HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sheilah@wam.umd.edu (Danny-Boy)
Subject: Sometimes why I get depressed
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 04:10:20 GMT


It's like I pour my whole life into a black hole It will never propagate.
The only consolation I have is that energy is conserved. One day someone -
she will mass the universe. She will know. "There was another girl. Who
lived a life. In a universe. Of ten grams. a fundimental size of my
universe. I will derive her whole life. I will derive her whole care and
ambition from ten grams. I bet she wants to talk to me, I bet she wants
to hold my hand. She had a particular passion for blue and for meeting
rain. The first time she met snow she was startled when the flakes reached
for her tongue. I assume the phase change of her early universe gives her
a fear of hights."
That, Lucy, Is all I've accomplished. Ten Grams.
All the Time Robert was giving this speech she had sat on the edge
of a chair. Moving her hands. tossing hair like salad.
Lucy was in love with her ten gram hands and hair. The possibilities of
her eyelashes, viewed in profile, blinking. The color beneath her nails.

--


oh well.
-- 
I am always wrong. Don't believe me ever.
stark raving sane  sheilah@wam.umd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: not poetry, profanity, and general disgruntlement 
From: nikolay@husc10.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev)
Date: 18 Dec 92 07:21:01
Organization: The Kremlin Wall of Harvard
In-reply-to: zola@hardy.u.washington.edu's message of Thu, 17 Dec 1992 22:30:26 GMT

zola@hardy.u.washington.edu (blowtorch bitch) writes:

> What is rap coming to?  Even Sheila, Gaseous Celestial Body wanter,
> is saying "fuck you".

>>When you return, Don, do look for _Pleasures_.  I leave finding the
>>author an exercise to the literature-assertive, well-read and
>>proof-desirous seeker.  Also, you might consider the rather harder
>>to find, "girrrl" 'zines from Olympia, Washington and Washington,
>>D.C. that reflect the new "riot girl" thing.

> right.  some of this may prove to be interesting.

>>I was calm, but now I'm found :) by the ever so dweeby
>>pronouncements being made on this newsgroup by persons who pose
>>loudly but who know not what they talk about, save for their
>>uninformed general prejudices or specialized political axes to
>>grind.  All men hate women.  Fuck means rape.  Marek's poetry
>>contributes to violence against women.  Love is a dead word.

Whoever wrote this, how dare you chastise them for saying "fuck"?! 
People have a right to express their emotions in verse or in prose. 
And if you object to rape, please learn some tolerance, because the 
ultimate beauty of life, love and poetry lies in Variety, and this 
includes the variety of the possible forms of the sexual act, some
of which boldly transcend the narrow concepts of consent and
privacy and boldly spill their fragrance into the wide world.

> For those of you interested in meta-social phenomenon of 'the monkey
> at the keyboard' or more locally 'idiots can write poetry
> occaisionally' I offer a few of the latest posts.  Certain hominids
> being able to say something that is abjectly correct about 2% of the
> time, the rest of the time entirely missing the point.  Certain
> poems, translations perhaps being accurate and poetic, and the rest
> of the time showing distinct reasoning gaps.  Indeed words are only
> words, but in their use they do show patterns of thinking.
> Sometimes fucked thinking. Sometimes missing the fucking point.

Gee, who is this intolerant self-proclaimed blowtorch bitch person?
I would caution you: the sort of discourse you espouse tends to
discourage neophyte poets from posting on r.a.p. There may be
a grain of relative truth in what you say, but remember that you may 
actually harm some incipient creative sensibilities. 

> And sometimes discussions happen, and instead of getting more
> specific people get broader in their explanations so that the
> monkeys can grasp the concept.  And that is exactly what they do-
> grasp the general idea rather than the more subtle point.  Once
> again missing the fucking point.

>still:

> "Never try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig."

Bravo, this will surely provoke another bucketful from M & M!

Philip Nikolayev
nikolay@husc.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: sheilah@wam.umd.edu (Danny-Boy)
Subject: Was Several words about posting...
Summary: I babble for a while to irritate, then I say none of the points
Keywords: I brought up for discussion have been refuted.
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 15:08:04 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.130635.2154@newstand.syr.edu> keneuner@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Kathleen E. Neuner) writes:

>[sering observations, steaming lips. wants rapd or something etc etc]


>	Now, I don't kbnow how good YOUR math is, but 39 (as of this morn)
>	to 7 (as of morn) IS A FRIGGING MAJORITY.

