It was recently brought to my attention that my poems are pointless. Well, that wasn't news to me, to be honest, I don't think that poems really have to be anything special, or profound. To me, they're a vessel for letting thoughts out, but in a different way from prose. I don't really care about the normal trappings of a poem (enjambement, rhyming, repetition etc), but I do care if I get thoughts out of my head. One of my favourite poets is Spike Milligan. If you've read anything by him, you'll know that his poems are generally silly little things, based on snippets of his life, like White Mice, where he asks "what colour is the price of those white mice?" That was inspired by his daughter, asking that question, and he turned it into a poem. It had significance for him, but to the reader, it was just a silly poem.
But, I'm now asking you: What the hell is a poem, to you?
What Is A Pome?
For those who incorrectly guessed
A pome is a brief quest
Lasting nowhere near as long as a tome
Unexpectedly ending shortly after it starts
And in the privacy of your own home
May involve K-Y Jelly
A lawn gnome
Perhaps auto parts
Sometimes it feels really good
Mostly it smarts
So, don't be a hero
Like when in Rome
I suggest you do as the Romans do
Except for Nero
Best known for accidentally burning everything down
While lighting his own farts
Poems or song lyrics are simply a condensed version of prose that doesn't have to adhere to the rules of punctuation and all of the He Said She Said.
That this poem or that song lyric is "poetic" is something else entirely different.
When I was in high school we had a visit from a poet once. I remember she said that poets are motivated to write because they love writing poetry, not because they won't someone to dissect it later. She wasn't denigrating analysis of poetry, but encouraging us to just write what we feel in our hearts and if it's true then it is poetry. I was inspired by this and have written poetry nearly every day of my life since. I don't care if it doesn't meet academic standards or definitions of what a 'poem' is, because each one is a little part of me.
I tend to side with Sherzahd. Poetry is an art form, as is pros. It is really hard to teach someone to be a truly fine poet. There is a natural, unexplainable, element that some have with little effort and some never achieve. However, that doesn't mean that it can't be taught. Like the study of art, there are techniques to be studied, guides for style, training and constant fine tuning. Like art, not just anything and everything the artist thought worthy makes it to the museum wall or any wall at all. To most artists, that's nice, but not necessary. Their desire to create is what drives them. The ironic thing is, if you read the personal writings of many great poets, you will find that for them the most important thing was that they write. They had to. They would have been doing it without the recognition anyway.
Just as there are many levels of education and intellect, there are many levels of poetry. I'd never assume the right to judge what level it should be written on, it depends on the writer and the reader. Journalism rules don't apply. The simplicity of "The Red Wheelbarrow" or "This is Just to Say" can't be paralleled to "Song of Myself". William Carlos Williams and Walt Whitman are both brilliant and all three poems are profound--one with a minimum of language and the other with the extreme. Someone might read either and say, "What's the point?" But, you will be fixed to find a survey American anthology of poetry without them in it. Why? Because they are exemplary.
And, that's poetry.
I'm curious, you speak as if the fact that your poetry may or may not make a point doesn't matter. Then why does what we think matter? We ain't (yeah I said ain't) nobody.
Concentrate on the art of it.
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Poetry to me, is not what I write, but what makes me write. The result is just my translation of the poetry, I sense around me and inside of me, into words. If that turns out to be poetry to someone else, I succeeded in translating what I felt.
If life seems jolly rotten
there's something you've forgotten
and that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing
from Monty Python's "Life of Brian"
A lot of what I write is in the form of blank verse, lacking in rhyme although I stick to a strict metre. Many people do not consider blank verse to be 'proper' poetry, and it is clear that those who count on this site think that my scribblings have very little merit. It is well to have the bubble of one's self delusion punctured, but the humiliation of the realisation of one's lack of ability still hurts.
Meanwhile I will give an example of what I aspire to from Book IV of Wordsworth's Prelude.
Bright was the summer's noon when quickening steps
Followed each other till a dreary moor
Was crossed, a bare ridge clomb, upon whose top
Standing alone, as from a rampart's edge,
I overlooked the bed of Windermere,
Like a vast river, stretching in the sun.
With exultation, at my feet I saw
Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays,
A universe of Nature's fairest forms
Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst,
Magnificent, and beautiful, and gay.
I bounded down the hill shouting amain
For the old Ferryman; to the shout the rocks
Replied, and when the Charon of the flood
Had staid his oars, and touched the jutting pier,
I did not step into the well-known boat
Without a cordial greeting. Thence with speed
Up the familiar hill I took my way
Towards that sweet Valley where I had been reared;
'Twas but a short hour's walk, ere veering round
I saw the snow-white church upon her hill
Sit like a thronèd Lady, sending out
A gracious look all over her domain.
Yon azure smoke betrays the lurking town;
With eager footsteps I advance and reach
The cottage threshold where my journey closed.
