Writing Meta: Why don't I get poetry?

[amanuensis1]

During insomnia night this week, I read a professional insititution's glossy creativity publication that had been given to me. The photos were pretty, the essays...not as horrible as they could have been, the poetry I thought was appalling. Schmaltz, doggerel, sentimental claptrap. Amateur pirouettes on a page, terribly proud of themselves for showing off their cut-apart structure and boring as spit. These students didn't even know how to write limericks; there was a two-page spread of them and not one of them had the correct scansion of a limerick. God. I read through the book thinking, what the hell did they reject?

Is it just me? I always admit that I don't have a poet's soul; I have no inclination to write poetry other than funny doggerel, and very little poetry resonates with me. Sometimes it does. The moments are rare, but wonderful. Is it just me, is most poetry dreadful cloying crap? Just because you're grieving or in pain, that doesn't mean you can create good art.

Comments

[naatz.livejournal.com]

I do not write poetry for glory
or even to be read;
I write when inspiration strikes
fast and painful
violent in its compulsion.

I haven't a day of class,
have a distinct lack of workshops in my past;
I do not stop to think of pace or rhymes
but at times I try to ponder on my beat,
on whether this one syllable will fit.

At times I write many a day,
at times, none for months;
my poetry, which never goes away
lurking in shadows,
raises its hand as if to say Hello,
as if it's never coming back.

/random 10-minute poem

Seriously now? I started my writerly life as a poet. I still do poetry occasionally {always 'modern'}, but I've moved on to prose, mainly betaing. Unlike prose, I don't agonise over poetry. I rearrange stanzas and tenses to fit to my arbitrary syllable count, and that's pretty much all I do. ::lame::

Edits are bolded. xD Just to show the process.

|Meduza|