Natural language or don't bother

[matsunosuperfan]

The older I get, the more I read, the less patience I have for affectation in poetry. Even a lot of what I used to think was great poetry, I now think is just okay, mostly because it can't exist without the aid of artifice, without the reader wilfully suspending that particular disbelief and agreeing to indulge with the speaker in the obviously false fantasy that the diction before us on the page is anything the speaker might actually utter in any context other than "poem on the page." 

It is harder to write poetry with plain language because now you actually have to just go find compelling ideas and images. There's no "I don't have much to say but it SOUNDS like I have something to say." You either bring an offering or an empty dish. None of this fancy-Tupperware-holding-a-single-dry-chicken-tender shit. 

Go read some James Tate, a poet who had the nerve to actually explore what a poem is at its essence, with all the emperor's decidedly not-new clothes stripped off. It's good for what ails, we swears, frodo bagginses.

Yes, it’s difficult but can be done. Mercedes Webb-Pullman was a master of form in casual language. She has a lot of poems posted here but unsearchable at her request. One of my favorites is on the sestina practice threads, it just stuck with me, made me forget I was on a form thread.

I live alone, in the bush, just below
McInally mountain, part of the high
alpine range. Canberra’s lights reflect
from clouds to the north, their shine
reduced by distance to a glow. My river
joins the Murrumbidgee, becomes their water.

I generate power, pump my own water,
collect firewood for free, fish in the pools below.
I watch from my bed, look down on the river
for food, like a kingfisher perching on high
but I can’t fly like him, a fast arrow shine
of blue. I am lonely, blue too, I reflect.

As I finish work I hear loud music, reflect
on loneliness, decide a bourbon and water
before driving home might put a shine
on my day. I stand at the bar chatting; below
on the dance floor dancers gyrate, high
on energy, moving like a flooded river.

It’s been raining. I wonder if I’ll cross the river
tonight. If I can’t see the white rock reflect
in the crossing, the river is running too high
for me. I’ve already lost a car to the water
this year. The rock shows the safe level below.
I won’t cross if I can’t see it shine.

In the bar’s darkness, teeth and eyes shine.
I meet a man with dark hair like a river
that flows down his back. He gestures below
to the dancers. His welcoming eyes reflect
my smile. He leads, I follow like water
this stranger. I want him. I want to get high

on music, dancing, getting to know him, high
on life again. I laugh, and watch his eyes shine
like ripples of moonlight playing on water.
Something’s starting. As raindrops join in a river
we’re moving together. Our shadows reflect
only one. We’re joined above and below.

We stand high on a cliff overlooking a river
through new land. Stars shine around us, reflect
new patterns emerging in the water below.

- just mercedes

I can’t imagine writing a sestina where the form disappears but it seems it can be done with a lot of practice and a shitload of talent.

Oh, and I am done with the myths. We’re drenched in the human experience in our modern age, there must be a way to say it without referring to ancient stories.

Bitching about other people’s poems is a great way to not write my own, isn’t it?

Damn, that's great