Tag Archives: poetry blog
Abomination of Versification
I’d like to write another post
as the world slides into hell;
a post that flows and has a beat
and truth to tell.
Regardless of the topic’s theme
it really ought to roll…
and thus inspire someone to dream
– or save their soul.
The problem is my muse gets serious,
too pensive, way too fast.
Accentuating the delirious
is what will last.
I’m tired of those with words to share
who say it so damn poorly.
They publish tripe devoid of life
so self-assuredly…
Sic my Muse on ya!
Modern poetry is progressive, and inherently superior to that of the past.
This is my private reading of a new offering—for your eyes and ears only:
Ahem. (stands at microphone, shuffles a paper)
What I
find less than arresting: stilted musings gem-set
in ardent verbiage.
recherché semantics, florid phrases facing a withering sun
or policing of metaphor –
until handcuffed: Italic jewel thief caught on surveillance
Sudden bewildering
spaces with odd punctuation; ? &
inward dithering semi-confessions in serpentine
verse. Badder (or worse) annoying line
breaks/
cloying internal half – rhymes,
overwrought. Over-edited;
over-thought until you want to see
what’s on TV instead. As if
the poet’s every random musing was so
essential. Reverential semi-precious mythos
(Siren’s distant waves echo, shipwrecked rocks: Ossifer, ossifer –
it’s only boring poetry…
I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it)
again.
(Shuffles papers, sits down)
Did you enjoy it? I didn’t. The 17 hours I labored over it were grueling. OK. Now for some oh-so-passé highly-structured message-oriented religious poetry. This woman‘s only claim to fame is that she wrote America the Beautiful after ascending the Rocky Mountains by wagon and mule as a visiting English professor at Colorado College in 1893.
[from Streams in the Desert, Sep. 18]
YESTERDAY’S GRIEF
The rain that fell a-yesterday is ruby on the roses,
Silver on the poplar leaf, and gold on willow stem;
The grief that chanced a-yesterday is silence that incloses
Holy loves when time and change shall never trouble them.
The rain that fell a-yesterday makes all the hillsides glisten,
Coral on the laurel and beryl on the grass;
The grief that chanced a-yesterday has taught the soul to listen
For whispers of eternity in all the winds that pass.
O faint-of-heart, storm-beaten, this rain will gleam tomorrow,
Flame within the columbine and jewels on the thorn,
Heaven in the forget-me-not; though sorrow now be sorrow,
Yet sorrow shall be beauty in the magic of the morn.
Katherine Lee Bates (1859 -1929)
Back to my day job. I bid thee farewell, amazing muses of our amusing mazes.
Gimme dat lyric, yo…
I like old-school lyrics. Meaning from around 1685 or later.
Do you like poetry? What kind – what poets?
I can’t stand most modern, academic esoteric intentionally cryptic free verse. Who reads that stuff anyway? Forget those weak little ditherings in the margin of New Yorker and Atlantic – how boring. And although I once believed in it, I grew out of stridently political agit-prop years ago as well. Give me real poetry please!
I was forced to analyze poetry in school and I resented it. Maybe a few lines here and there [E.E. Cummings, Ogden Nash] were amusing but it was nothing I ever chose to read on my own. Years later I got turned on to French poets like Baudelaire, G. de Nerval, Rimbaud and others who had some great hypnotic rhythms and rhyme combined with astral imagery and intense feeling. I began to realize that I did like poetry – that kind at least. Later, stranded in the Arizona desert with the New Oxford Book of English Verse [1250-1950…new indeed!], I found great treasures. Many of them I have posted, and will continue to post here for your enjoyment. I discovered that being alone in the desert was the ideal way to develop appreciation for poetry. This was in the late 80’s to mid 90’s before the age of cyber-connectivity had infected me. After my mind cleared from the barrage of stimuli considered normal, I found that I was reading these old works with new perception. It was like actually communing with the mind of the writer, no matter how distant [or near] in time. It was a spiritual realization for me. Perhaps some of you have also experienced that realization – maybe you are so blessed that you don’t have to live in the desert as I had to reach that state of cerebral clarity. In this age of rampant pragmatism and commodified common-sense, it is almost shameful to confess that I love poetry.
Do you also hesitate before divulging your love of poetry?
CONNECT/HOOK 