I’m usually of the “there’s no such thing as too much poetry!” camp, but sometimes it is really exhausting to read poetry that doesn’t do anything. Make me cry, make me shudder, make me laugh, make me dry heave, make me come, make me want to write, make me want to never write again. Just do something.
I enjoyed reading Whitman and Detorie yesterday, and there’s some promising stuff sitting in my inbox, so maybe all is not entirely lost. Maybe it would be better if all were lost. (Un mot et tout est perdu. Un mot et tout est sauvé.)
Jessica Smith
Ok, maybe i’m a spoiled brat… because i’ve read a *lot* of good, interesting new poetry lately, and i got all bent outta shape after reading one bad BAP poem. I mean, what was I expecting? From them?
I think it shows the difference between good constraints and bad constraints. The whole riddle about John Ashbery and Casey at the Bat and then write a sonnet about it? That’s not a constraint that I feel I could work with, and still create something that I really liked. I feel the particular constraint here is more to blame than the poem.
Just think of the ones that lost!
well, yeah. good point.
when poetry doesn’t do those things you list (by which I mean the ones that are realistically directly achievable via poetry) then I blame professionalism. I forget who was blogging about professionalism recently. anyway that’s what I blame. will someone please say what I mean by professionalism so I don’t have to? I don’t want to think. anyway liking poetry is just a mood. sometimes I’m in a mood where poetry seems good and sometimes not so much. when I don’t like poetry I read OFC. like when I don’t like music, I listen to Califone.
stephen knight, swansea poet. he’s something new, i think.