Some things poets seem to have forgotten 

Screen Shot 05-03-15 at 06.30 PM 001Screen Shot 05-03-15 at 06.30 PM

Some things poets seem to have forgotten

My Grandmother turned me on
Poetry and philosophy
She used to collect clippings
Of poems from the local newspaper

I read Tennyson, Yeats, Blake
In her book collection
She read those poems often
The pages were old and bent

Years later, I would write
My philosophy in poems
With my own clippings
Of Taoism, Buddhism, Sufism

And transhumanism, but I knew
By the time the singularity reached us
Poetry might have gone extinct
The poetry of the high-bow

Is now so inaccessible, without
Seemingly, any deeper meaning
The trend to write dead things
That passes as coldly as a poor display

Perhaps the future of poetry
Lies in the fringe verse
Of the downtrodden and in the
Privileged academic babble

Of poets who make art without
A true connection to the zeitgeist
I don’t need a Masters in Fine Arts
In poetry or creative writing

To feel entitled, but women like my grandmother
Will die out, millennials are making
Other choices, they don’t need to
Be starving artists to get that poetry is dead

And even the idea of becoming a writer
I once had a roommate who became
A famous journalist, maybe he
Knew something then that I only realize now.

One thought on “Some things poets seem to have forgotten 

  1. Kevin, I don’t think women like grandmother will die out. At least I hope not, for humanity’s sake. Nor do I think poetry is dead. Look at the work of C.K Williams, a contemporary poet. His style is innovative and accessible. Pat Winslow and Carrie Etter are much the same.

    Stylistically, though, I can’t stomach rap anymore. But then, maturity does that to a person.

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