What do you think of Bob Dylan

[og ogilby]

Probably the best audience recording ever.

 

[Idris2002]

I'll just leave this here:

 

[eoin_k]

More of a short story set to music than a poem. I wonder if she sent him the shoes?

 

[Idris2002]

More of a short story set to music than a poem. I wonder if she sent him the shoes?

Hmmm. Well. You know the story about how everyone assumed that "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" was about the Cuba crisis, and that he went along with it for years, before admitting that it wasn't. If he really had been a poet, it really would have been about the missile crisis.

 

[eoin_k]

If he got it for Mr Tambourine Man Noel Gallagher might be the next poet laureate.

 

[Idaho]

Dylan is great because of his terrible voice. And because he was just making it up as he went along. And because he has produced some awful crap. And because he's a grumpy bastard. He was one of the greatest singer songwriters of the rock age.

 

[Idris2002]

Dylan is great because of his terrible voice. And because he was just making it up as he went along. And because he has produced some awful crap. And because he's a grumpy bastard. He was one of the greatest singer songwriters of the rock age.

But Nobel Prize material? Compared to Ngugi Wa Thiong'o?

 

[Idaho]

I don't really care about the Nobel prize. Means nothing to me.

 

[Idris2002]

I don't really care about the Nobel prize. Means nothing to me.

You're a Midge Ure fan, then?

 

[Fanny Fruitcake]

I actually do admire the ageing hipster for sometimes treating his oh-so-devotional fans with a mixture of barely disguised contempt for their undiluted worship of the Great One. Witness some of his live performances over the past decade or more, in which some of his songs are seemingly dismantled and destroyed so thoroughly and deliberately, that they sound barely recognisable or listenable to the original. An example of this is his MTV unplugged. Horrendous shit. See youtube for others. As for the Nobel Prize? I'm sure Roberti is over the moon. Not.

 

[Orang Utan]

I don't really care about the Nobel prize. Means nothing to me.

as does Dylan. fucking lyricists

 

[SpookyFrank]

as does Dylan. fucking lyricists

I'm sure there'll be a nobel prize for wubwub noises one day.

 

[redsquirrel]

What's surprising to me is that he's won it now, four or even five decades after his best/most significant* work. Aren't such prizes normally awarded to people currently doing great work, in whatever field, rather than as some kind of belated "life time achievement" award?

Lessing got it when she was in her 80s, Pinter got it when he was 75 and well after his most respected plays had been published, Llosa got it in his 70s, I'm not familiar with most of the other recent winner but I'd say giving to people late in their lives is pretty standard.

 

[hipipol]

Surprised they aint given it to Coleridge - about as comtemp.............nuff said, ye no where I go wi dis.......

 

[andysays]

Lessing got it when she was in her 80s, Pinter got it when he was 75 and well after his most respected plays had been published, Llosa got it in his 70s, I'm not familiar with most of the other recent winner but I'd say giving to people late in their lives is pretty standard.

Fair enough, I'll concede the point to your greater knowledge.

 

[bimble]

This is so go good. His parody on Mcarthyism. Just needs to be very slightly rewrote for now.

 

[Orang Utan]

Lessing got it when she was in her 80s, Pinter got it when he was 75 and well after his most respected plays had been published, Llosa got it in his 70s, I'm not familiar with most of the other recent winner but I'd say giving to people late in their lives is pretty standard.

they wrote books. not ditties

 

[bimble]

they wrote books. not ditties

Spoken word is not less worthy than the written one.

 

[Orang Utan]

Spoken word is not less worthy than the written one.

is it literature though?
spoken word is really annoying until you can see it written down. only then does it make sense, esp song lyrics.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The Zim has now won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Really:

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 - Press Release

Well deserved; he's arguably the best lyricist of his generation.

 

[bimble]

Orang Utan This woman won the ted Hughes poetry prize last year, deservedly I think. Not written spoken. Kate Tempest. She's brilliant. Poetry is older than the guttenburg press.

 

[Orang Utan]

Orang Utan This woman won the ted Hughes poetry prize last year, deservedly I think. Not written spoken. She's brilliant. Poetry is older than the guttenburg press.

is there a transcript i can read?

 

[Orang Utan]

see with kate tempest, i want to read her novel. but i'm not fucking listening to her.

 

[bimble]

see with kate tempest, i want to read her novel. but i'm not fucking listening to her.

You're just a blip then, poetry and myth was in the past and is now in the future mostly about sound, shared listening, not words on a page.

 

[Orang Utan]

You're just a blip then, poetry and myth was in the past and is now in the future mostly about sound, not words on a page.

still can't get with it. listening to people blethering on with all the other distractions vs black type on gleaming white paper. book wins every time

 

[bimble]

still can't get with it. listening to people blethering on with all the other distractions vs black type on gleaming white paper. book wins every time

The poetry society sells her work in silent print for a price, if you can't be bothered to listen for free. I saw her onstage once. It was beautiful.

 

[DotCommunist]

written has its place,
where form meets function.


some poetry has to be heard really but loads of the form is good written- assonance and alliteration don't just work audio, the repetition of the shapes of the letters is also pleasing to look at. Then theres acrostics and various other novelty ways of doing written poesy. Plus line lengths matching and stanzas matching in length- all pleasing to the mind imo.

 

[bimble]

Of course. Great wordsmithing holds its value written or heard.
But the idea that you're only a poet if your main outlet is the printed word is silly.
I like it that Dylan gets this prize, even if it its because nobody could think of a more contemporary candidate.

 

[Orang Utan]

There are plenty of other people who have written books

 

[Treacle Toes]

see with kate tempest, i want to read her novel. but i'm not fucking listening to her.

Interesting. Maybe the issue is that you don't appreciate how some people 'deliver' their novels. The novel is something you see as a certain form. Oral forms of reflection and storytelling predate books for example. Some authors/wordsmiths don't want to be a part of their work after they have written/thought it...others like KT do well to continue to be physically involved with it.