How nice of you to ask. I'm awful with arithmetic.
I hated math until I got to the 8th grade (I'm also awful with spelling,
I had to type 8 because I couldn't spell it. I hope you hate me for all
this meaningless babble. but I will eventually get to a point. fuck you)
the 8th grade we started algebra. I was so thrilled I made straight a's.
should have never done it. I especially enjoyed my fling with calculus
my senior year in high school especially especially when we did the
find the volume or surface area of a rotated function. why? becuase it
was beautifully fun to wiggle all these things in your head. This is
similar to playing tetris for a while and then trying to pull everything
together afterwards. (tables etc)

later I enjoyed vector calculus, the small part that I didn't skip when
he started first talking about multiplying all those creatures. (x,y,z)
blah blah blah. It was fun to realize that they were cordinates to
a space, and then pretend like space was some weirdness to swim
in. you make this connection by realizing that the cordinates of points are
really hard to tell apart from pointing vectors. anyway, cordinates made
up of cordinates. it's fun.

>			Sincerely, 

			You are not sincere, you liar.

>					Keith

The main protest I have with you is that you say nothing. You do not
respond to points you disagree with, with points to refute them. You
just say things like "you are stupid people who can't do math"

You would probably say that you would respond through points through
email, fuck you again, this is a public vote maybe, I want public debate.

Maybe I will respect you if you can come up with good disposals of
my points in responce to your article. I bet I can come up with better ones.


-- 
I am always wrong. Don't believe me ever.
stark raving sane  sheilah@wam.umd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jchien@leland.Stanford.EDU (Jennifer Crystal Fang-Chien)
Subject: Re: Suggestions for Reducing Traffic
Organization: The Land of Flowers (Stanford U.)
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 09:25:46 GMT



	Well, after hearing many comments on this issue, I've found that
	having r.a.p.d involves a few problems I hadn't considered,
	such as how to keep r.a.p poem-only and how to keep r.a.p.d
	from dying (due to inconvenience).  Thralls' suggestion for
	letters and numbers catagories sounded overly complicated,
	and sci.poetics probably wouldn't get much traffic.

	However, since many people have expressed an interest in r.a.p.d,
	it would be reasonable to take a vote on the matter.  Personally,
	I'm not one for running the formal procedures (since I'm not in
	favor of it, after these discussions), but I encourage someone 
	who supports this idea to take up the standard procedures for
	forming a new newsgroup.


Jennifer






Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: colossal@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (colossal Microscope)
Subject: poem: scripts
Keywords: scripts, C&C
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 20:17:34 GMT




		scripts
		-------

	forgot my script today

	tell me again
	             my line in this scene
	             what is it?

	yes
	the one where i validate
	                        you
	                        your existence
	                        your poetic mastery

	yes
	tell me
	the line that enpowers me
	                         over you

	i'll gladly assume
	                  the power and control
	                  you so easily transfer

	when you *beg* 
	             for that attention
	             for that little C&C
	
	



                        Copyright 1992  Jack Thomas Weres                       
                        All Rights Reserved.  Personal use copies okay.         

---

c         _     m         
 o        \\     i        
  l      ((\\     c      
   o      (\___    r      
    s      ||       o                     -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
     s  ========     s                      -=-=-   jack thomas weres   -=-=-
      a               c                       -=-=- jtw@acpfs.att.com -=-=-
       l               o                        -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
                        p                                  |||
                         e                                 |||
From: blosser_cy@lrc.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: discontent
Date: 14 Dec 92 11:01:00 EST
Organization: Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, NC

stained by memory of times gone,
	the remnants of the past 
return to haunt my tortured soul
	
sight becomes a curse, something       
i cannot escape

sorrow, pain, isolation
	 is this my lot in life?	

to be blind, to be content...why
am i cursed with this emptiness?

why must i always need something
more?
	
to experience pain is to realize 
that you are alive

to experience loss is to realize
that you are alive

god help me...is there no end to
this madness?

to reconcile myself with knowing
that peace can never be attained

to transcend the pain and sorrow

	      that is all i want
	      that is all i seek

that is all i could hope to find
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: "Gosh, Doc..."
From: kmwilson@vax1.umkc.edu (Ken M. Wilson)
Date: 16 Dec 92 23:02:31 CST
Organization: University of Missouri - Kansas City
NNTP-Posting-Host: vax1.umkc.edu


            "Gosh, Doc... When Does That Penicillin Shot Kick In?"
            
