this is not a poem

Raven's Song Tuesday, April 16, 2024 this is not a poem tinyurl.com/not-a-poem this is not a poem dropping all the capitals in imitation of e e cummings who maybe had a reason for it or of archy who couldnt push the shift key down this is not a poem scattered print upon a page with pretty tYpO gRaPhIc tricks to make you think theres meaning to it this aint nary poem chok full with four letr cuss word talk and asortd mispelings and grammer mistaks that r suposed to shok **** the readr but look like the writer just never went to school this cannot be a poem it isnt even words just a fossil a trace a record a dead memory marks on a page meaning nothing a poem does not exist on paper until someone comes along and speaks hears or reads decodes the marks into language the tool of speech and thought and then the word the sentence the poem or whatever runs wild inside a living mind which is the only time it ever exists so all the fancy printing games the type the spelling the placement dont make a text into a poem because where do they go when you read it aloud this is not a poem even if its artful and moving filled with feelings and images and ideas even if the words make music in the mind because thats not what makes a poem a poem is structured it may be tightly metred to a steady beat or it may sound with rhymes around the ending feet perhaps the words are pitched so high and low will alternate or rather than rhythm the rule is letting lines alliterate it may be an ancient structure or one that had never been heard one you impose or one that just grows out of each forming word but a poem is structured believe it or not words can be good and true and beautiful and still not be poetry if unstructured no matter how well organized the term is prose prose is not a bad thing for words to be prose can be lovely or hideous or strong or weak just as poems can be and while we loosely speak of poetic imagery or poetry in motion swell tones do not a poem make even four score and seven years ago even when age fell upon the world and wonder went out of the minds of men even go placidly amid the noise and haste are not poems though we call them poetic to say that good prose is a poem is like telling a good woman shes a man or a good man hes a woman the sentiment may be appreciated but the facts are wrong a poem is like a spoken song the writer has something to say but has to cooperate even compromise with the music something besides the writer is sharing the writing in a sense the poem is writing itself this is like the arts of bonsai and love two different entities producing together what neither could alone if one party had all the power it would not be art manipulating a lifeless unresisting unparticipating object the terms are lumberwork and necrophilia so i found it utterly incredible that socalled poetry journals specifically exclude forbid prohibit banish deny absolutely will not consider structured rhymed or metred poetry for inclusion among the stuff coating their squeezably soft pages one could perhaps argue a place for unstructured poetry as having a form organic to the content but to say that this is the only kind acceptable is going too far way too far it is like saying pictures must must must be abstract are not allowed to resemble the subject or that not merely does a minority have rights but the majority does not and do you know ive heard both these claims made too i smell a worm in this confirmed conformist anticonformity but i am cured of being lured to bite a juicy dangled bait with wary look i leave the hook to any who will swallow it as of today i swim away to find a less polluted strait and flip a fin at suckers in the fishy school of modern lit