenting it for me.

 

One of Canada's past Canadian Poets (musically speaking and IMO) was Bruce Cockburn although he used the world as a source of material not just Canada.

Amazing guy in many respects...

 

Go ahead... toss a brick!