Dana! Hello. I've been in Internet hell.

Micole! I don't see you on IM.

I really wish there were a viable, exciting, brilliant, world of fan poetry comparable to ficdom.

Start one, Lizard. My poetry's not as good as yours, but I'd give real fic-poetry writing a go.

I have to leave for work in a few minutes, so I'm going to have to revisit/edit this post a little later on for clarity, but one of two things tend to happen with fan poetry. One, unless the reader is familiar with the series and its themes, the poem is going to lose much of its impact. Two, if the poem is completely accessible to the reader, then it would be truer to say that it was inspired by a certain series rather than to say that it is "fan-poetry."

In any case, I did post one poem based on an anime series. I think Ms Havisham would know about it (Trigun), but I'm not sure if the rest of you would be familiar with it. Here's the link, if you're interested. I'm not sure that the poem can be read outside the context of the series. There are several lines that gain much of their impact from things that happen or are mentioned throughout the course of the series. Unfortunately, these things cannot be explained within the course of the poem unless I want to annotate the hell out of it, and personally, I think that looking at an annotate poem is like looking at a dissected frog rather than the live creature merrily hopping around and eating mosquitoes.

In a fic, however, it would be easy to slide in little bits of backstory that would explain things to readers unfamiliar to the series, or that would remind fans of certain events.

I hope this makes sense. If it doesn't, revisit this post in an hour or two, and maybe I'll have had the chance to tidy things up a bit.

Eek! Gotta run!!!

Anne, what you say (this is the unedited post still, so you might change it) is true. However, the poem you linked to is still powerful, and there are advantages to writing in a large fandom, such as BtVS. I'm sure the people who are familiar with Trigun get more out of the poem than I do; however, I still got something out it (not quite enough to make me want to rest, but still).

Much classical poetry is packed full of allusions to comtempary events and myths or stories that the modern reader may or may not be familiar with. Many of those poems are still powerful, if not quite as deep, without that background. I would argue that this is a similiar case. The background may add enjoyment for the reader, but a reader without it could still enjoy it.

However, that's all a little off-topicy. The real point I'm trying to get to is that if you are working in a fandom where you know other members of that fandom and share your work with them, the whole things is much easier, and there's no reason why it should not exist.

Um. I think.

One, unless the reader is familiar with the series and its themes, the poem is going to lose much of its impact. Two, if the poem is completely accessible to the reader, then it would be truer to say that it was inspired by a certain series rather than to say that it is "fan-poetry."

Well, I've definitely written the second. I often, to amuse myself, hide showverse characters inside my own poetry.

But I'm talking about the first more than the second. I'm talking about fan poetry exactly comparable to fan fiction. Which has those same restraints-- someone who doesn't watch Buffy & doesn't know much about it won't be able to appreciate the amazing Season Noir as well as someone who knows Buffy canon-- but as they're integral to the definition of the form no one really complains, right?

What I'm talking about is a fan-based movement, a fan space. Nothing's keeping me from writing poetry that's secretly about Buffy & Faith, & workshopping it with my class of students who don't know I watch the show. I mean I want a context of people who know that it's about Buffy and Faith, and know and love Buffy and Faith as well as I do, and won't make fun of me for writing in a fanly manner, and they themselves write in a fanly manner, and this is all understood as what we're doing and ain't it cool. Like ficwriters have. I want a movement. I want a group of people.

I see what you mean, RL. I think that having an archive of good fan poetry would be a wonderful thing.

I get the feeling that people tend to ignore fan poetry for the most part--one person who reviewed my poem said that she only read it because she had read my other stuff, and that normally she avoids fan poetry.

Is there some sort of stigma about fan poetry? Maybe people assume that it's going to be schlocky, Hallmarky, "moon-june-spoon" doggerel.

I love writing poetry. The only issue is that I only get smacked around by the poetry muse once or twice a year at best.

Is there some sort of stigma about fan poetry?

That's the problem. I think it's a circular thing-- most fan poetry is shit, therefore people who are serious don't write or read fan poetry. It's got a stigma along the lines of songvids' or mpreg's.

Because, you know, most of fan fiction is shit. But there's an amazing amount of really, really wonderful things. And what I'd like is a movement of fan writers who do poetry as happily, well, and with as much professional skill and composure as do fic writers.

cereal:

I think this is exacerbated by the fact that most people who attempt poetry, untrainedly, also kind of tend to suck.

this is exacerbated by the fact that most people who attempt poetry, untrainedly, also kind of tend to suck.

Like me. Yeah. But also true of prose, and somehow never seen as a problem there. A lot of people say that they can use fanfic as a 'training ground', a place to learn to write and have thier mistakes gently corrected; so why can the same not be true of fan poetry? As I said before: I'll join the movement.