Why I Hate Poetry

Why I hate poetry.

Poetry, that toxic slime
Made by man, woman and child
That think they can pull words
Out of the air and by some
Simple means known only to
Those that...
    love or despair or
Heartlessly think to care
Contrive to climb the slimy walls
Where their minds grow in caverns small
Bounded by bone and hair and flesh
Putrid thoughts abounding fresh
With each day their legions grow.

So they sew, is it any wonder that
When it snows there is a gloom
Beneath the virgin white where
Frigid air brings limited sight
And tears well up but without emotion?
For that would require some strange notion
That there is a place in the universe at large
For those that think that to be a bard
Is ever, ever so wonderful.

But they have no clue that a world in pain
Has no need for trite refrain or passionate pleas
On bended knee.

Know all such aspiring that the monarch of language
Would as deign see a poet tossed into the sea
As hear them babble of thee and me and this and
That or compose refrains of philosophic pratt
That bend the mind and twist the nature of puzzle
While all the time waiting for adoring praise to
Fall as manna from heaven or coins tossed over
Their personal garden walls by passing strangers
Large, small, tall, peeping, creeping, waxing
Waning -- all of them then complaining about
What it is that vexes thee but no clue, no clue
Have they... yet they perceive something storied, an
Image of a contestation, a line of scrimmage.

But, alas, it is not. 

No poet was ever shot
But that the world was done a favor and language
Released to be what it savors, wild, unrepentantly
Glorious in its own right -- simply because it is.

Reviews

[TShaw]

You took the venom right out of my mouth. Useless the whole bunch of them. Tar and feathers are a waste of hydrocarbon and poultry. Now, there was that time when the other guys were starting to sprout pubic hair and I was still behind in slick last place as per usual. Tennyson, a big hairy b*****d, hit me with "Light Brigade" that was a hairy poem for a kid, then I got gobsmacked with Kipling and "If." Not saying it took my mind completely away from hormones, that wasn't going to happen, but it helped. Later, hair in place and parts in working order, She broke it off. The first should always be recalled in capitals I think. In that time Charlotte Mew stepped in with "I So Liked Spring" which cheered me up not one bit. I found out I didn't invent the situation I was in and that was nice of her, Consoling Charlotte I mean, not She.

You're pretty good at the this stuff you despise. Got me thinking at any rate.

[Aunre]

We, the collective "we", tend to find inspiration in the oddest places. I'm not saying this "inspired" you but you did say it got you thinking. The addendum, "at any rate" is curious, isn't it? I always associate it with a sort of appeal for rapidity, a plea for movement, perhaps of brain cells stuck in a certain gray quagmire and begging for rescue from an unknown fatalism. I think you have all the makings of a fine rabbid dog of a writer. Go forth and snarl. Dark alleyways await you. Oh, thanks for reading! :)

[TShaw]

I do hope I do not snarl too much. That and slobbering are among the failings we, "the pack we," have acquired in a long process of domestication. The process works better for some of us (same collective as above) than others.
Your work is strange and appealing it feels like standing too close to an edge or rolling in something fragrant.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i have many things to say here. First of all, the speaker is slamming poetry and those who write it, but in the doing so she is slamming herself as well...What can the words really do? how do they really help...?

even if Plath said that readers want to read from someone who has been there and felt the worst...do they really?

as poets do we just assume that is true? are we just dumping our crap on them...our pain, sorrow, misery...but then in ways readers read us and relate, they see someone else going through what they are and feel some kind of kinship---
and really are the words ours? i have never thought so...i feel like a conduit and that they just come through me like i am some instrument.
i don't know if we write really matters at all...i know most of us have no choice, we need to...and if it benefits others great...but if we are just making immaterial noise, so be it...and we may be just doing that.

there is such a fragile ego to the poet, yet at the same time an arrogance that says..."we know how it feels and we know how to put it into the words most can't"---

a really strong and insightful piece of writing here.

jacob

[Aunre]

Thank you for reading, Jacob. You are, of course, correct in many of your perceptions with respect to this piece. Is it "strong and insightful?" As you well know, the author is the last to know these things. I'll accept that comment as graciously as one can after having burned and pillaged the surrounding countryside and then salted the earth where poets toil. Hopefully I missed yours garden spot. Death by literary starvation is a horrible demise.

