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

[maya231.livejournal.com]

I agree with the first comment. As did Douglas Adams, I think. I love poetry, myself, but there are not that many poems I love, and the older I get, the rarer it is that I will find a new poem I like. I don't even really like reading new poems these days, because the ROI is so low.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the poems have to be in a book and the person has to be centuries-dead for me to risk it.