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Poem A Day
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From: Sally Miller <derbymiller>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:04:41 -0400
I imagine you'll get some flak about your opinions on so?lled poetry of this kind, but I agree with you entirely. What we used to call "free verse" has degenerated into anything-goes exercises in formlessness and self indulgence. I know it's largely a reaction to the authoritarianism and strictures of former years, but I do think that for writing to be called poetry it should comprise lines and phrases that linger in the memory and resonate like music. Sally Derby
----- Original Message -----
From: Emmaattic at aol.com
To: Amytimber13 at aol.com ; ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 9:28 AM
Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Poem A Day
If you just want to see all kinds of "poetry", or what is
being written and labeled as so, Poetry Daily is fine.
But if we are focusing on our children and students, and true,
true, poetry, the problem with these sites is that you get poetry like the following: (At times it is a stretch, these being called
poems.) Undo the line breaks and what do you have. We have
to be very careful to introduce children to the finest.
Subway Seethe
What could have been the big to-do
that caused him to push me aside
on that platform? Was a woman who knew
there must be some good even inside
an ass like him on board that train?
Charity? Frances? His last chance
in a ratty string of last chances? Jane?
Surely in all of us is some good.
Better love thy neighbor, buddy,
lest she shove back. Maybe I should.
It's probably just a cruddy
downtown interview leading to
some cheap-tie, careerist, dull
cul?-sac he's speeding to.
Can he catch up with his soul?
Really, what was the freaking crisis?
Did he need to know before me
if the lights searching the crowd's eyes
were those of our train, or maybe
the train of who he might have been,
the person his own-heart-numbing,
me-shoving anxiety about being
prevents him from ever becoming?
How has his thoughtlessness defiled
who I was before he shoved me?
How might I be smiling now if he'd smiled,
hanging back, as though he might have loved me?
J. Allyn Rosser
Received on Mon 18 Apr 2005 09:04:41 AM CDT
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:04:41 -0400
I imagine you'll get some flak about your opinions on so?lled poetry of this kind, but I agree with you entirely. What we used to call "free verse" has degenerated into anything-goes exercises in formlessness and self indulgence. I know it's largely a reaction to the authoritarianism and strictures of former years, but I do think that for writing to be called poetry it should comprise lines and phrases that linger in the memory and resonate like music. Sally Derby
----- Original Message -----
From: Emmaattic at aol.com
To: Amytimber13 at aol.com ; ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 9:28 AM
Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Poem A Day
If you just want to see all kinds of "poetry", or what is
being written and labeled as so, Poetry Daily is fine.
But if we are focusing on our children and students, and true,
true, poetry, the problem with these sites is that you get poetry like the following: (At times it is a stretch, these being called
poems.) Undo the line breaks and what do you have. We have
to be very careful to introduce children to the finest.
Subway Seethe
What could have been the big to-do
that caused him to push me aside
on that platform? Was a woman who knew
there must be some good even inside
an ass like him on board that train?
Charity? Frances? His last chance
in a ratty string of last chances? Jane?
Surely in all of us is some good.
Better love thy neighbor, buddy,
lest she shove back. Maybe I should.
It's probably just a cruddy
downtown interview leading to
some cheap-tie, careerist, dull
cul?-sac he's speeding to.
Can he catch up with his soul?
Really, what was the freaking crisis?
Did he need to know before me
if the lights searching the crowd's eyes
were those of our train, or maybe
the train of who he might have been,
the person his own-heart-numbing,
me-shoving anxiety about being
prevents him from ever becoming?
How has his thoughtlessness defiled
who I was before he shoved me?
How might I be smiling now if he'd smiled,
hanging back, as though he might have loved me?
J. Allyn Rosser
Received on Mon 18 Apr 2005 09:04:41 AM CDT
