|
Doggerel? Versemongering? Poetastery? Crambo? Amphigory? Macraronics? Even without your lexicon, most of you already know what these words mean. With this respectable list of adjectives, it becomes clear that bad poetry has been with us a long time and there has been a lot of it. In fact, bad poetry is right up there with death and taxes--not about to go away. We smile and snicker and wince and shake our heads. We goggle-eye; we get outraged and indignant; we walk out of the room; sometimes we even corner the penner of an offensive ode and discuss his or her work in an attempt to make it better.
Bad poetry has even served to foster a few good poems on bad poetry. Sometimes, the muses intervene with an ironic hand and render the poem as bad as the poem it is criticizing. We who are convinced we know a bad poem when we hear one--because we profess to be seven times removed--might step down a rung or two, if only for a moment, to consider: most of us started out by writing bad poetry. No matter how promising it might have been, it is very likely that, if had we not at some cathartic juncture burned the drivel, our closets would look like one of those little bulging trash cans on a Macintosh screen. Even good poets occasionally turn out a bad poem. One of the things that makes a good poet is the perspicacity to throw away bad poetry. A good poet understand that words are cheap, expendable and recyclable, that some things are not meant to be and sometimes, what does not work today may lay the path for what will work tomorrow. Thus, the creation of bad poetry is a trial-by-fire that we must endure to create good poetry. |
I can hear the protests, "I never wrote anything that bad!" Granted, there are bad poets who started out writing bad poetry and will continue to write bad poetry, but these terminally bad poets can, after numerous attempts, demonstrate improvement. Who doesn’t appreciate perseverance?
My love for poetry and, in particular, open mike poetry, has taken me to the poetry circuits of Amsterdam, London, Madrid, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Tuscaloosa, Montreal, Mexico City, San Francisco, Oakland, Cambridge, Portsmouth, Maine, and Boston. I have listened to the best and worst. I have watched many of my fellow human beings step up to that magic microphone, full of adrenaline and anticipation, paper quivering in hand, and listened to an excruciatingly perfect example of poetastering from someone who seemed completely oblivious to the fact that they were engaging in the oldest art known to mankind. And it gives me succor.
Open mike is one of the few venues left to we, the people: where we can spill our guts and stretch our throats in original verse without the need of a pleasing voice or a Ph.D. in Middle English literature, where those of us without a modicum of poetic savvy will be heard. To some degree, we will even be appreciated, certainly applauded, and sent back to our seats, blushing and pleased and self-expressed--and, feeling so welcomed into the mysterious community of poets, be inspired to go home and write another, perhaps slightly better, really bad poem.? |
