Poetry?

"I am an unhappy bubble of anal wind popping and winding in the mortal bath [while] snot trails of lust perforate the bowels of my intent."∼ Stephen Fry

Ah yes. Lovely poetry. Do you know what is great about poetry? You can pretty much say anything. As long as you can conjure up an alternate or metaphoric meaning to it, people will ohh and ahh at it for centuries. And if you are lucky enough to get in into the hands of an English teacher, it may live on until the next iteration of vernacular communication. If that happens, a disgusting, virtually meaningless line of poetry as such is recorded above may become classic literature!

"Tossed in a wrecked mucous-foam of steamed loathing."
∼ Stephen Fry

That same author, some of you may be familiar with his reputation for elaboration of the most simple of phrases, has turned poetry into something of an art. Yes, I know, "poetry is already an art." But this is turning an art into an art per se. My English literature teachers throughout the years always said something that drove me nuts.

"Revise. Revise. Revise. You can always change it to make it better."

Which, of course, to me meant to trash the whole thing and go play Nintendo®. I think that's what ought to be done to most things calling themselves "poetry." Don't take this wrong...I like good poetry, but I am extremely careful of what I deem worthy of the term. For instance, the following excerpt is from a poet named William McGonagall, a semi-decent poet (regardless of the fact he is the leading contender for the world's worst poet) writing a semi-decent poem. This one, Saving A Train, is not a bad poem in my correct opinion. But this particular verse could have been better...A LOT BETTER!!!

"'Twas in the year of 1869, and on the 19th of November,
Which the people in Southern Germany will long remember,
The great rain-storm which for twenty hours did pour down,
That the rivers were overflowed and petty streams all around.

The rain fell in such torrents as had never been seen before,
That it seemed like a second deluge, the mighty torrents' roar,
At nine o'clock at night the storm did rage and moan
When Carl Springel set out on his crutches all alone --

From the handsome little hut in which he dwelt,
With some food to his father, for whom he greatly felt,
Who was watching at the railway bridge,
Which was built upon a perpendicular rocky ridge. "
∼ William McGonagall

I am now going to subject this excerpt to English teacher analysis...

On the surface, it seems to be an interesting story (it goes on to actually be an interesting story). However, a poem it is not. There is no beat. Try it out. Perhaps this is where we are going in the world. Perhaps this was the beginning of the revolution to abolish good communication in order to validate internet lingo, which has become atrocious. Also, since we seem to accept this form of trash as truth, we also acknowledge passages like the following...

"The message is that there are no 'knowns.' There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know."
∼Donald Rumsfeld

...to be valid! Oh geez. It seems I am feeling the need. The need to...rant! Since I don't like to rant in this blog, I'll save it for my therapists. They'll listen to anything with a smile. Just ponder what I've said here and leave a comment. I have made a suggestion below. Make this an interactive blog. And thanks for visiting. (Become a member to the left ↵ .)

Do you have an opinion about what constitutes good poetry? I'm interested. Do you like summer breezes? Do you like happy poems? Do you like poems that don't rhyme? Do you like poems that have a beat (rhythm)? Except for a little bit of rhyming, this passage above has none of these qualities. I think that a good poem, has most of these points. I can do without the summer breeze, and I really think a poem should rhyme, but the rest of it makes for a nice day.