What is poetry? Is it Shakespeare, Pope, Shelley? Cummings, Cohen, Ginsberg? MacKaye, Gibbard, Carrabba? Is it the internal rhyme and complex rhythm? Is it the profound allegories and evasive metaphors? How about the awkward spacing and cumbersome punctuation?
I do not claim to be Poet-Laureate or even a poet connoisseur. At my best, perhaps, I am a poet. And as all others who write, I am a writer. So what do I claim, what can I claim? Despite all of my deficiencies and lack of credentials, I claim to know what poetry is. Well, at least, I claim to know part of it…
When I think poetry I think simplicity; at its best poetry is simple. A poem does not have to let you know that it is simple, but if you do not understand it then it is too complicated. That does not mean that I, as reader, do not have to do any thinking. At worst, I will only get as much out of a poem as I put into it (and really, is that such a bad thing?). At best? Who knows? But a good poem returns many times what is put into it.
So as reader you read and do a little thinking. What must I do as writer?
Make it simple (without it necessarily being simple). I must forget complexity, without forgetting metaphor and allegory; forget rhythm and rhyming, but not music and lyrics. Great poems reduce grand ideas, thoughts, and emotions into simple, effective words without reducing their meanings. Ok, so that is effectively impossible. But make that impossibility known. Search for the word, but do not search for the five-syllable smart-looking word that no one will understand unless your aim is confusion (and in such a case why not just make up your own word?). And rhymes and rhythms are nice (actually, I’m terrible at rhythm and rhyme so I avoid them), but only if they further the purpose; a stutterer, even when dancing, is clumsy.
Oh, and did I mention simplicity? No matter the complexity, a good poet will drop hints insisting further exploration; make readers discover without them ever knowing they were looking. Chances are they will find something you never even knew was there. To determine how best to do this it is often helpful to choose a specific audience and write in a style best for that audience. That audience is not limited in size. It may be for everybody or it may be for a single person. Even a sappy, clichéd (yet personalized) poem written for an audience of one can be great poetry if it conveys its message to that special-someone audience.
Finally and quite possibly most importantly: sincerity. Write something with meaning, something for you if not for someone else. Alliteration and rhyming rhythm is nice and probably a lesson worth learning, but not if it is an end in itself. Make sure there is a meaning worth digging for and you will write something worth reading.
And just write. And use clichés, but be original, and use run-on sentences and rhymes and spa c e s and non-rhymes, line breaks and rhythm or non-rhythm and “punctuation” or not or .improperly./differently and spell rong or wright and, and metaphor and analogy and simplicity and thought, and meaning and sincerity. And write whatever you want. And don’t let anyone tell you how to write. Just write.
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