10 posts
Who tears apart, but never builds; in summer, says he prefers chills; proclaims “I won’t” when others will; expects to never pay the bill? Who tends to “no”, withholding “yes”; predicts more failure than success; looks to curse rather than bless; just compliments under duress? Who finds the flaw in beauty’s whole; un-masks delusions in…
I will never deconstruct another poem in search of hidden metaphor, by line eviscerating some writer’s creation to satisfy some professor of mine. These exercises do not help the reader connect to what is said, or truly why in given circumstance one word is better, or how one’s own perspective may supply a wealth of…
I will not write for other poets. They exist to ridicule each other, and failing that, to share inside jokes on what words are or aren’t clich on poems written in metered speech on lines that rhyme, even if well done, on absurd show instead of tell (as if a poem could only exist for…
Having been notified by Google Alerts that a new service is available that takes your original website and scours the web to check and see if your content is found elsewhere (that is, borrowed liberally without permission), I give another thought to what has to be my favorite take on plagiarism: Lermontov: “…and remember, my…
So many poets trace, or seek to trace the root of their art back in time, but just so far; and would attempt to judge all verse to suit their own agendas. Doing this, they scar just the veneer, the surface of our craft, by quoting others’ rules, like “show, don’t tell”; throughout the ages,…
We sit in circles, crop circles, like silver-clad heroes at Arthur’s table, dark knights of the soul of verse, our words colliding in the jousts of wit and criticism. Is it the flame that draws us moths to it, and so we dance in the flickering candlelight, hoping to stay entranced and yet remain un-scorched?…
I extract this comment from a thread on my Poetry at Poetryslamming, not because I want to draw attention to the person who wrote it, but rather because I think that forum is not the place to engage in a debate, at least at this time. The gist of it is that this person thought…