Anything Is Poetry

Anything Is Poetry

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Robert Frost, poet extraordinaire, said that writing poetry without rhyming is like playing tennis without a net.
Words well spoken.
Let me just say at the outset that I'm not denigrating the free verse, nor am I saying that all poetry should rhyme and if it doesn't, it's not poetry. I realize there is poetry out there that doesn't rhyme and is nevertheless good, well written poetry. There's not much, mind you, but there is some – well, a little. Well, a very little. Well, a penurious, scant, microscopic, lilliputian, infinitesimally small, almost non-existent so that you can't hardly even detect the faint mezzo-pianissimo sub-atomic quarks (to grossly mix metaphors with a white trash exuberance) amount of good non-rhyming poetry out there.
Most of those I talk to in the field of the literary arts treat rhyming poetry like James Carville treated Paula Jones. However, I shall not return condescending attack with same said viciousness. Um...yes I will, non-rhyming poetry is WORTHLESS!!!
Now lest you demand proof of my own poetic talent, I will gladly concede: I'm no poet. Sure, I write poetry, but for me to say that I'm a poet would be like saying...well, I'm a poet...and I'm not.
But I do love poetry. And I consider myself to be in possession of an eye, or ear, for good poetry, somewhat. And when I hear or read a poem that is nothing more than the ego-centric meanderings of some woman who is pining away at her insipid hatred of, or loneliness for, a man and passing it off as a deep and solemn, artistically pregnant verse, my recently eaten burrito threatens to make itself known to me and those in my general vicinity.
But seriously, I'm not against all non-rhyming poetry – my maniacal outburst above not withstanding. I'm just against calling any and everything that is spoken in a halting, contralto voice, poetry.
Okay, you ready? Here we go. Not poetry:

'I left the station a little before nightfall and the cool air of the platform still clung to my sweater as I sat in the empty car.'

Now...poetry:

I left the station a little before nightfall
And the cool air of the platform still

Clung to my sweater as I sat
In the empty car

You see? I take the same words, put them in coupled lines and...wait, hold on...I forgot something. That's not poetry. Let me...wait...now, yeah, there we go.

I left the station a little before nightfall
And the cool air of the platform still

Clung to my sweater as I sat
In the empty car

Voila! Poetry (It has to be in Italics. Although this isn't, I mean, this isn't poetry. Pay no attention to the italics here).
See my point? Rhyming, like Samuel Colt, made it possible to separate the men from the boys. You can't just spit up your rage, fear, desperation, oppression, depression, contrition, submission, compassion, and any other self absorbed emotion that makes you eat a quart of ice-cream, and throw it onto a sheet of paper in lines and call it poetry. Because if that's the case, then who isn't a poet. Your grocery list is poetry.
Oh hell. I can hear it now. "But dammit, some grocery lists are poetry!" Uh-oh...that burrito again. No, wait,

Uh-oh...
That burrito again...

There we go. Ah, what the written verse does for a number 5 combo, with everything.

Keck