AlexPGP's Corner

It occurs to me that, instead of vowing to write "a poem a day" for a month, a much more fitting tribute to poetry would be to commit 30 short poems (or stanzas of poems) to memory over a 30 day period.

Why more fitting? Because - in my antediluvian opinion - poetry is meant to be recited, performed, to be sung out loud. It is music without staffs or sharps or flats.

Poetry (at least good poetry) is also not something that the ordinary jane (or joe) can simply crank out on demand, so that a goal of posting a poem a day really isn't practical, in my opinion. (And to those who shudder at my use of the word pair "good poetry," thinking me too judgmental, please compare my villanelle of yesterday with Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle... and tell me there's no difference.)

Committing a poem to memory and speaking it out loud is to get really intimate with the words, the way they sound, the way they interreact, and the way they feel as you wrap your lips and tongue and throat around them.

It's not hard. There are any number of short poems out there. Why not start, say, with Dorothy Parker's Résumé?

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns are unlawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Having said all that, here's my third - and likely final - offering for April:

There once was a chap from Wolf Creek
Who concluded his prospects were bleak,
He drinks glass after glass
Of sweet sassafrass,
And stays quite immune to critique.

Cheers...