| I taught my niece to say this. |
I pissed off an English professor once* when I was an undergraduate. I bumped into this professor outside of class, and we got to talking. He told me that he wrote poetry and asked if I wrote poetry, too. Since I was an idiot, I answered that I gave up writing poetry once I got through puberty.
As you can guess, this did not go over well.
I’ve been using tumblr lately, because I clearly don’t spend enough time on the Internet. It’s actually gotten to the point that I’m skittish of checking out the #literature section because it is just packed with bad poetry. I really want to tell them that what they’re scribbling is not literature, not by a long shot. But I don’t want to get flamed to death.
There are some poets I like. John Donne. Thomas Wyatt. Robert Browning. Carl Sandburg. But I’ve never sat down to read an entire book of poetry. When I’m asked about it now, I make jokes about preferring lines that go all the way to the other side of the page, complete sentences, etc. But that’s not really why I don’t dig poetry. I don’t much like short stories, either, because they end just when I’m getting into them. I think my dislike of poetry has something to do with that. Well, that and it’s just so emotional. My very favorite writers are naturalists and realists. I like all that emotional stuff in the subtext.
Cripes, I sound like that kid in The Princess Bride who wants his granddad to skip the kissing bits.
Maybe it’s just that I’ve experienced so much pubescent poetry that it’s scarred me for life.
* Okay, this is probably one incident of many.
I started going to poetry readings since most of my friends in Boise are MFA and MA students, and I find if I don't try and *think* too much about poetry, if I listen to it like a concert and don't dig around, I really (generally) enjoy the experience. I don't read it too much except what my friends write, and then I feel like I have an in because I know them and their lives. I even took a few classes in my MA program, and I definitely appreciate poetry as an art more than I did before. Although according to my lecture notes, all poetry is about sex. So there's that.
You know what poetry I really liked (besides my friends, not that they follow me on the Internet to make sure I say nice things about them)? I really liked Sandra Cisneros's book Loose Woman. I would also argue that House on Mango Street is closer to poetry than fiction.