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This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Poetry and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use require that editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" with respect to any paid contribution; see WP:PAID. For advice about reviewing paid contributions, see WP:COIRESPONSE. Noah Hickman (talk · contribs) has been paid by BYU. Their editing has included contributions to this article. COI declarations on userpage

Disclosed COI

Hi! I work for the BYU Library, and I'll be working on pages affiliated with this project. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns! Noah Hickman (talk) 23:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikiproject

Would anyone be interested in joining a sub project of WP:Anthropology on oral tradition? WP's coverage of this is quite poor atm imo Kowal2701 (talk) 17:06, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Dispute at Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär

The article Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär was recently created by User:Tamtam90, and I thank them for that. However, the (unsourced) translation is an utter misrepresentation of the German text. The mistranslation of Wenn to 'When' is what caught my eye first. On closer reading, their English text has often no equivalent in the German. I gave more details at Talk:Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär#Disputed translation.

While correcting the translation, I also made more that half a dozen other improvements – some quite substantial – as described in my edit summaries. Tamtam90 reverted them all, twice. I would welcome the input of other editors in this matter. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:25, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Disputes on article for "Barrett Watten"

There are several disputes for the professor and poet Barrett Watten. See the Talk:Barrett Watten and Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Question_about_a_professor's_article if you want to catch up. There is a possible COI editor who is possibly very close to the subject and is very heated on the talk pages. They have repeatedly stated the involved editors do not know what we are talking about when it comes to editing articles for poets and authors, so I'm reaching out here and on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Biography/Arts and entertainment to address this concern of theirs. Please take a look if interested and feel free to add to conversation/consensus. GeogSage 17:43, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Informal discussion

An informal discussion of article issues, a "Before opening a reassessment", has been initiated at Talk:Dylan Thomas#Article issues and classification

WP:MAJORWORK vs. WP:MINORWORK

A difference of opinion about which applies arose for me recently, and MOS is not particularly helpful there.

• MOS:MINORWORK: short, example has 16 lines
• MOS:MAJORWORK: long or epic, example has 10000+ lines

So, what about poems with 17 to 9999 lines? Where do you draw the line, or where do you place the grey area between long and short?

For comparison, the Eminem song "Rap God" (208 lines) and Don McLean's "American Pie" (117 lines) are both minor works. According to @Bkonrad:, Auden's Spain (104 lines) is a major work, which I do not see. Paradoctor (talk) 16:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I don't care all that much, but the disambiguation entry should match however the article on Spain (poem) is styled. Since it was initially published as a standalone booklet, I'd be inclined to treat it as a major work. older ≠ wiser 16:44, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, until Paradoctor's post above, I was unaware of the poem's length. I only saw there was a style discrepancy between the disambiguation page entry and the article. I defaulted to what was used in the article's style, largely based on seeing it had been a standalone publication. But it could well be that the article should be updated. older ≠ wiser 17:00, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I like your new sig. Paradoctor (talk) 17:38, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Typically the secondary sources will have some kind of consensus, so I look for that (simpler than hoping to find a rule that is always accurate!). I also tend to find standalone publications (like booklets) are more often treated as “major” than parts of works (like poems within a collection or songs within an album), and format has a bigger impact than the raw number of lines. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:03, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

secondary sources I'd really be surprised if the sources were a) consistent with each other, b) aligned with our purpose of distinguishing "minor" and "major" works. Maybe more to the point, I suspect most sources will use "major" and "minor" as descriptors of impact, not of length, which is what MOS uses as criterion. I don't think sources will work for us there. "American Pie" is certainly not a minor work in McLean's discography.

Same issue with publication context/format. MOS doesn't mention it.

simpler than hoping to find a rule that is always accurate Good thing, then, that I didn't ask for that, wouldn't you say? Paradoctor (talk) 22:30, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear: I didn't mean to suggest that we go and see whether sources describe a given poem as "major" and then italicize if so; that certainly wouldn't work. I meant that the sources will either italicize the title or put it in quotation marks, and we can follow their lead. To my eye, the Misplaced Pages MOS simply enumerates the same principles that underlie other style guides like MLA style. So, the gray area between "long" and "short" will not be a numerical cutoff, but a contextual assessment already carried out by those who produce our secondary materials on these works. These contextual assessments, in my experience, are often heavily influenced by publication format and genre. So if you are just wondering whether Auden's poem about Spain should be in quotes or italics, it looks like it could be either and I'd go check which is most common in the sources. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:31, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

sources will either italicize the title or put it in quotation marks Same objection applies here, only much harder, so let me quote myself: I'd really be surprised if the sources were a) consistent with each other, b) aligned with our purpose of distinguishing "minor" and "major" works.

To my eye, the Misplaced Pages MOS simply enumerates the same principles that underlie other style guides like MLA style Please quote our MOS where it says anything but length determines whether a poem is a major or a minor work. The problem is that the guidance given leaves a three orders of magnitude gap. That's a bit much for local consensus to carry. Paradoctor (talk) 10:15, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

It would be good to have some definition like the film industry provides. AMPAS defines a short film as having a run time of no more than 40 minutes. The Canadians use a different definition, but that needn't worry us, we can use and mention these definitions as context would have us. Maybe PEN International or some publisher's association promulgates a definition of "short poem"? For prose, I dimly recall reading a definition that distinguishes between short story, novelette, novella, and novel in terms of word count.

We should start an article on Ingoapele Madingoane

We should start an article on Ingoapele Madingoane - "Poet and social activist Ingoapele Madingoane is considered the doyen of modern, politically conscious oral poetry. The late Madingoane was a formidable member of the 1976 Black Consciousness Sowetan poets.He wrote the famous, evocative, mini-epic poem, Africa my Beginning, which was published by Ravan Press in Johannesburg in 1979 and banned by the apartheid authorities two months later. Madingoane performed the poem widely in Soweto, accompanied by Mihloti Black Theatre’s flutes and drums. It became a regular feature during the protest rallies and funerals of anti-apartheid activists. He has had an indelible impact and influence on the post-apartheid generations of poets, including world-renowned poets Lesego Rampolokeng, Siphiwe ka Ngwenya, and Kgafela oa Magogodi. Madingoane was honored with a SALA Literary Posthumous Award in 2007, nine years after his death"

- 189.122.84.88 (talk) 15:06, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

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