Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Poems I’m Sick and Tired of Reading

All the poems on How the Things in My Writing Space Symbolize My Life. You know the poems I mean: “As I write this poem I look at the dull blade of the letter opener, the postcard Brian sent me from Machu Picchu, and the snowflake of dried cat barf on my desk, and I realize that this simple collage symbolizes my entire life.”

A poem related to the “collage” poem and equally over-symbolic might be called the “tableau” poem: “As I walk through the park I look at a red-haired boy climbing the red steps of a slide, ketchup wrappers scattered like autumn leaves, and a robin in the shadow of an Exxon sign, and I realize that this scene captures the entire meaning of life.”

Yes, I’ve written poems like this myself, and I’ve read good ones. Still, I’m sick of them. What poems are YOU sick of?

2 comments:

Barrett said...

Robert Frost said "I'd just as soon play tennis with the nets down as write free verse."
Poems aren't poems unless they rhyme.

Pirooz M. Kalayeh said...

I find detail poetry or 'tableau poetry' as you call it, to be absolutely vital to fiction's beginnings. It grounds the reader in the reality of the novel very quickly.

I don't know if I use it in poetry too much.

I wonder if it is better used as a tactic to ground the writer as well. That maybe after writing the 'tableau poem' the real poem will begin.

I am not sick of them though. I don't read too much poetry.

I wish poems were distributed as posters, or used more in paintings.

I love poems that are done within 10 lines.

5 lines is even better.

I like poems that could be slogans, but when you look underneath they break you into a million pieces.