        		I once met a girl,
			took her for a whirl,
			and we quickly went all the way.

			And of course my pet peeve,
			(When I	was trying to leave)
			Was her telling me that I must stay.

			She looked at me cold,
			And asked me "how bold
			do you think that you will be?

			When you walk to that door,
		 	end up on the floor
			cuz' I've nailed your nuts with my knee?!?"


                                  December 16, 1992
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Ken M. Wilson                  | "Send two dozen roses to Room 424 and put |
| Room 2E, Cockefair Hall        |  'Emily, I love you' on the back of the   |
| Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City |    bill."                                 |
| KMWILSON@VAX1.UMKC.EDU         |     -Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx)     |
| KMWILSON@UMKCVAX1              |       in "A Day at the Races"             |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: marek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Marek Lugowski)
Subject: Ode to hands / Halina Poswiatowska / trans: Marek
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 03:48:39 GMT

 
#5 of  the r.a.p. translations of Halina Poswiatowska is the title poem
of _Oda do rak_ (Ode to hands), published in 1966, in Polish.
 
English draft translation:

	Ode to hands (p. 118 of _Wiersze wybrane_, 1989)
	---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
	Please be welcome, my hands, my fingers so capable of grasping,
	of which one was once crushed by a car door, x-rayed -- the
	hand on the film looked like a dislocated wing -- a smallish
	chip of bone circumscribed by its own independent contour.  The ring
	finger of the left hand once adorned with a ring is widowed now
	and deprived of its adornment.  He, who gave me the ring,
	does not himself have fingers anymore, his hands have braided
	together into one with the roots of a tree.
	My hands so many times touching the cooling hands of the dead
	and the warm strong living hands.  So capable of caressing uncannily,
	with the touch that blurs the space which divides being from nonbeing
	and the heavens from the earth.  The hands, not unfamiliar with
	the pain of powerlessness, claw-locked with each other like two
	accursed birds, homeless, looking firecely blindly and everywhere
	for the trail of your hands. 
 
		draft translation of Halina Poswiatowska's
		"Oda do Rak", 1960's, from Polish by

			Marek Lugowski
			29 October 1990
			Cincinnati
 
 
Polish original Copyright 1975 Wydawnictwo Literackie, Krakow, Poland:
 
	Oda do rak (p. 118 of _Wiersze wybrane_, 1989)
	---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
	Badzcie pozdrowione moje dlonie, palce moje chwytne,
	z ktorych jeden przytrzasniety drzwiami samochodu, foto-
	grafowany promieniami Roentgena -- dlon na zdjeciu
	wygladala jak zwichniete skrzydlo -- niewielki okruch
	kosci obrysowany wlasnym odrebnym konturem.  Serdeczny
	palec lewej reki ozdobiony raz pierscionkiem owdowialy
	jest teraz i pozbawiony swej ozdoby.  Ten, ktory mi dal
	pierscionek, juz dawno nie ma palcow, jego rece splotly
	sie w jedno z korzeniami drzewa.
	Rece moje tyle razy dotykajace stygnacych dloni umarlych
	i cieplych mocnych zywych dloni.  Umiejace piescic niezwy-
	kle, w dotyku zatracajace przestrzen dzielaca istnienie
	od nieistnienia i niebo od ziemi.  Rece, ktorym nieobcy
	bol bezsilnosci, wczepione w siebie jak dwa przeklete ptaki,
	bezdomne, szukajace na oslep i wszedzie sladu twoich rak.
 
			Halina Poswiatowska, Polish, 1960s.

	
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jww@evolving.com (John W. Woolley)
Subject: Re: Mortal (c&c welcome)
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:31:34 GMT
Organization: Evolving Systems, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

Read it again, folks:

moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne) writes:
: Mortal
: (Another Tale of True Thomas)
: 
: In my British cousin's attic, in her creaking wooden house,
: A chest that held a tapestry, dulled with dust and age.
: And near it lay torn pages, edges nibbled by a mouse,
: We sat and read together, grimy thumbprints on each page.
: 
: The pages told a story, scribbled in a shaking hand,
: Of a human man named Thomas, and a lady all in green,
: How he met her at a crossroads, and followed to her land.
: The pages told the story of the tapestry we'd seen.
: 
: He wore swirling rags of color and a harper's cape of blue.
: His hand was in the lady's, harp of silver at his side;
: But a curse was laid upon him; every word he spoke was true--
: His reward for kisses stolen; curse a harper could not hide.
: 
: Mortal weaving can't do justice to the beauty of the fey,
: Her glory rivaled beauty of sunset or sunrise,
: But we held hands and shivered on that cold December day,
: For the weaver had caught perfectly the terror in his eyes.

