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

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Thank you for responding! No, that's not it, and I'm starting to go a little buggo, realizing I don't seem to have saved it. I can't find it anywhere, and I have too few clues to find it on google, darnit. I may make a "have mercy" post soon seeing if anyone remembers it.

[kaizoku.livejournal.com]

I think this (http://spuffyduds.livejournal.com/38351.html) is the poem you were looking for. I found your comment on the second page!

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD. THANK YOUUUUUUU SO MUCH! I was going bonkers, missing this! Thank you thank you!

(You know what I found, after you pointed me here? I did actually have this file on my hard drive, but there was no way I could find it because my search function does not handle html file content, so all the keywords I was using--"Persephone," etc.--didn't work because it wasn't even looking beyond the title of the file. And I had no idea who the author was and the page title meant nothing to me in that giant file. Arrrrrrgh.)

*reads poem over and over*