###
Walking quietly, entirely outside that wretched path,
I see some jelly vitamins – they’re made for children,
filling up a quirky bottle – all safe for use, and eco-friendly,
but looking tired.
Just like my words – so ordinary, inspite of their agonising still attempt
at awesomeness.
Which one is needed? The jello bears or this verse?
Who cares.
(c) 2018 MK
I read this post in the Imaginary Garden With Real Toads and it made me feel awkward. It said some pretty interesting things that I have probably been thinking over time, yet I never got to actually phrasing them. But let me start from the beginning.
The post said that poetic imagery is an essential part of poetry, and ordinary sentences broken into little lines don’t make real poems. You know the kind I often write. Here is an example, maybe not the best fitting, but I think it suits its purpose:
“Closing eyes will see the route
Unobstacled.
Scattered views will toss your mind
Closer than before.”
The post also gave an example like that, followed by a couple of good examples of free verse or prose poetry.
And here’s my take: I’ve often felt that a group of sentences like the above are not real poetry, but just sayings to which I give passion through the rhythm. Those usually get a lot of acclaim, they become popular and draw flattering comments. Such reactions would make me feel awkward, because I realised all the time that those poems were not poetic at all. And now, the post is here, the statement is here, and so is the sentence: my poems are not poems.
You may also like:
Who cares? Well, you do, or you wouldn’t have given so much thought to what I wrote. I read somewhere that one reason bad poets don’t get better is because they can only see their work from whatever level they happen to be at. If one can’t see where improvement could be made, one thinks no improvement is needed. And so, to realize one’s work needs improving is to be a large part of the way to accomplishing that improvement. I look through my first solo book of poems, “My Mad Love”–that i thought was pure awesomeness at the time–and see good stuff, but I also see a million things i would write differently today. I think, wow, this needs help. it’s hard to improve–it means work and honesty and enough passion for writing to fuel what it takes to get better. But those who face that down find they can do more than they ever used to imagine.
this poem sounds like the definition of apathy.