The Many Faces of Poetry – So Many Poets

Posted: July 23, 2021 | Author: artrosch | Filed under: Poetry, The Many Faces of Poetry | Tags: Arthur Rosch, Poetry, The Many Faces of Poetry, Writing to be Read |2 Comments

So Many Poets

By Arthur Rosch

Only I understand my own poetry.

If I read another poet

and get to the end of the poem

without being bored,

that makes her

a good poet.  People tell me that William Butler Yeats

was a great poet but I’ll be damned if I understand him.

There are poets who play games with words

in such a way that the poetry bends the wind so that it ties knots in itself.

Listeners are embarrassed at their lack of comprehension.

So they applaud, to hide their gullibility, and the poet goes on to become a great

poet with audiences at colleges and books on shelves at stores.

Another kind of poet writes in plain English

but his narcissism makes him seem

as if he’s holding back a fart.

For god’s sake write in plain English. Or French.  Or Serbo-Croatian. 

Let’s start again.

I love MY poems.  I love Pablo Neruda’s poems, just because I do.

e.e. cummings?  Hey, come on.  What a goofball.  And Bukowsky; that’s as close to

real as poetry ever gets.

There are too many leaves and geese in Mary Oliver’s stuff.  She’s obviously wise;

I hate poets who are wise.  They fill me with envy.  I’d like to be wise.

I don’t like poetry very much.  There’s such a to-do over it, but hardly anybody

gives a poet money.  Rich poets are always terrible.  It isn’t about the poetry.  It’s about the poet.  We need poets,

badly, desperately.  But we don’t need poetry at all.  So I guess the best thing

is to be a poet who doesn’t write. 

Just don’t tell anyone about me.

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Arthur also has writing credits in Exquisite Corpse, Shutterbug, eDigital, and Cat Fancy Magazine. He has written five novels, a memoir and a large collection of poetry. His autobiographical novel, Confessions Of An Honest Man won the Honorable Mention award from Writer’s Digest in 2016. His other works include his memoir, The Road Has Eyes, and his science fantasy novel, The Gods of Gift. Arthur’s lates release is a poetry and photography collection Feral Tenderness.

More of his work can be found at www.artrosch.com

Photos at https://500px.com/p/artsdigiphoto?view=photos

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