“…poetry is a very dangerous word…I don’t like the stigma that comes with being called a poet…So I call what I’m doing an improvisational adventure or an inebriational travelogue.” Tom Waits.
I am currently working on a poetry project which partners up poetry and photography. The intention is simple; to lift poetry and photography out of the quagmire of intellects and into a wider, more mainstream audience. The project attempts to remove the stigma of poetry as ‘hard’ and ‘pretentious’ and to thereby present a unique, singular piece of art (a photo and poem) that has no right or wrong answer. In the 21st century, poetry needs to be more visual and needs to appeal to as many readers as possible.
Anyway, I was sat with my photographer friend the other day, discussing our objective and throwing around ideas, and she said,
“Maybe poetry needs another name. I mean, most people shudder at the thought, or run the other way the second they hear the word.”
She was right. Poetry does need another name. I have the perfect example. I was reading Carolyn Forche’s The Colonel last week at lunch. It really blew me away. Then, excited, I said to an acquaintance I was with,
“Oh, hey, read this poem, it’s absolutely incredible.”
He replied, as he munched on a wet ham and cheese sandwich,
“Urrr, no thanks, I really don’t get on with poetry, just don’t get it. I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“…Right…Hey,” I replied, “you gotta read this short story then, it’s real short but very powerful.”
“Sure.” He said and took it. It was the same piece of work, Carolyn Forche’s ‘The Colonel’ and I wondered how poetry got such a bad reputation. This then is how I decided on my blog title, this is not a poem. To re-introduce this art form back into society, perhaps we have to convince folks that poetry isn’t a puzzle, it isn’t a trick, sometimes it might not even be a poem. A poem can be so much more; it can be a story, a journal, a snippet of life or flashback, a lyric, a vignette, a psychoanalysis, a fleeting thought, a philosophy, a dream, intimacy, neglect, anger, despair, love…
But whatever it is, poetry is important, too important to neglect. I want people to read poetry, and to take something from it, anything, a single idea or emotion or enjoyment or revelation; just something they found in it, that is what poetry is all about.
