WRITING: Poetry

I am in anapestic shock–somebody call a doctor! (Or an English Professor!)

My recent frustration with some contemporary poetry–reading, which leads to writing–was in the seeming lack of form or recognizable structure as well as the metaphor that is either so skillfully done or unskillfully done so as to either be evident of amazing genius and imagination or just plain bullshit. The latter problem I will study more thoroughly because it really does warrant either understanding of the language or be open to interpretation and left at that. As you can see from this entire paragraph, the whole issue seems to be an either/or situation.

But for now, structure and form is not. One who is wiser than I (Ersinghaus, again) has suggested I go back to the roots of poetry to discover the basis upon which the evolution of today’s form is based. Wise, indeed. Even the human form has a basic skeleton upon which variations of layers of muscle, fat, skin is applied to become similar but extremely individual finished products. It’s the subtleties of amount, placement, tone, etc. that provide the diversion of each basic element. Interesting, no?

So getting back to basics, I am reacquainting myself with meter, feet, syllabic stress and break, etc. I have taken out two of the many poems I wrote this month that I thought were maybe halfway decent and am analyzing them critically to see if I am following any sort of pattern learned from reading good poetics. Nope. So far, the stress marks and meter lengths don’t seem to be in any code that’s easy to crack.

Why the high interest in poetry lately? I’m not sure. I’ve never been heavy into poetry, never bothered writing or thinking it until taking several courses at the college in the past couple years. But it is extremely useful to me, it seems, in several ways. Poetics better expresses thoughts while in a depressive state of mind; somehow it makes them more tolerable by adding a touch of beauty, although this is debatable I suppose, because the drama and romance of dark thoughts can almost enhance them and make them desirable–look at Plath, and many, too many others.

The truth though, is that while I enjoy reading and writing poetry now–more than I even imagined I would–it is starting to show up in my writing of fictional short story, my true love and second best maybe to novels.
There is as much to be learned, it seems, from reading poetry–and most likely other forms, such as journalism for accuracy and compactness, etc.–as there is from reading the form of narrative in which you choose to tell your thoughts and feelings.

Learning every day.