Honorarium's Riches
by Odin odin@aflx.com — Read all 3,869 poems by Odin odin@aflx.com
Today there is a threat of lexiconic-annihilation, whether from Trump or social media junkies, a proliferation of regurgitant language needing to find a 21st century vomitorium, where the purging of infantile word usage can take place, saving the rest of us from infection. Below, a sincere prosetry plea.
Saturday, June 9, 2018
Honorarium’s Riches
To read the diverse poets of note,
Neruda, Angelou, Dickinson, Frost and Whitman.
to merely peruse, acquaint oneself with Pound,
Plath, Tagore, Twain, Emerson, Ginsberg,
Simic, Li-Young Lee, and McGrath,
is to drink of a rare elixir whose destiny is to heal.
For the uninitiated,
there are a few of us mentored by reading the greats,
instilling in us the desire to proffer challenging thought,
wanting not to merely appease,
but to empower.
Many believe poetic purpose is to
challenge the resistance of closed minds,
relieve hearts suffocated by greeting card nonsense,
discourage Dick and Jane, Roses are Red syndromes of ignorance,
and eradicate the insufferable ball-peen hammer of self-pity.
And then there’s…
Simplistic ramblings of “lets find some rhyming words and call it poetry”
pervading far too much of reader’s choices,
drowning lovers of learning with infantile choices,
leaving impoverished those hungry for poetic discourse,
those passionately searching for language of impact,
words to challenge perspectives on life.
from Shakespeare sonnet to Ginsberg’s Howl,
to Li Young Lee’s A Story.
If only…
There were fewer Hallmark sentimentalists
forging rhymes for rhyme’s sake,
ignoring the epiphanies of inharmonic vibrations
that find rhyme naturally,
even as dissonance of surreal melodies yearn to be grounded,
where the reward of raw creation,
be it natural rhyme or free verse
is often gifted by a reciprocal trade with earnest readers.
Realistic poets are perpetual students,
knowing they have much to reflect upon,
hoping to become a part of the grateful few
whose special reward is the readership
of a few heart and mind followers
to be cherished as honorarium’s riches.
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Love ya!
Jane
The Internet allows almost anyone to write and post poetry and scams like poetry.com sucked so many in with false awards to get people to pay for praise. I detest that.
I have never studied poetry and don't consider myself a poet. I started writing free verse in high school, to impress girls, and didn't impress any. I found free verse to be more self-serving than communicative, so I started writing rhyme and always strive to get my rhyme and meter working in the poems that I write for fun and to communicate some hard-hitting ideas that people may or may not have already.
If a poem does not communicate anything to others except the one that wrote it, it is not worth writing except as a psychological exercise. When asked, in English classes or standardized tests to interpret a poem, my left brain logic had a very hard time getting it right. Unfortunately, one of my poems was picked up by the Educational Testing Service and now, high school students have to interpret my correctly. ;-)
I don't like rap for two reasons: I don't understand it and its vulgarity. On the other hand, I am starting to like rap because it requires a rapper to rhyme, to repeat and to use words in creative ways. If I can only slow it down to hear it like young people are able to do with their sharper hearing, I might appreciate rap more. I appreciate poets who can recite their poetry without reading it. While I can memorize, I perform so little that finding time to memorize anything takes too much time, I'm so busy reading and writing.
Ron
Ancient poets are long gone. They had their own feelings and emotions when they wrote their poetry and I have mine when I write mine. If a poem I write is felt by the readers and they feel connected with my emotions then the poem is a hit. Otherwise, no matter how good a person writes but cannot connect with the readers, then the poem is a miss and it fails purpose to deliver.
Sandie