[MomzillaNC]

My goodness! What a castigation of us all! You're right… there is incredible hubris in the creative process, perhaps more so in poetry than any other medium. But, what would life be without poetry… without the voice of our souls?

[Aunre]

The voice of our souls... I sigh, "Ahh", another unanswerable question. Rhetorical but well-sharpened, good for hunting, gardening or general sewing of human flesh. I must be some distant kin to that talking swine in the Restaurant at the End of Time for I keep thinking I should ask which tasty flank of mine would be best served and with what wine.. oh, the wine is a quandry, don't you agree? Thank you so much for reading atomic adversary of the gentle Mothra. I fell compelled to encourage lichen to glow in this cave in your honor. Again, thank you. Sincerely.

[MomzillaNC]

You're welcome. There's definitely a weird kinship in your prose to D. Adams.

[TL Boehm]

Good lord. I think I must now stop writing poetry because you took my petty words and gutted me with them. Everything you said, true. Who the hell do we think we are.
UofAuthor sent me this. Not sure if it was an admonition but I am in awe of this write.

[Aunre]

Don't stop writing, please... and certainly not because of something I have written. I don't think I could bear the guilt of having thrust a sharp word so deep, so cruely -- even though I am slowly bleeding to death from such a wound. Take your miserably blessed life and go write the hell out of things. Perhaps I can suck some nourishment from them and stagger onward a few more paragraphs or verses or bloody ink stains on my fashionably frilly sleeve. OMG, I have forgotten my manners. Thank you, TL Boehm. You did not deserve to see me lean over and hurl such gut-spew. My apologies. Please, have a great day! :)

[TL Boehm]

I thought your poem was simply amazingly stunning. That is the beauty of a real poet - he or she can hold that mirror up so the reader can see himself or herself in it. Evisceration can be a good thing. Keeps us real. And your poem - made it real. No apologies necessary - I was very much impressed with it.

[Benita-Staebell M - Kin..]

You're are very Brave indeed to write this but
there has to be feeling or emotion when writing
but a Poem can be anything it likes.


The Title is what caught my eye I simply love this.


I loved the last lines they were simply Beautiful.

No poet was ever shot
But that the world was done a favor and language
Released to be what it savors, wild, unrepentantly
Glorious in its own right -- simply because it is.



Thank you for sharing this Beautiful piece.

Blessings. kindred poet

[Aunre]

Thank you for your comments, KB. Yes, I suppose it has a sort of beauty. Perhaps the kind we all see in our respective wood piles.

[Benita-Staebell M - KindredPoet]

You're very welcome. It's my pleasure. I will defiantly be reading more of your piece of writings soon when I can I love to read I am bit of a Book Worm. Blessings. Kindred poet

[A. Amos]

This was interesting, what I enjoyed the most you have your own style and you write with complete freedom...keep it up my friend

[Aunre]

Thank you, AA. "Style," such an interesting word. You should writing something about it perhaps... and freedom too. I await your mental machinations.

[A. Amos]

You're most welcome my friend and will do...

[Ars Goetia Poetry]

This is different & I like it a lot. Excellent write, great imagery :)

[Aunre]

Thank you, Ars G.P..

[Kleio13]

I haven't heard from you in a century and it's nice to see3 you come back with something that only a transgressional poet could understand while drowning . I love it. I love it a lot.

[Aunre]

Yea, I'm in my winter-hermit-hibernation phase. BTW, Kleio, I love your comment! Honestly, when I take my last breath that's the kiss-of-death I want to feel on my lips (or brow, as you prefer.) You are so... truly embraceable.

[Kleio13]

hahaha thank you

[Draven]

A poem about hating poetry that is yet such a great poem...... I like it.

[Aunre]

Thank you, Casanova3.

[Mollie Fitzner]

I enjoyed this, and its title made me want to read it. Every once in awhile, you have to write about writing!

[Aunre]

Thank you, Mollie.

[Mollie Fitzner]

Not sure if I asked you to read "My Mind's Chaotic Maze" which I wrote in 1974...but YOU are the reason I posted it..and that was easy...all I had to do was go to my mirror on my dresser.