# toward anthropomorphic verse



## JerseyCat (Feb 27, 2009)

In the hopes/assumption there are folks here who not only write poetry, but read it voraciously & keep up with both classic and modern poetry, I make this post.

Furrydom strikes me, a relative newcomer, as a subculture that is primarily relational and visual. I think that's both distinctive and laudable. There is furry prose, but prose and poetry (even free verse poetry at its most unadorned) are very different. I'm not here to rant about how furs don't read enough of their fandom's work. I am simply looking for people who write poetry but maybe don't call themselves poets yet, because they have too much respect for both the art form and the process of actually being recognized for blood, sweat, and tears. Also, they must love a good run-on sentence.

Drop me a line sometime and let's discuss what "furry poetry" would look like, if it even needs to exist. Let's not write FAQ's or manifestos, but make art. Let's speak in brief imperative sentences. Let's say "let's" too many times in a paragraph.

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/jerseycat


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## Poetigress (Feb 27, 2009)

Personally, I put "furry poetry" and "furry music" in the same category as being "works created by furries" more so than "works within the anthropomorphic genre."  

While I write a lot of furry fiction, I only have one poem out of hundreds ("Comanche," printed in _New Fables #2_) that I would truly consider furry, and that only because it's written in an animal's voice (though the animal isn't able to communicate verbally with humans, so I don't even know if it would technically qualify as an anthro character). I have others that are animal-related in some way, but that's not really the same thing.

So if you're talking about furry poetry as a genre/subset, I personally don't see it (at least, not at this point) the way I see furry prose as one.  Most of what I see done so far is just taking "hands" and replacing it with "paws," and things like that, the way I've seen people do with furry lyrics.  Then again, I read almost no poetry on FA anymore, so there could be good stuff hiding out there that I just don't know about.


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## TakeWalker (Feb 27, 2009)

To add to what Poey said, I'm lately becoming of the mind that, not only does furry not really constitute a genre of its own, but it's not really important or unique enough to actually matter. Rather than ask "is furry a seperate genre of fiction/music/etc.?", we should be asking why we're asking that question in the first place.


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## Poetigress (Feb 27, 2009)

Well, I disagree in that I do see furry fiction as at least a subgenre of sf/f, but honestly I've hashed that out so many times that I'm sick of talking about it.  What I think is relevant to this particular discussion, is that it seems furry could be viewed as more of a character-based subgenre than a setting/idea-based one.  Assuming that's the case (and I know a lot of people disagree with that entire assumption), a character-based subgenre seems like it would be particularly difficult to translate to poetry, since for the most part, you don't really have "characters" in poetry as much as personae.


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## foozzzball (Feb 27, 2009)

Genres are, and always have been, mainly there for the reader/consumer's benefit. By lumping material with similar elements together, they can find elements they like that more easily.

In that sense, the genre definition of furry - includes/focusses on anthropomorphised animals - is not that hard to apply. And yeah, I tend to concur with PT - furry was born out of SF/F, at the very least.

Anyhow. Most people I know just make what they like, and afterwards it may or may not fit into a genre they like or have worked in before.


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## ScottyDM (Feb 28, 2009)

foozzzball said:


> Genres are, and always have been, mainly there for the reader/consumer's benefit. By lumping material with similar elements together, they can find elements they like that more easily.


Quite true. Having a genre is also useful to authors, agents, editors, and true fans so they may intelligently discuss a work and have a useful shorthand method to do so.


I have written some vulpine nursery rhymes. My criteria was: If foxes told their kits nursery rhymes, what would they be? That is, what would the subject matter be, and what sort of sensibilities would one find in such fox folk-poetry.

Is that the sort of thing you were referring to?

Scotty


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