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Poets' Odd Jobs

poets.org

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: Poets' Odd Jobs

#41
post #3

We poets walk amongst you on HN also. Our poems aren’t very good, but then our code isn’t either ;)

do you also do line breaks in your code like you would in a poem? the linter doesn't understand. i broke the line like that for a reason, mainly because it makes it more readable. have never worked with a programmer who understood that.

  I have freed  
  the symbols  
  from your  
  clumsy lines

  which  
  the linter probably  
  considers  
  in error  
    
  Indulge me  
  it's more readable  
  neat functions  
  in neat form

Re: Poets' Odd Jobs

#42
post #3

We poets walk amongst you on HN also. Our poems aren’t very good, but then our code isn’t either ;)

do you also do line breaks in your code like you would in a poem? the linter doesn't understand. i broke the line like that for a reason, mainly because it makes it more readable. have never worked with a programmer who understood that.

Not in Python. Whitespace and lineation can be important in some poems and Python just doesn't have the flexibility.

I have experimented with Javascript eval(``) ... but prefer not to talk about it.

Re: Poets' Odd Jobs

#43

There is also a group of poets who do live off their poetry, though many are more known by other terms such as "singer-songwriter", "rapper", etc

Art Garfunkel often gives performances of music and spoken-word poetry, but he refers to the poetry as “vignettes.” I believe it’s to keep the audience from being turned off by the word poetry.

Re: Poets' Odd Jobs

#44
post #4

This reminds me of a book I recently enjoyed: Lost in the Cosmos: the Last Self Help Book by novelist Walker Percy. One of his best questions was on "the problem of re-entry", i.e. how does one go from plumbing the very depths of existence/meaning back to the mundane of standing in line to buy groceries. How does one "re-enter" "normal life"? The book doesn't so much as answer the question as make the reader ponder i…

first time i read the term “serious gardening”, quite poetic itself.

Re: Poets' Odd Jobs

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you also do line breaks in your code like you would in a poem? the linter doesn't understand. i broke the line like that for a reason, mainly because it makes it more readable. have never worked with a programmer who understood that.

Not in Python. Whitespace and lineation can be important in some poems and Python just doesn't have the flexibility. I have experimented with Javascript eval(``) ... but prefer not to talk about it.

python is one of the languages where i do this. it's more using good typographical practices with line breaks, rather than using whitespace. especially with code comments

Re: Poets' Odd Jobs

#46
post #17
post #4

This reminds me of a book I recently enjoyed: Lost in the Cosmos: the Last Self Help Book by novelist Walker Percy. One of his best questions was on "the problem of re-entry", i.e. how does one go from plumbing the very depths of existence/meaning back to the mundane of standing in line to buy groceries. How does one "re-enter" "normal life"? The book doesn't so much as answer the question as make the reader ponder i…

Philip Glass supported himself as a plumber >“I had gone to install a dishwasher in a loft in SoHo,” he says. “While working, I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ h…

[flagged]

Re: Poets' Odd Jobs

#47
Tax collector? The tax was the (very unpopular) excise, and Burns wrote the poem "The Deil's Awa wi the Excise Man": https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/node/id/420 .

I suppose that the modern equivalent would be holding down a job in academia and writing op-ed articles about how terrible it is for the country. But you can't sing an op-ed.

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