The newer poetry handbook
I wanna not be the guy that throws out blanket statements like ‘poetry sucks’. Fact is I think it mostly does. But that’s a personal opinion, it does suck, but only to me. It’s kind of a dirty little secret that I’ve been keeping to myself for the best part of the last 20 years. It’s one of those things that you can’t think sucks, poetry’s so deep and meaningful and if you think it sucks then you’re basically saying you’re shallow and superficial. Fuck that.
I guess I’m getting my shoes filled with urine.
The last person I told how I really feel about poetry was probably my English teacher in high school. Miss Edwards, she was good people but she made me study poetry, she had to really it was part of the curriculum. So I told her I didn’t get it, where’s the rest of the words? Why so cryptic? Why doesn’t the author just tell me what he wants me to know? Poetry is too fuckin fill-in-the-blanks for me. Join-the-dots writing. Like 1000 years after the poet’s dead no one will really know exactly what he was wanting to say, that bugs the shit out of me. So she tells me it’s beautiful because it’s open to interpretation. A poem is composed in such a way that allows the reader to use their imagination to construe the story however they want. I didn’t get it, I thought it was all crap, I forever decided poetry sucked.
The fact is that poetry is another medium, another way for artists to connect with their audience. Everyone’s unique and their brains work different. Some people like to look, others like to listen, some like to touch, and so on. There’s something for everyone. And the same goes for the artist. The artist chooses their medium that they want to use to relay their message to their audience. And that’s the key here – it’s THEIR message and THEIR audience, and if I don’t like it I can fuck off, but then again I did want to do just that but the teacher made me study it which made me loathe it. And I think poetry is that sort of medium where it makes you think. Like if the poem’s about a snake and there are lots of words that begin with ‘s’ then that can have a strong subliminal effect (I know that’s a shitty example but stay with me). A poet can play with the words and cleverly build up the poem to a dramatic climax by using bigger words or making the sentences longer as the poem progresses. And all kinds of other clever poetry tricks that I don’t even know of or can’t be bothered to go into right now. And of course let’s not forget that perhaps the most beautiful part of a poem is what’s missing, the fill-in-the-blanks parts that grew my disdain for poems is the same reason that so many people love them. Yep I’ve gone full circle, I’ve now said that the most beautiful part of the poem is the part I don’t like.
Just to totally confuse you I actually have a favorite poet and his name is Charles Bukowski, if you’re familiar with his work you’ll know why. I do like some poetry a lot. The English school system tried to break me forever by shoving some goddam awful crap poetry down my throat. But over the years I’ve come across poems that have blown my mind and I’ve read them twenty times straight and thought about them for days after. I’ll never be that guy that rushes home to read poems. But maybe I’ll rush home to read a poem.