Poetry Impressions

The past several days I've been recalling endless discussions I've had with writers, poets for the most part, about well, poetry. These discussions include issues like 'why do we write?' This usually happens around this time of year - when the academic year is over, submission periods are closing, readings are scarce and summer's leisure is about to begin. All the machinations of the business of poetry are closing up shop for the summer. This is a time to take a step back and look at what's been going on.

Right now, my thoughts for the morning are this: on the whole, contemporary American poetry does not impress me. Now, I'm not one who likes to pass judgment as if I were responsible for that thing called a canon. And when I say 'contemporary', I'm referring to the poetry that's being published today by poets who are still living... more specifically the so-called up-and-coming folks. Don't get me wrong: I have favorite poets who are still living and who are 'established'. I also have favorite poets who are living and are relatively new to the published-poets scene.

I'm talking about the quality of poems that are published today. I look at literary journals, searching for a poem to blow me away - to make me stop & catch my breath, make my heart skip a beat or stop altogether. Rare are these moments. Maybe I'm not reading the right journals. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. But wouldn't you think that the goal of a journal's editor is to do just that? Of course, I don't want to imply that I think editors aren't doing their job - plenty of poetry editors, if not all, do the job because they love it & search for that mind-blowing poem too, not because they're getting paid the big bucks. There's no money in poetry - we all know that.

So, then what's up?

Yes, there's the issue of personal taste and preference. But I believe a successful poem transcends that. I agree with Ruth in what she says: that there are well-crafted poems out there, but how many of them hold emotional depth? For me, it's like looking at a hand-crafted crystal vase without any flowers in it. What's the point?

I know it's not easy to write a poem that makes people's breaths catch in their throats every time you sit down with pen & paper, but that's the challenge, the goal of a poet. You can have all the craft skills in the world, but without any emotional center, it might as well be a talk show transcription. So what's a poetry-starved girl to do?

I'm doing my best to do my part in creating poems that are built on emotional investment, but it's tough when I'm having trouble finding mentors and peers on paper and all I find are shells of poems.

Next time: thoughts on the state of fiction (no genre is safe! muwahaha!).

p.s. Yes, I know - not exactly insane in tone. Just wait. I'm just mellow today. :)