Several Questions about Poetry

December 5, 2007 by Les Smart.

Is there anyone out there that truly understands the majority of the poems published in Poetry?

 I receive a gift subscription to this erudite publication and every month I attempt to read it and, if I have the energy, I try to understand the poems they’ve published.  Now, I’ve been struggling to write poetry since August of 2003, I read a lot of poetry, I attend poetry workshops and poetry readings, I read books about poetry, I’ve been published and I have a BS degree in Education.  So - why is it that reading Poetry makes me feel stupid.

 This publication is held up as one of the most respected in the field and yet, as I peruse the work on their pages, I want to shout, “Someone tell them Emperor he’s naked!  Please stop trying to make believe any of it makes sense!  Please!”

 This, unfortunately, is the drivel that the elitist poetry establishment who are more deeply embedded in the halls of academia than Bin Laden is in the hills of Pakistan.  It is being protected and revered by them more voraciously than extreme Islamicists defend their beliefs.  In the process the figurative heads of understandable poems are being lopped off and held up in ridicule.

 Mention rhymed meter poetry to a poetry professor and watch him sneer before he gags and/or giggles.  Read a lyric rhymed piece at a gathering of these snobs and be prepared to be stoned and, if they can see past their turned up noses, they may even hit you.  What must they think of Frost, Service, Longfellow, Poe, and so many of the masters?  Are they willing to denounce and reject their work as ‘non-poetry’?

 Thank you for reading my rant.  I am on my way to the Hallmark store to read some published poetry I can understand.  Don’t tell the poetry establishment.  I don’t want to risk a possible Fatwa.

 Les

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