Wow, really good ending.  I shivered, too.  Good poem!

You do good stuff with assonance and alliteration, especially in the
first stanza -- "dulled with dust".  "age"/"pages"/"edges" is fine.

Might I suggest (humbly, hesitatingly) that you leave out the word
"that" in line 2 (making the sentence gramatically complete, and
adding some rhythmic irregularity) and the word "human" in line 6
(unless it's for some reason important to you).

There are two half-lines that strike me as clumsy, the second halves
of lines 4 and 7.  Line 8 repeats line 5 too closely, I think.  Maybe
"Their story was the story ..."

The third stanza needs some rhythmic variation.

"Do justice to the beauty" is, maybe, a trifle cliche-ish.  Try
something like "Mortal weaving couldn't bear the wild beauty of the
fey", or whatever?
-- 
Fr. John Woolley (jww@evolving.com); vastly enthusiastic about Augustine,
Austen, babies, Bach, backgammon, baseball, beer, the Bible, Botticelli, Burke,
Chesterton, Dante, Dixieland, hardboiled, Hitchcock, Dr Johnson, Latin, Mozart,
Shakespeare/de Vere, St Teresa, Tolkien, Trollope, Fats Waller, and Washington
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: zola@hardy.u.washington.edu (riene des tournesols)
Subject: Re: zinfandel / Marek Re: 
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 22:26:10 GMT


what's-his-name blathers---

>Let me delicately point out, Rebecca, lest you lose touch with reality
>completely, that rec.arts.poems is for posting poems -- a slightly
>more justifiable use than butt-harping, using it for classifieds and
>posting innanities.  I realize that you are low on social life these
>days, but, Love, look not crossly at posting even old poems on a poem group.
>

yeah yeah.  not only do you not need to take your clothes off ever for me,
and I hope that you don't, you have no idea what happens in my life, nor
have you ever.  don't make assumptions, and I have long ago learned all I
can from pigs.
From: jmcbride@ccvax.ucd.ie
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: for your reading enjoyment
Date: 9 Dec 92 09:19:52 GMT
Organization: University College Dublin

			Ode from a very hungry person
			to his (or her)  best friend,
			   a Haddock, called Phil.


				Oh,
				Wet Pet,
				Get Set
				To be,
				Ate.



I thank you,



james p mc bride
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jchien@leland.Stanford.EDU (Jennifer Crystal Fang-Chien)
Subject: Heilbroner: Captitalism and Culture
Organization: The Land of Flowers (Stanford U.)
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 02:26:23 GMT


	In the spirit of my finals stuyding, I've come across an
interesting commentary.


	"What is striking about capitalism is the willingness
	to accept potentially subversive influences once they
	are denatured by becoming commodities.  Thus ...
	essentially critical games such as Monopoly or even
	Class Struggle are sold with much the same indifference
	to their content as Parcheesi; anti-establishment motion
	pictures are promoted with the same zest as films of
	economic piety ... anti-bourgeois art or styles ... are
	eagerly embraced as successful items for merchandising
	without the smallest awareness of, or concern for, their
	symbolic rejection of the values of the larger culture.

		All this, of course, is part of the extraordinary
	richness and creativity of capitalist culture.  At the
	same time, it is necessary to comment on two aspects of
	this cultural facet of capitalism.  The first is that
	the extraordinary tolerance for heretical, skeptical,
	or diconcerting thought and cultural activity is a
	direct consequence of the desacralization we have emphasized
	as the centeral characteristic of capitalist ideology...

		Second, it is only _because_ ideas are commodities
	that they can be so lightly and indifferently regarded.  A
	culture based on sacred beliefs would have great difficulty
	in tolerating continuous threats to the validity and
	sanctity of its world view ....

