Rules, schmules.
I used to be an extremely good rule-follower. Then I dyed my hair peach, quit my job, went a bit rogue. It’s not that I don’t believe in them. It’s just that most rules, aren’t in fact, real rules.
Welcome to Day 3 of Poetry Camp. If you need to catch up:
Yesterday, we investigated pop music lyrics as poetry. People don’t usually count lyrics as poetry but hopefully by now you’ll agree with me, that they can be.
Arguably, there aren’t many rules to poetry, nothing that can be universally agreed upon by people who write what they call poetry.
For example, poems are typically written in verse, with line breaks? Not necessarily. Poems have to rhyme? Not that, either. Poems have to be full of metaphor? Not even that.
After chasing a one, true definition of poetry and coming up inconclusive, I simply think of poetry as arranged words, where the order and rhythm and flow of how they are arranged and the precision of language matters more than structural narrative or adherence to form. While fiction writing and essay writing are both craft and art, poetry takes the sensorial experience of words to the next level through how the text is visually composed and how the words physically sound. They are, like clothes: Anything goes—be prepared to offend a few people.
Ironically, I think that’s exactly what prevents the enjoyment of poetry for many of us. When anything goes, it’s easy to a) feel overwhelmed and fall back to the “easy” answer and b) for groups of people to try to assert their standards for a sense of control when in reality, there’s none to be had.
If you don’t like poetry, it could just be that you’re thinking of the wrong genre, style, voice, or form. And that somewhere out there is a poem that you will love, that momentarily takes you out of the need to always be productive or entertained with what you consume, and instead to let you be changed.
I repeat: There is craft, and there are standards, but there is no such thing as real poetry.
I read a lot of poetry reviews by real people. (I use “real” here just so we can be clear this is not robot people we’re talking about.)
This isn’t real poetry! They say.
And they huffed and they puffed and nothing happened except maybe they turned a few people off and away because if it isn’t real, maybe they’re doing it all wrong. And no one likes to be wrong or stupid.
You can have a preference. If you’ve been here since the beginning of Violets’ Picks, you may have noticed that my preference is free verse, “contemporary” poetry, which is probably the closest to an actual label I can get. I personally find it more relatable and interesting. I can also understand people who like “traditional” poetry but not because it’s any more real, just because it happens to be what they like. I’ve said it before: “Traditional” is just another way to say “once upon a time…but probably no more than a few decades ago”.
Reviews and criticism are helpful to establish and maintain rules and hierarchies in arenas where there is a game to be played (i.e. academia, awards), but their relevance today means little in a world where the universal no longer applies.
We don’t all need to be playing the same game. We can accept that there are standards and conventions of how a certain group of people define poetry, let them speak to each other, sell poetry to each other, etc., but we can, in the same breath, also accept that there is room for personal interpretation and that rules are only ever invented, never precise and unwavering truths.
And anyway, form and order and rules are established by whoever was in power to make them, and by whatever was happening in the world at the time.
Poetry became fluffy and flowery and sappy as a response to the mood of the culture and the suddenly novel capability for people to record their feelings at mass, for the first time in history. It rightfully earned that reputation, technology and culture permitting.
Just as quickly as rules are established, they, too, can change: When the average person thinks of poetry, they still think of rhyme. But most award-winning poems today don’t rhyme, and the irony is that sometimes rhyming is observed to be the sign of an amateur. Funny how standards become signs of amateurism, hey?
So here we are, past the need for poetry that’s solely fluffy and flowery and sappy and rhyming. Poetry can still be all these things, but that’s not all it can be. Come see.
Camp Assignment #3: Like What You Like
Today’s assignment is getting clear on what you like. Not what poetry you like, just what you like.
You don’t have to understand why you like it. We’re infinitely complex and ultimately simple.
Start with the obvious things that come to mind: This part of your list will come easy and fast.
Then, dig a bit deeper. Go through your day and start noticing things. Make what poet Major Jackson calls an “observation notebook”. Write down what you like, in general terms, not poetry-specific terms. Look at your Pinterest board, or around at your environment.
Do it long enough and you’ll start to notice patterns. See if you can label these things, group themes together. For example, I discovered that I’m all about texture, colour, and the senses which is exactly the lens that I focus not just Violets on, but my entire life.
