Do Most People Like Good Poetry Or Bad Poetry?
Maybe a better title for this post is, what is good poetry?
I'm actually a little stuck for an answer here. I'm thinking the answer should be, it depends on what you want your market to be? or it depends on what you want your poetry to bring you?
I've read some amazing poetry from people who I'm assuming don't make any money from it, or even write that often. And then I've read what I would consider to be horrendous poetry from people who appear to be earning a fair amount selling the poetry as greeting card inserts, or similar... Yes, a lot of people seem to like 'greeting card poetry'! In fact, people will purposefully walk into a shop to look for rhymes in cards to send to loved ones. This is a far cry from the words that flow from the very talented pens of the likes of Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath or Rudyard Kipling. Yet, so many people I know do not want to read poetry that hurts their brain and takes them about an hour to figure out what it was about. Most people I know want instant gratification from what they read: Ah, I feel better. That was nice. Oh, I really relate to that, etc.
And a lot of these people are intelligent, with degrees (although not necessarily in English). I guess they just don't think the same way as what The Poetry Society would consider to be a good poem.
That makes sense. I also like to understand a piece of art. I like Salvador Dali, but that's because I understand it despite its weirdness. Show me abstract art by Osnat Tzadok and I'm thinking, 'beautiful, but I don't know what it is unless I see the title (and even then not always!).' It doesn't make it a bad painting, but I would never buy it....
So are good poems the ones that are technically brilliant and of Poetry Society standard, even if most people wouldn't buy it, or are good poems easy-to-read-and-understand greeting card standard that most people would buy? Would love to hear your thoughts!
I feel that my poems fall somewhere between the two. I have written greeting card type poems which usually get quite good ratings on open sites and forums where the visitors are usually the general public as opposed to 'poets'. And I've written a few that I suppose would be considered more freestyle, as opposed to the 'boom-di-boom-di-boom-di-boom' of iambic pentameter. I think they're technically well formatted in meter and rhyme, if the rhyme is applicable, but people don't really seem to like them as much, maybe because it doesn't flow as easily as 'boom-di-boom-di-boom-di-boom'.
If I want to make money from writing poetry, do I actually have to 'sell-out' a little and write easy-to-read-and-say, with words that everyone's heard of?
Hmmmmm......
I'm actually a little stuck for an answer here. I'm thinking the answer should be, it depends on what you want your market to be? or it depends on what you want your poetry to bring you?
I've read some amazing poetry from people who I'm assuming don't make any money from it, or even write that often. And then I've read what I would consider to be horrendous poetry from people who appear to be earning a fair amount selling the poetry as greeting card inserts, or similar... Yes, a lot of people seem to like 'greeting card poetry'! In fact, people will purposefully walk into a shop to look for rhymes in cards to send to loved ones. This is a far cry from the words that flow from the very talented pens of the likes of Robert Frost, Sylvia Plath or Rudyard Kipling. Yet, so many people I know do not want to read poetry that hurts their brain and takes them about an hour to figure out what it was about. Most people I know want instant gratification from what they read: Ah, I feel better. That was nice. Oh, I really relate to that, etc.
And a lot of these people are intelligent, with degrees (although not necessarily in English). I guess they just don't think the same way as what The Poetry Society would consider to be a good poem.
That makes sense. I also like to understand a piece of art. I like Salvador Dali, but that's because I understand it despite its weirdness. Show me abstract art by Osnat Tzadok and I'm thinking, 'beautiful, but I don't know what it is unless I see the title (and even then not always!).' It doesn't make it a bad painting, but I would never buy it....
So are good poems the ones that are technically brilliant and of Poetry Society standard, even if most people wouldn't buy it, or are good poems easy-to-read-and-understand greeting card standard that most people would buy? Would love to hear your thoughts!
I feel that my poems fall somewhere between the two. I have written greeting card type poems which usually get quite good ratings on open sites and forums where the visitors are usually the general public as opposed to 'poets'. And I've written a few that I suppose would be considered more freestyle, as opposed to the 'boom-di-boom-di-boom-di-boom' of iambic pentameter. I think they're technically well formatted in meter and rhyme, if the rhyme is applicable, but people don't really seem to like them as much, maybe because it doesn't flow as easily as 'boom-di-boom-di-boom-di-boom'.
If I want to make money from writing poetry, do I actually have to 'sell-out' a little and write easy-to-read-and-say, with words that everyone's heard of?
Hmmmmm......
I can't stand poetry that sounds like it's been written to be purposefully poncy, complicated and full of hidden meanings. Some people write naturally in that sort of way, because it's just how they talk and it flows out, but if they've had to sit there for hours thinking of which word to use, and then picking the least likely for joe bloggs to understand...I'd rather not waste my time.
ReplyDeleteI'm a fan of rhyming poetry (as long as it makes sense and doesn't rhyme for the sake of it) - I like some poems that don't rhyme, but often I don't see them as very different from just writing a piece of prose.
One of my favourite poems is Robert Frost's Fire and Ice - I think it's so simple, yet effective.