POETRY STYLE & SUBJECT BEING POSITIVE

POETRY STYLE

I just opened the blog of a poet. He had some good metaphors. Although lots of his poems read like lists rather than poems. I write comic poems and songs. I am always looking at my lists of ideas. When you read them out at a poetry reading, despite the repetition, they still sound like lists.

If you had not been told they were poems, you would have thought they were shopping lists, wish lists, written first thing in the morning or last thing at night or when maudlin, drunk or high. No order. No control. Not memorable. What else does a poem need?

I am good at creating rhymes and rhying couplets. I struggle to get good rhythms. I can count syllables.

I prefer poems which have a proper rhythm, either on the odd beats or the even beats.
The rhythm carries you forward, sweeps you along until the long sentence reaches a resting point, a sudden end. Or a wistful dying phrase, or a neat, clever, satisfying conclusion.

The rambling list is not a person in control. Clever repetition can have an insistent effect. I look at a poem and wonder about the author. What would this person be like to meet? Disorganized and obsessive?

I can't say that to or even about another poetry writer. How rude it would sound. It would make the other person unhappy. It would make me sound unfeeling. So no, I do not comment on them. I merely comment on myself and how I have tried to turn my life around.

Some of the greatest success stories are people who have come through tragedy or difficulty smiling, hopeful, determined to reach happiness.

What image are you conveying of yourself? A commentator asked the poet if it was just a subject of if the writer really was suicidal? The poet was right to answer the query by saying he used to be suicidal. Not any more.

Who wants a boyfriend or girlfriend who is suicidal? As a taxi driver in Washington DC once said to me when he stopped my tale of woe - "Lady, I've got problems of my own."

Of course one cannot write only upbeat poetry. One has to deal with serious issues.

Two solutions I have found to the problem of self-image. One is the traditional solution of describing yourself as 'my friend'. (You know the joke. Doctor ... my friend ... The joke or story ends with the revelation that the person with the problem is really the speaker.)

So, of course 'I' am never pregnant, handicapped, in ill health, short of money or having spouse or boyfriend problems in real life. That just attracts other losers who sympathise. My 'friend' has the problem.

The modern techniqe of positive thinking used by hospital doctors is to talk about the pain or problem the patient had previously, in the past, and how well they will be in future, as if they are getting better all the time.

I read a lot of relationship advice newsletters. They say that if you describe yourself as unlucky in love you will stay that way. The first step to finding love is having a positive image.

SUBJECT
So, what do I think I would do with a poem on suicide? I would be unlikely to write one. Why depress yourself and possibly the reader? No such subject for me. Unless I felt it might help a pupil or teenager.

There are jokes and funny films on the subject of suicide. Jokes? Yes, Dorothy Parker wrote a comic poem about considering all the unpleasant ways of committing suicide, ending 'you might as well live'.

The end result was that you could laugh at the subject, laugh at yourself, laugh with her. Your image of her was not of a woman likely to commit suicide but a fun friend who had a dry wit.

That is my aim. To appear to be a fun, witty person. Not an unsympathetic person, but someone who will cheer you up when you are temporarily down, and make you happy.