Wednesday, August 26, 2009

how to make good poetry

Here is an example of a perfectly good poem:

I raked leaves today
down
down
down
down
down
off the roof onto
your job interview came in the mail?

Powerfully suggestive, endlessly evocative, but ultimately impossible to parse.

Here, by contrast, is a shitty poem:

Mark lent me his ruler this morning

What makes it bad? The lack of mystery, of the suspense of un-knowing, or antiknowing, or "knowing without knowledge".

4 comments:

  1. i dont know till, this so called "mark" fellow in poem no. two seems like some ultra hot mysterious man.

    ReplyDelete
  2. yeah he is. and he lent me his ruler in a non sexual way. it was amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. yes. yes he is.

    probably double that actualy

    ReplyDelete