Friday, July 20, 2012

The Lazy Poet Test? (Do You Dare 2 Take It?)

Earlier today I asked Finley?

What are you going to write this weekend.

Mike sloshed a response around in his brain before answering......

"I dunno, maybe some prose."

Now I realize he is the Master, and I am the servant, but I have to tell you guys something.......

I've learned a thing or two from observing poets that are past 50 years of age.

Whenever they talk about prose, what they are really saying is.....

"I'm tired, I want to take a nap. I don't have the energy to create a poem."

I imagine that it isn't the poets body that fails them as much as the inspiration.

After all, if you are a poet, and have lived over a 1/2 century, wouldn't you think that you've written about all of the epic experiences you have encountered by now?

That's why it's important, especially for "seasoned" poets to give themselves assignments.

Finley recently challenged us to come up with a poem that will inspire people. A poem that is centered in doing good, or being good, knowing that their is no reward for that.

Prose is so easy to write.

It is just telling a story or listing observations in chronological or numerical order.

Go to any Irish Pub in Saint Paul and I'll bet you find 200 Micks slurring prose over a mug and a cig.

Prose is storytelling, and in my opinion, nobody does this better than the Irish.

But poems are works of art, aren't they?

The problem with poems though is for every poem that is wonderful, you'll find 9 that are trash.

But back at the bar, everyone of those "Prose" conversations are actually interesting.

People don't think to often when they write prose, they just let words come off of their fingertips.

Most of the time, the words fall natural.

But a poem has to be conquered.

The muse doesn't just give you a poem, not a good one at least.

A real poem only comes into being if you wrestle it like Jacob wrestled God....and I think he broke a bone in that scrum, didn't he?

Anyways, there really is nothing harder that executing a wonderful poem.

Your mind has to be rested, sharp.

Your body has to be nimble and fed.

Most poets carry a work in their mind for a spell, just as a woman carries her child in the womb.

There is always pain before the birth though huh?

Did you know that most of the world top chess players work out 2-3 hours everyday?

To create from the mind, the body has to be in tune......so no Plop Ass with a beer in one hand, and a TV remote in the other will reach their objectives.

So young poets, remember.......when the older poets say they are currently working on prose, dismiss yourself....they really want to take a nap.

 




2 comments:

  1. Why a Poem and Not Prose?

    I acknowledge from the outset
    you lose 99% of readers
    because they hate it this way

    we live in prose, we toil in prose,
    we wish we could spend every minute in prose
    because it's manageable and workmanlike

    and reasonable,
    you can measure yourself against it
    hell you can even write it

    whereas poetry raises so many doubts
    it is a temptation to lay it on thick
    and getting vacuumed up your own butthole

    sometimes a shark is taking bites of you
    your chum is bleeding into the ocean around you
    a poem allows it, and paragraphs don't

    or we wake from a terror dream
    and there is God by the maple bureau
    and he's clicking his mandibles

    and sometimes you just need
    to stuff a hummingbird
    in a milkweed pod

    and for that a milkweed pod is ideal

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  2. yeah....that's what I was trying to say. LOL

    ReplyDelete