I don’t like poetry.
I love poetry, but I would never
comment on it, would never bring
my personal opinions to bear except
on writing that is not poetry.
I am interested in stories. I am not
interested in words, or
in language.

I don’t get poetry.

It must have a structure.
It must have an internal rhythm and rhyme.
If it does not, how are we
to know whether it is right?

Poetry standards have painted themselves
into a corner.
How can you help them improve
when they all make their own rules?

I have never gotten poetry.

Free verse
is random, incomplete ideas
without punctuation.
Insisting on internal rhyme
or pattern
is straight from the stone age.
What I have seen
is randomly placed on a page
leaving the reader
with no idea
where the inflections are,
and no idea what the author meant.

It has to have a meaning.
It has to evoke a feeling.
I don’t get poetry.
It was trying to understand
those free-form poems
that drove me away from
reading poetry.
When there are no rules
how can I offer feedback
other than
what the poem does for me
personally?

1. 
   Jym 2009 08 18 at 7:07:03 am

   =v= Back to the Pleistocene?

2. 
   arvind 2009 08 18 at 10:48:21 am

   I once left a comment on a poetry post on an online forum a few years back. The post was by a regular there who I personally thought was habitually pretentious. I’m not judging your post or anything, but the subject matter of it reminded me of my comment.

   My comment was:

   This may
   look
   like poetry
   but
   is not.

   It generated some additional comments on whether my comment was paradoxical since it was kind of poetic despite its claim to the contrary. :-D

3. 
   bev 2009 08 19 at 12:32:17 am

   I would no more
   try to repair
   the main thrusters
   on the space shuttle

   than I would try
   to critique a poem…