Why I Am Not A Poet

For awhile I hated poetry because I didn't understand it.  All poetry was sensitive glitter, reserved for smug, self-important assholes, who were haughty and deep.  Like Linda Lovelace.  Or dungeons.  Or secret dungeons.  Or French people.  French people who locked their souls in secret metaphorical dungeons, where their poetry was chained and whipped daily because it plundered baguettes, tongue-kissed Madame Dupont, and took the road less traveled by, but someday we will have jaunty berets (je ne sais pas) and be free from le tyrannical aristocracy, oui?  Tres bien!  Louis!  Richelieu!  VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

So...that's what I think about when someone says "poetry."

One day, I discovered what became my favorite poem.  Another day I went to France. You know what? I like smug and glittery when the constituent is sardonically aware of its own narcissism (this is more prevalent in poetry than in France). 

And about half the time, that's what it's like over at From Quiet Thoughts.  Brown is a poet from San Francisco with dreamy bedroom eyes, thoughtfully propped up against a pillow in his profile picture looking pensive and bored, as if porn just doesn't get him off anymore since the internet made it all socially acceptable to jerk it all the time. He could so be French, especially with all the cigarettes and wine.

Honestly, I fucking love about a third of his poems, I want to edit the hell out of another third, and the rest?  Fucking dungeon, like he's trying to be a poet instead of just being poetic.

Because sometimes, this happens:

About Me:  Increments of time, attach themselves to light, creating impassioned pixels of reality. We are what we see, feel and hope.

which sounds like lyrics to low-fi-electro-indie-rock and other things that are trucked with hyphens and pictures of mustaches that lack any real hair. What does this say about Brown, as a person?  We're just particles fueled by our perception of reality, who can really know anyone, and if you can't figure it out then you don't deserve to know and all that priggish bullshit and SHUT THE HELL UP.

Which means Brown is a cheater.  Fuck that distant, vague crap.  He should do it better because I know he can, even though sometimes he could benefit from an editor, a little more self-awareness,

and a little less of that thing, you

know.

That thing that "poets" do, where lines are
separated
for no apparent reason, although
the idea is free verse
and the pauses between phrases can be inconsequential and

the result
is annoying.
(dungeon)

I'm a big fan of Rodin (OMG YOUR PROF PIC MATCHES YOUR HEADER OMG), so the header is fine, but poetry thrives on suggestion, aesthetics, and rhythm. Brown excels at the first, does a good job at the second, and needs to work on the third. Part of aesthetics is not just avid prose, but how the poem looks, and honestly, that template reminds me of fungus.  Stop feeding shit to your template.  Pick a paler, less offensive green for the words - that alone will improve things. Think about flow and meter.  You know how to write.  Do it better. 

I applaud the flows of nonsense because he's practicing his attack.  Sometimes the prose is a bit awkward and clunky, but he's exercising and I respect that, despite the overt naval-gazing, mostly because there isn't a lot of filler.  There's just good and bad practice.  Sometimes his spelling is fucking barbaric, he does the "your/you're" thing and if that shit is intentional to prove a point, like we're too hooked on grammar as a society or something, or if you purposely substituted "poured" with "pored" as a play on words, know this:  that doesn't make any fucking sense, but I'm over it, because I read that one about the snail about 500 times.

I'm a sucker. 


               for effort and skill, but

   because sometimes he sounds like he's trying to be a poet instead of just being himself.

Drivel for Nice People

So I have this friend, Blubbering Vlad, who's the type of guy who you want to be around when there's trouble brewing. Not that he's all that handy, or good with his fists, or even all that smart; he's just a hell of a lot of fun. And he's likely to help keep the heat off your trail acting as a distraction to any authorities who may be inclined to give you a second glance.

Needless to say, when I go on the prowl, his place is one of the first stops I make on my way out of town.

But when the phone rings and the miracle of modern caller ID tells me that it's Blub, I will not ever pick up. Never. Because, fun and useful as he is out running through the swamps, trying to have an actual conversation with him on a phone is excruciatingly dull, dull, dull. The guy simply has nothing to say and uses way too many syllables to get that nothing conveyed.

Reading today's blog (A Hundred Indecisions) reminded me of my dear friend.

The author, who reveals her name very reluctantly and tells us virtually nothing at all about herself directly, is 24 year old Gini from Delhi, an architecture student, and .... Well, shit, that's kind of it. She writes in complete sentences. Complains about poor spelling in text messages. Seems to grouse regularly about the life she has laid out before her, as though she is powerless to effect a change. Hell for all I know, she is. But it seems pretty fucked up that she seems to have virtually nothing positive to say about becoming an architect for all the time she seems to devote to it.

What does that leave me with? I am left with another iteration of the same old question -- what the hell are you writing this for? You do not seem possessed of literary demons that must be unleashed, lest they eat you up inside. If anything, you seem to have literary kittens that occasionally need a ball of yarn to play with or to have their bellies scratched. I am not transported within your words, I am instead driven to fits of ADD. The remotest shiny bauble captures my attention over your words.

So. What the hell can you do about this? Is it so awful? No, not awful. Just dreadfully mundane. And I suspect that this is a direct result of Gini writing this blog before she has experienced anything.

No, that's not true. She has. As a newly hatched from the nest High School grad she traveled alone from her home in Delhi to Chennai, over two thousand km distant, and took up at school there, trying to fit into a culture very different from what she was used to. A writer would have wrested an entire novel from that setup alone.

So, let me leave you with a question and then a rating. First the question: Gini, when you sleep at night, what do you dream of?

And now for the rating.



Meh. Meh. Meh.

Figure out why you're doing this, and if you aren't doing it because your muse will fucking kill you in your sleep if you don't, don't submit for a review from a bunch of clove cigarette smoking, beret wearing, edgy, aging hipsters like us. We'll all be that much happier. I promise.