Anyway, I have been reading a lot of poetry on websites lately. Overall, the quality is as lacking as one might suspect from social sites that have neither editors nor many critics. As the esteemed Harold Bloom once said of an anthology that he edited, poetry websites are pretty much a “stuffed owl of bad verse.” Again, I would expect nothing else from places that offer open forums to all with no editing or critiquing. Such websites can be compared to a footrace in which there is no starting line or finishing line or track or path and no time to start and no time to stop. Everybody just runs. Determining who is running the best in such a race is completely subjective and, meaningless. Lewis Carroll wrote about Alice encountering that type of scenario in one of his works. It is an appropriate analogy.
So I am reading a little bit of good stuff, mostly bad stuff, and then I stumble upon some advice on how to write poetry. My ears, symbolically, perk up. “Ah, now, we get some advice on how to write poetry. Do tell.” I read it. I thought, “Let’s look at a different place for advice.” I ended up consulting multiple sites, and I have decided, after the enlightenment, to compose a poem based on what a conglomeration of sites offer as the primary element of composing poetry. See if you can guess what they say is the most important thing to do when writing poetry.
The Poem
I am bored-
Bored, Bored, Bored, not Board-
I am still bored
Even with the different word.
I am becoming frustrated
Because I am so bored.
Effing bored.
Curse-worthy bored.
A Change!
I am angry
Because I am supposed to have imagination.
People with imagination
Are not bored.
I am no longer angry.
I am resigned.
I have forgiven myself.
I love myself for being so kind
To myself!
I am happy.
I am smug,
Smug as a bug,
Because I love myself
Even when I am bored.
Is this the end?
I am curious.
And, the winner of who guessed what various websites say is the most important element of writing poetry is……………the one who guessed “Express your feelings.”
How did I do expressing my feelings? Did you feel what I felt as you read the words that I wrote expressing my feelings? Or did you feel something else? If, as purveyors of art, all we expect of our artists is to present their feelings, we could probably expect that our greatest artists are babies? When they laugh, we laugh. When they cry, we are sad. When they lie asleep, we adore them? I could go on and on and on. I think that we should either proclaim that babies are the greatest artists who have ever lived because they evoke emotion from us by presenting their raw feelings or make the wise decision that perhaps we expect more work from artists and poets than we do from babies, and that poets need to affect our emotions in more mature, advanced ways than expressing their feelings. I am pretty sure about that. What do you think?