This, pure and utter enjoyment, is the lens that you should be viewing poetry through, not through a lens of meaning or standard or certainly not through the lens of “Is it any good?” We have by now witnessed poetry live many lives so that there is only one truth left: There is poetry for you and when you meet it, it will do exactly what you need it to do. Poetry, as unproductive as it is a pursuit, is quite the tool. But first, you have to know what stirs you, lights you up, pulls you out.
Done? Now you’re much better equipped for the adventure that is poetry, and not just be constantly and continuously disappointed simply because you haven’t identified what you’re looking for from a sea of truly infinite possibility.
Because while poetry is about cultivating the capacity for seeing possibility, it requires a honed in sense of enthusiasms. The world is much too wide otherwise, and that’s when we fall prey to the illusion of “real” to help us make sense of things. Holding onto “real” is how we’re robbed of joy by our own hands.
Today’s Poetry “Reading” List
For today’s reading list, I’m sharing a broad spectrum of genre, form, and styles to whet your appetite and unbreak the rules you may have unknowingly set about poetry. Let’s go wider to go deep.
Instagram, of course, isn’t the only social media platform changing the perception and forms poetry takes. On TikTok, watch model Madeline Ford’s reading of Pretty Bird by Shay Alexi, from their collection unbridled. Coming off from our music-themed day yesterday, here’s another poem by Shay called John Mayer's "Your Body is a Wonderland" is Kinda Gross But.
Poetry exists across all cultures and languages, and if you’re curious if contemporary poetry is a thing outside of the English-speaking world, here’s a website showcasing translated Chinese poetry written in the 21st century, many of which eschew the strict adherence to form that Chinese poems used to demand.
Poems can be “found”, not just written: A blackout poem is written using newspapers and ink to black out all words except a few, revealing a poem. Austin Kleon popularized the form with his blog and book a few years ago, and still posts them regularly today. Want to try making one of your own? Here.
You can even dial in for a poem. Every weekday until the end of April, call the FSG Poetry Hotline at 385-DIAL-FSG to hear a different poem. Your city might have a Poetry Hotline of their own: Vancouver does (1-833-POEMS-4-U), featuring poems from ten local writers.
Or, have a poem written just for you, live. Ars Poetica is a “creative events agency” that brings poetry to events like weddings and parties with custom typewritten poems-on-demand. So fun and special.
Poems can be engraved onto important objects to imbue them with meaning and magic, things like rings, pens, and oh, spaceships. Ada Limon, who wrote Bright Dead Things, is writing a poem that will be engraved on the Europa Clipper spacecraft en route to Jupiter. (Poem yet to be revealed.)
Speaking of poetry and science, the Poetry of Science is a blog that shares researcher and professor Sam Illingworth’s poems, each of which aims to summarize a piece of scientific research. Example: Artificial Bites at Night. For more science-themed poetry, see also: Franny Choi’s Introduction to Quantum Theory and Rosebud Ben-Oni’s Poet Wrestling with the True Nature of the Photon.
Poems can be comics. Jason McBride’s Substack, Weirdo Poetry, shares a daily poem in the form of a comic strip. Such a delight!
Poems can also be prose. No fancy poetry rules here, just regular sentences in regular paragraphs. Here’s Poem About the Moon by Sam Sax.
Fairy Tales from the Web by Ish Klein is a poem that uses easy-to-read language, as if someone’s actually talking and telling a story. A lot of poetry isn’t like this, where the language sounds “poetic” and abstract and mysterious. But isn’t this just as poetic? P.S. A lot of poetry is like this, too, like Danez Smith’s acknowledgements and Ntozake Shange’s [lady in red] at 4:30am, who takes it to another level by spelling words the way they sound.
Poetry can exist in the context of fiction and multimedia, and not just in the movies. I can’t think of a better way to wrap up today than with Cryptonaturalist, a scripted fiction podcast by Jarod Anderson that explores strange nature featuring a fascinating hodgepodge of voice acting, storytelling, and of course, poetry. Here’s a sample script.
See you tomorrow for Day 4.
I loved this! I'm going to go back and read the rest of your poetry camp posts. Thanks for the shoutout!