Tag Archives: poetry sucks

To a Progressive Poet

Your poems read as staggered prose;
the rhythm of the words escapes you.
One assumes, un-mused, you chose
a free-verse prison to run into.

You are modern. And it shows
in lack of structure, meter, beat.
Your emperor, set free of clothes
meanders on unsteady feet

exposed as naked, fending blows
from anarch subjects bored to tears
by cryptic, existential woes
and dreary imagery. One hears

within the verbiage you compose
a load of godless free-form tripe.
The lyrical ebb achieves new lows;
the scent is somewhat over-ripe…

Flux Danger

Poetry – or Worthless Arse-Dribble?

Image result for plugging ears gif

‘You can set yourself new rules or you can write with no structure for a particular poem and it can be very wonderful; I just think it’s so much harder and so much less fun than using existing forms,’ he said.

‘In the same way if you want to go to the guitar and make a noise without using the chord structure, you’re welcome to, but don’t ask me to be in the room with you. The chances are that it will be horrible unless you happen to have extraordinary natural human gifts.’

from: Modern verse/ just gets worse/ … and worse  

The Guardian online

Stuff Poetry Hates:

Pseudo-Oriental visions
Haiku, Tanka, exotic terms
Vapid New Age vibe-transmissions
proliferating eastern germs . . .

Anarchistic thought collages
Existential lacerations
Nihilistic heart-massages
Incoherent lamentations,

Communism on a mission,
grievance-mongering, stewed in hate;
pounding Fascist fusion/fission
chanting harshly: ours the state,

Hymns to Gods who choked on vomit
undertaken in overdose;
rocks that never rose to comet
rolling . . . but ending comatose,

Hipster ironies, tongue in chic
Metro-wimps who feign the normal,
Redneck rantings up the creek
semaphoric, semi-formal,

matron’s maudlin observations,
motivational hypnosis,
(sentimental medications
offered prior to diagnosis),

coldly abstract neo-nonsense
read (by dullards) as cutting edge,
letters void of correspondence;
well-trimmed words’ linguistic hedge.

Climate whining (tried untrue)
with eco-prophecies warning doom,
Wiccans and tree-sprites trying to
undo the curse and lift the gloom,

Feministic tribal ranting,
Race-complaining, agitation,
GLBT gallivanting—
all are blights upon our nation.

Boring modernist excess,
(no longer daring, formulaic)
confounds—yet never can address
what’s wrong, and so becomes prosaic.

Lists like this are perhaps  the worst;
another symptom of our times:
we who are woefully unversed
in rhythmic complaining that rhymes.

BAD Poetry

from Live Journal: About Poetry

Many people have abandoned poetry, saying they don’t know what’s good and what isn’t. Usually they do know — but they’ve been shown wretched poetry and told it was great, so they’ve lost faith in their own judgment.

First, if you think a poem is horrid, it probably is.
With practice you can learn to elucidate why it is horrid.

Read more HERE