Should a new day start
With lines of bad poetry
allusions to the obscure
illusions of grandiose dreams?
or
Should I trumpet my promise
to write lean and mean
keeping words to a minimum
metaphors clear and clean?
maybe
If I try really hard
I can break the habit
of stringing words into pictures
only I can see.
I wrote this about a pet peeve when I read other peoples poetry who have images that only they can see. I have this thing about communication. If something fails to communicate, why write it?
Writing Prompt: Choose a favorite picture book from your childhood. Pick an illustrated page and compose a poem about it.
4 comments:
This is a great poem Carol. I'm guilty of: "stringing words into pictures only I can see" sometimes. Not intentionally but because at times i seem to view the world differently than most people. What are obviously connections to me are loose strings flapping in the wind to others. The challenge for me is how to take myself outside my experience and perception and open the window to everyone.
I believe that most poetry is highly subjective so yes, it's written from a personal perspective. Maybe the trick is to try and see it from that different perspective. :)
Rhian said it well -- I, too, see the world differently. Maybe that's what makes us truly creative people, and that's what makes us so important to the world. I don't know.
But I know that it takes all kinds to rock the world. Sometimes, the more obscure poetry makes me think a bit harder; sometimes, it makes my eyes glaze over.
I think I'll try to write both: the obscure stuff AND the clear stuff. I think that I'm better at the clear stuff, myself, but if you never try, you never grow.
Neat food for thought! Thanks!
I studied the obscure stuff, and stretched my muscles. Wondered over new words, and my vocabulary grew. My vision and my world expanded, and poems bloomed.
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