What's Happened To Poetry?

What’s Happened To Poetry

I remember poetry in junior high and high school. As an honors English student, We were always tasked with the ass numbing thrill of reading poetry and then forced to write it as well, in its various forms. Sonnets, Haiku, Iambic Pentameter, and on and on. I hated it. I dreaded it. I was not bad at it per se, but I did not enjoy it one bit. Along with reading Shakespeare, which I still can’t stand, I had a long and distinguished list of poetry I loathed reading. Shakespeare was just, for me, difficult to follow, droll, dissertations on old historical issues hammered over and over again, in old English, which is not spoken in the last hundred years, if not longer.

I have often said that reading Shakespeare should be handled at the college level, because its cruel to impose his work on inexperienced and young minds that, lets face it, could not and don not care to direct the difficulties of the ancient language, Yes its flowery and yes it probably, to the person that enjoys his work, makes the experience that much more “thrilling”. But nope not to me. I had no issue with the old English for the most part, but the subject matter and the way he wrote, is what turned me off. Oh and don’t venture to say that out loud, in front of a teacher or another writer, because the shaming comes next. I am willing to bet there are many who feel as I do about the who Shakespeare torture. As for his plays, I’ll leave that for another post. Suffice to say, while dramatic, the language too is so difficult to understand as well as confusing to follow.

So, poetry. I never liked it, as I stated before, and I find it so shocking and surprising that I have been published in that genre, approaching twenty times and have a collection of books with my work in them nicely decorating my studio office shelves. The vey first poem I wrote was a challenge I forced myself to write and submit. I saw so many requests for poetry submissions that, I said let me give it a go. No written type of work was going to best me.

My early poetry was banal, and simply stated, juvenile. Each time I was published, I took more risks, I started brushing up on my vocabulary, and it all began improving. I am happy about that. I only hope one day it will be considered exceptional. That being said, I was getting turned down a lot, not unusual, but some of the pieces were well written, and I didn’t see why they were declined.

I began going, time and time again to the websites of the magazines or the online pages and found that a vast majority of the poetry was not what is typically considered poetry, in my book. The poems that were being praised were in prose. Nothing rhymed, there was no beat or measure to them, the words plain and simplistic. While the imagery was in some cases excellent, these ”poems”, were micro or flash fiction, non-fiction, et cetera. When on earth did this happen and why?

I must have missed where Shakespeare wrote his poetry in common language, with no formality or tempo. I never saw the musings of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, or Edgar Alan Poe, in the common spoken language with no attention paid to rhyme. So, what has happened to all the lyrical, beautifully and carefully constructed poetry of old. I know prose poetry writers will all shun me, but is it that difficult to methodically write poetry with tempo and rhyming words?

I understand that difficulty. I more times than not, have great hardship stating a phrase with a beat and particular pattern of rhyme. I do. I have been known to scrap many pieces because suitable words would not come. I even find it difficult to establish a tempo that remains consistent, but I still go at it and stick to the classical poetic formats. I love them now, which I find amusing actually.

Even so, with all of this in mind, I decided to give prose poetry an attempt. and yes, it is so much easier. It’s can churn out poem after poem in no time. All that is needed are the appropriate line breaks and my little micro fiction, flash non-fiction, or prose poetry is off and running. I get it. I do. It’s a pain in the rear to write in the old standard format of poetry, but isn’t that why we called in poetry, to begin with?

It is flowery, or morose with dramatic flare. It’s the tension of line after line being fit into a pattern, to tell a story, in a way that is far more interesting than just sentences on a page. I find that upping my vocabulary to find proper rhyming word selections that rhyme with their corresponding statement, incredibly challenging at time, but when I am finished and I reread and proofread my work, that I feel like I have discovered a new part of myself. I feel like I have expanded my understanding of the world and life in such a beautiful way, that I want to write more and more. I feel utterly creative.

I don’t negate that prose poetry tells a story and with imagery that shoots images into the mind. I have read many that have been amazing, and there is no much talent out there with creative story telling abilities. I just don’t understand why it is not considered simply, prose. The beauty of conveying a complete story in so few words is so incredibly, admirable. The creating of a world or scene in depth and concise, again, talent. I simply don’t see the difference in prose poetry verses micro, flash, or short writing. This being said, I don’t get the disdain for traditional poetic expression by publishers and other writers.

I will have to ask a publisher of one of my prose attempts should I have the good fortune to have a piece of work published, or if I have the occasion to ask a professor why and how the genre has changed. Until then I’ll ponder it more.

Please do not be insulted, if you write poetry in prose form. I do not discount your talents or style of the work. I just would love to know the why’s. All written work is valuable and historically speaking, will tell and demonstrate to future generations who we are as a culture and the climate of society here in our time, so it should by no means, be dismissed. Keep on, keeping on. The sharing of our lives and souls is beautiful in all forms, and I am appreciative of the souls writing and putting their hearts onto paper or screen.