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Poets rarely write good novels

Maybe it is the whimsy within their/our souls. Song.

By Antoni De'LeonPublished 9 months ago 3 min read

Slow Jazz music

The chorus...Da da da da da, da da da dum...

"Gosh, we love em, but poets are rotten at writing books

They fill it with whimsy, flowery words and languishing odeeeees

After the first few pages, they finally admit

Golly gee...but I have run out of wonderous prooooooose"

+1 (piano keys)

Poets tend to be more poet than novelist

Poets rarely write good novels, if poets are honest

The trouble is they tend to be poets, when writing novels.

Big on metaphors and lots of white spaaaaaaaace,

not always so big on structure, narrative pacing or character development.

+ ++++++Slow Jazz

The chorus...Da da da da da, da da da dum...

"Gosh, we love em, but poets are rotten at writing books

They fill it with whimsy, flowery words and languishing odeeeees

After the first few pages, they finally admit

Golly gee...but I have run out of wonderous prooooooose"

+2 (Piano keys)

Books (for the most part) are literal, poets are metaphorical

tending the garden of witty words,

turning charred fields into fields of chaaaaaard,

moving between personal recollections and Thoreau-style journaling of the seasons.

Prose has a constant intimacy: settings are sketched, descriptions pruned,

the poetic narrator’s garden acts as balm for an emotional wound,

and grows into salve for the soul,

+++++++ (Slow Jazz)

The chorus...Da da da da da, da da da dum...

"Gosh, we love em, but poets are rotten at writing books

They fill it with whimsy, flowery words and languishing odeeeees

After the first few pages, they finally admit

Golly gee...but I have run out of wonderous prooooooose"

+3 (Piano)

You can’t control a vegetable garden…

raking over the earth, trying to impose order on nature,

trying to superimpose a narrative on a poet's messy particulars.

The novel scripting Narrator

escapes from the metropolitan to the pastoral,

Nomads in a silent room...ruminating on prose,

interspersing thoughts on the nature of plots and structures,

the narrator then delivers a creative-writing class between his shovelfuls of compooooooost.

+++++++ (Jazz)

The chorus...Da da da da da, da da da dum...

"Gosh, we love em, but poets are rotten at writing books

They fill it with whimsy, flowery words and languishing odeeeees

After the first few pages, they finally admit

Golly gee...but I have run out of wonderous prooooooose"

+4 (Piano concerto)

He is justifying the rationale behind its looseness and the final cut

letting it speak in volumes upon volumes of well though information.

Time passes easily in your movies, not in your novels.

Important actions are narrated…compressed

The rest – the doubts, the boredom,

the long days where nothing changes the constant, the stagnant

sadness vanishes into ellipses, clean cuts, quick summaries.

+++++++ (Jazz)

The chorus...Da da da da da, da da da dum...

"Gosh, we love em, but poets are rotten at writing books

They fill it with whimsy, flowery words and languishing odeeeees

After the first few pages, they finally admit

Golly gee...but I have run out of wonderous prooooooose"

+5 (Piano)

For in the attention to the slow rhythm of our days,

we already make the case for writing

that simply observes the plain work of living,

and in so doing, inadvertently reveals its gentle poetry.

And so the poet steps in, offering a short interval of the figurative.

+++++++ (Slow Jazz)

The chorus...Da da da da da, da da da dum...

"Gosh, we love em, but poets are rotten at writing books

They fill it with whimsy, flowery words and languishing odeeeees

After the first few pages, they finally admit

Golly gee...but I have run out of wonderous prooooooose"

+6 (Piano)

Both styles differ in the journey...

One seeks to unearth the beauty within the metaphors and the heart...

The other paints pictures of life's varied idiosyncrasies in constant physical motion

Yet, there cannot be one without the other

The poet paints the world of imagination in colorful wonder

The novelist takes us on journeys into fancy, truths and half-truths

Yet, both keeps us wondering

What if.....?

++++++ (Piano and Jazz concerto)

The chorus...Da da da da da, da da da dum...

"Gosh, we love em, but poets are rotten at writing books

They fill it with whimsy, flowery words and languishing odeeeees

After the first few pages, they finally admit

Golly gee...but I have run out of wonderous prooooooose"

+

Thank yooooooo...Thank yooooooo very muuuuuuuuuch.

Bow!

Jazz, Piano...Crescendo....to fade.

By Clu Soh on Unsplash

instrumentsvintage

About the Creator

Antoni De'Leon

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. (Helen Keller).

Tiffany, Dhar, JBaz, Rommie, Grz, Paul, Mike, Sid, NA, Michelle L, Caitlin, Sarah P. List unfinished.

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Comments (12)

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  • Angie the Archivist 📚🪶9 months ago

    Cleverly done and intriguing comparison. The music was a nice mellow background.

  • A poetry reading in a piano bar with a few couples dreamily swaying across the floor carried away into thoughts of what comes next & do they really want to leave the moment? An interesting, wistful & fun little poetic narrative, Antoni. Though I would recommend J. D. Pernoste & Anneliese Dahl's "In the Minuses" if you would like to find an exception to your ruminations here.

  • Tales by J.J.9 months ago

    This text is playful yet reflective, set to the rhythm of jazz and piano.

  • Can't say this ain't true. I sang this to my own tune and freaking loved it!

  • Esala Gunathilake9 months ago

    Very nice. Relatable!!!

  • Tiffany Gordon9 months ago

    Thought-provoking, beautifully-crafted and impactful! Maybe we poets can start a new novel genre that effectively mixes both! 😍🤩🔥

  • Anna 9 months ago

    Loved it!

  • Nikita Angel9 months ago

    So beautiful

  • Nice very nice. I like the “beat” prose sort of feel in this. Adding the soft jazz in the backgrounds adds to this effect. Well done, Antoni!!!

  • Novel Allen9 months ago

    Yep, for real...I am an all round writer, but poetry is my garden. Everything else seems to fade into poetry. We all get our gift...but we still enjoy delving into the unknown spaces. Still trying to write that novel, sink or swim. I love this lovely ditty.

  • It takes structure to do both, I'd say.

  • Kendall Defoe 9 months ago

    This is actually quite true.

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