Wednesday 30 September 2015

Poetry and Other Animals

Poetry is inclusive. It doesn't require a passport or border controls. It's as familiar as your favourite coffee mug or your old TV remote. It requires Formula One attention to technical detail yet can be shrugged-off like a summer shower. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, you take it as you would a breath, but leaving plenty behind for others.

Poem-writing, however, is more pugnacious. It leaps at the scraps on offer, and is indifferent as to whether or not it takes your hand in the process. It kicks you out of bed, uses up all the milk in the fridge, and sleeps with your best friend. When you think you can't take any more, it allows a big teardrop to slip down its cheek, all the time looking at you slyly through half-closed eyes. Think of Marlowe; think of Larkin; think of all the hours you can never get back, trying to make a poem.

There's a reason why syllables in metre are stressed and unstressed.....

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