		The absorptive capacity of capitalism is, however,
	also a weakness for the system.  The ceaseless outpouring
	of commodified culture, the cacaphony of ten thousand
	books, magazines, and television impressions is in the
	end a recipe for confusion rather than enlightenment ....

		... what is notable about its cultural outlook
	is the compression of the realm of culture itself.  It is
	part of the nature of capitalism that the circuit of
	capital has no intrinsic moral dimension, no vision of
	art or idea aside from the commodity form in which it
	is embodied.  In this setting, ideas thrive but morality
	languishes, and the regime of capitalism becomes the
	breeding ground for an explosion of ideational and
	esthetic creations that conceal beneath their brilliance
	the absence of an organizing moral force."

				-- Robert Heilbroner,
				_The Nature and Logic of Capitalism_
				   pgs. 138-140.
From: akash@brahms.udel.edu (Akash Sharma)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Enough of flying
Date: 16 Dec 92 05:35:47 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Delaware


	Recently, I read a book of poems by a fella named David Ray.  His
book is titled "Enough of Flying" and is inspired by the works of Ghalib!
Naturally, I wanted to share with my fellow poem lovers, some of this wonderful
work.
	The Messiah would mean nothing to me.
	To the throne of Solomon for his latest
	victory
	I would simply send reporters.
	I'll tell you why --
	Because you're the only face
	that stops me blind.
	I'd split the earth
	that let you walk away on her.

	I thought that this particular poem captures well the nature of
Ghalib's work in being simple yet powerful.  Another creation by Ray is 
obviously more influenced by the western openness.
	We have been the most fantastic
	places together
	yet we sit here like children
	saying "Are you sure you like me?"
	Sitting cross-legged, toying
	with each other's hair,
	delighted with what
	is between our legs
	like little flowers.

Enjoy.
Akash.
akash@ravel.udel.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: bhattach@quip.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya)
Subject: Re: sometimes / blindness and insight
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 17:07:37 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.163752.8006@wam.umd.edu> sheilah@wam.umd.edu (Danny-Boy) writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.133302.538@lrc.edu> blosser_cy@lrc.edu writes:
>>...
>>		sometimes sight can be a curse,
>>		the blind far more content than 
>>		you'd ever hope to be.
>...
>
>
>Oedipus blinded himself.
>He could see at the beginning, a physical as well as spiritual sense,
>(our english formula was that oedipus traded physical sight for spiritual
>insight)
>

There are other parallels too in poetry where insight is supposed
to have come with blindness. Consider Samson in Milton's "Samson
Agonistes" ("Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves..."), *seeing*
his mission clearly defined only after he was blinded. Also consider
that blinded nobleman and friend of King Lear (his name escapes me
now ... Gloucester? ) , with realization dawning on him only after
his blinding....

>If I can gather my thoughts well enough I'd like to attempt to
>bring this discussion over here, Once, I started it with Doug, I'd
>like to include a few more people, Occasionally it plays on my mind.
>


      O amor e cego,
      Ray Charles e cego,
      Stevie Wonder e cego....

                       (Caetano Veloso, Brazilian poet/composer, "Estranheiro")

   trans:

      Love is blind,
      Ray Charles is blind,
      Stevie Wonder is blind....

>[I brought up GHandi. I decided to stick with my convictions in the face
>...
>-- 

It is "Gandhi", not "Ghandi".

I wonder why most Westerners I have seen habitually mis-spell Gandhi's
name as "Ghandi".Maybe they find it easier to pronounce that way.

>I am always wrong. Don't believe me ever.
>stark raving sane  sheilah@wam.umd.edu





-- 
Sayan Bhattacharyya          |   Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
Graduate student             |
Artificial Intelligence Lab  |
The University of Michigan   |
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: kt1@herahera.cc.bellcore.com (tellefsen,karen a)
Subject: Rubezahl
Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 21:43:34 GMT


Rubezahl 

Oh, Rubezahl, your turnip love calls you
Forsake the air, return your heart to earth
And I shall sooth you with sweet roots and clay
Beloved king of caves and smoothest stone
Forget your beastly princess' carnal ways
An animal can't know your granite soul
She ran off gladly with her monkey prince
Without a thought of you, my dearest gnome
For meat can never quench your passions quite
Like I can, lord, your humble turnip love
Forsake the air, return to earth at once
And I shall show my vegetable delights

------------------------------------------------------------------
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 Karen Tellefsen