Amanda Rachelle Warren, here’s one for you – not just because of the poetry, but because of the “is this particular poetry good enough poetry to count?” discussion.
Amanda Rachelle Warren, here’s one for you – not just because of the poetry, but because of the “is this particular poetry good enough poetry to count?” discussion.
Seems to say “Hey, poetry can sell… if you get lucky.”
I don’t feel lucky.
It’s parallel to the same discussions in fiction, or SFF, or gaming, for example:
“X medium is dying!”
“No, it isn’t! This thing is really popular!”
“That’s not real X! That’s crap!”
“But people who like it because it’s popular now know that they like some X, and perhaps some of them will start liking the kind of X you like?”
“…But it’s not real X!”
My 2ยข . Is it complex? Nah. Is it the best poetry ever? Certainly nah. But it is poetry, and it must be touching some need in its audience, therefore it is somehow accomplishing what good writing sets out to do. Here’s hoping that this is a gateway drug of sorts. My students read it. Awesome!!! My students are voluntarily reading poetry. Amazing!! And they’ll read more. This is great news, even if it isn’t the greatest poetry ever.
Also, is there some sort of “unreal poetry” that I am not aware of…and how does it exist? I mean if we can say something like that’s “not real poetry” then how are we defining poetry at all? The only “not real” poetry I can think of is the poetry that exists only as rumor (some lost sonnet? ) or is entirely unwritten or unperformed or is burnt in a ritual fire because it is horrible and everyone forgot the words and gist of it anyway.
There was a song, or something, about “alternative music” and it claimed that the only real alternative was refusing to play, or even be a band. Maybe “unreal poetry” is poetry that refuses to exist? But then I’d wonder why…probably out of spite.
My head hurts.
I think I”m going to try to write a poem about a poem I refuse to write. That would make the poem alluded to in the poem about the alluded to poem “not real poetry.”
Amanda Rachelle Warren I just didn’t write that poem for you.
I didn’t write it either. But in my case it wasn’t a haiku.
Well, mine wasn’t the world’s filthiest limerick. I would have written it but it seemed irresponsible and prideful.
My comment about
not writing the poem was
a haiku, though. Ha!
So I did write the
poem about not writing
the poem, then. D’oh!