Isn't poetry absolutely wonderful though? I mean, really there is something about it that prose writing will never be able to quite get to. Poetry is so not reporting. It's so finicky, it is inherently allowed to appeal to a much smaller audience than prose. It is always such a narrow rolled-up newspaper telescopic opinion of something. To a certain extent, the fiction shelves have to be saying... "I can appeal to you, you will be able to relate to this, please buy me, BUY ME," but the poetry shelves [more scantily clad and less visited] whisper to no one in particular, "This is what I am. Perhaps no one can relate. But no matter. I am not really for sale."
Have a great Monday!
I feel that poetry is kind of like modern art; if anyone can make it, using no particular technique and no discernible formula, what is it you've exactly made?
ReplyDeleteHow do you know if you've made poetry, and how do you know if you've just excreted words onto a page?
Hi, Kingmonkey:
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment.
It is the beautiful thing about poetry that here is a realm where nothing is illegal.
Here is a place where not only if someone does not want to read it, they don't have to read it... but [more importantly] if someone does not want to write it, they do not have to write it.
In this sense, the very thing [I think] you are sort of referring in a negative context is poetry's great POSITIVE aspect.
The very freedom it allows us.
You always know you are making poetry, [if you are making it] because making poetry is ALWAYS a process of "excreting" words onto a page.
You know it is poetry, if the making of it feels like the satisfaction felt after a good flat-out shit.