Hail Poetry!

[Mike Baker]

On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, Heather Rose Jones wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, Mike Baker wrote:
>> Yaakov, it would seem to me that *this* is as good a forum as any to
>> conduct in-depth discussions of poetry in all forms.  Historically, bards 
were
>> granted immunity from slavery in some societies only after they had 
created
>> their first poetic work...
> I'd be interested to know which. In the Celtic societies that I've
> studied, un-free persons were prohibted from becoming bards in the first
> place. I know that many people use "bard" in a very generic sense, but
> that becomes confusing if we're making reference to historic societies
> (as opposed to our Society).

Eeeek.  With apologies, I've been caught without a copy of my research paper 
(concerning the nature of bards ancient and modern) on hand.  I'll try and 
make sure to get one next to the terminal tomorrow.  One of my major 
premises is an attempt to define "bard" more narrowly / historically.

My Swiss-cheese memory places the citation in the context of the British 
Isles, probably after the first waves of Anglo-Saxon invasion. There were 
three protected classes under the particular statute / custom, those being 
the smith, the bard, and (I *think* this is right) the interpreter-scribe.

> I'd be more than willing to use this forum for the presentation and
> discussion of our own creations.  My experience is that this sort of
> thing works best when some ground-rules are laid out for the feedback.

I've posted a WorkInProgress, with preliminary comments, already.  Although 
a structure might be nice, I'm willing to risk a more "organic" level of 
commentary (if something I create is truly excremental in nature, I don't 
mind being told so).

> I've been involved in some very successful "writers' circles" for SCA 
poets
> that involved a lot of heavy-duty line-by-line analysis and criticism, but 
it
> worked because that's what people were there for.

I'll take whatever I get, and be glad of it, because I understand the worth 
of taking my lumps -- my editor & "first reader" in other forums (Size 
Rights / SF&F) has taught me well in that regard ...

> (Of course, I've gotten a lot less useful feedback since I've been
> shifting to doing more of my composition in Medieval Welsh. :)

I would not mind being able to provide proper response to such compositions, 
but even my exposure to "modern" Welsh is sorely lacking.  Time, that is all 
I need.  Forty-eight-hour days, with eight hour sleep cycle still 
sufficient, *might* allow me to get everything in order sometime before the 
approaching Millenium.

Kihe Blackeagle (the Dreamsinger Bard)  s.k.a. Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri 
al-Amra
Mike C. Baker                      mbaker at rapp.com
Any opinions expressed are obviously my own unless explicitly stated 
otherwise!