tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3711702.post-35317122640584457892007-09-28T00:08:00.000-05:002007-09-28T00:45:15.086-05:00Most editors are failed writers - but so are most writers. ~T.S. Eliot I have no clear conception of why I like poetry. Kelsey asked me on our way back from the bookstore last night. When we arrived, she headed straight for the home decorating books. And I put off my usual coveting of the Douglas Adams collection to check out the paltry poetry offerings. A passing reference to Eliot's <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html">"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"</a> had made me realize it had been a while since I'd read it. So I found it, and read it, and realized why it had been a while. But even though Eliot, to me, is like trying to digest a whole block of cheese at once, I still enjoyed it. I just can't explain why very well. Kelsey does not like poetry. She says it's too flowery and overwrought. Too many words trying to say one little thing. Me, I like that. Perhaps because I spend my working hours trying to "omit needless words," I enjoy it when someone who actually appreciates language takes those words and crafts something beautiful out of them. But I have to agree with my wife. There is a whole lot of bad poetry out there, giving the entire genre a bad name. Everybody has five or 10 bad poems hanging around somewhere that they thought were the essence of their soul when they were 14. Most of us realize pretty soon how awful these poems (about sobbing hearts and uncatchable clouds) really are. Yet many bad poets somehow missed the telegram. Maybe because poems are relatively short, bad writers think they're within grasp. In order to write a novel you have to be at least a mediocre writer, with some grasp of plot and character. But anybody with 10 minutes and a thesaurus can slap out a sonnet. But the good poetry, ah, now that's good stuff. I believe good poetry is good because it tells us something true, something about how the writer really feels, it captures one tiny moment of truth and tells us everything about it. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html">all ye need to know</a>." Bad poetry tells us how the writer thinks he or she should feel. How the writer wishes to feel. How the writer might feel. Red Smith was right when he said, "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." Real poets leave nothing out, they bare it all. Now, they may choose which parts of their lives to write poems about. But once a topic is begun, there's no going back. When Hopkins <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/122/13.html">praises God</a> in my favorite poem you can feel his joy. When Billy Collins rhapsodizes you're in the room with him. You have to be careful reading Plath or Sexton or you'll wish you had your head in an oven, too. I certainly feel some connection. Well-written poetry makes me feel as if I know some part of the poet. But I still don't know why I really like poetry. Because I think it's edifying? Perhaps. Because I like to stand back and appreciate how artists can make words do acrobatics? Maybe. I really don't know. But after writing all this, I realize that I don't really care.Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13911433563740528588noreply@blogger.com