Not All Poems are Poetry

Yesterday, I put together three poems to submit for a poetry prize this month.  I did so with a certain kind of rueful amusement, as if a part of me didn’t believe that anyone but myself could ever enjoy my poetry.  I’m proud of all three poems, and I think they’re well-written, but something tells me that no one else would ever agree.  When it comes to poetry, I’m braced for the careful, stiff compliments that people give when they’re trying to be kind about something that’s awful.

I’ve been writing poetry for years.  In my rambling journals, which I began when I was thirteen, a poem appears on the very first page—that is, if one can call it a poem.  But for me, poetry is not so much an art form as a way of thinking out loud, of playing with words as I put them on paper.  It’s also intensely personal, as I usually found the easiest way to deal with strong emotion was to write about it, and poetry made it more palatable for me.

When I got to Hollins, I was surprised and a little skeptical about the idea of submitting poetry for criticism in my writing classes.  As if poetry were serious writing!  Of course, I understand that as literature, it is very serious indeed—how could I not, with Yeats, Shakespeare, Frost, Oliver, Neruda, and so many others playing a vital role in my education?  But my poems were nothing, tidbits of words and thought cobbled together like a child’s collage.  They weren't for sharing.

I’ve slowly changed my tune over the years, but still I don’t give my poems the attention that I give to my novels and my short stories.  I think I’m a better poet than most people on the street, sure, but once I enter the honored company of true poets, I lower my head and step into the corner.  My father always says the operative question of life is “compared to what?”  And in comparison with the work of my peers, I don’t have any good things to say about my own poems.

I realize now, though, my own outlook is most likely what holds me back.  Who can take me seriously if I do not?  No one is ever going to take me by the throat, give me a good shake, and shout into my eyes, “If it’s so bad, then make it better, you idiot!”  So here I am, submitting my poetry to the same editing and revisions that I give to my longer works, and even more nerve-tingling, actually sending it off to be judged by others.  Who knows?  Maybe I am my own worst critic, and maybe when it comes to poetry, I know more that I think I do.  It would be a fitting irony if that were the case, don’t you think?