It's good and dead: long live zombie poetry

[Magpie]

Once a narrative device that we'd have had no trouble separating from the writer him/herself (do we really think Huck Finn wrote his own story?), it's become the only perspective that seems to matter in poetry and must be true.  The I can't lie.  And, it seems, the I most especially cannot be tangled up with metaphor.  How can one thing be another thing? That's just not authentic.  

Excellent points Leanne and very well made. I agree that the concept of the blog has a lot to answer for, I even had a blog myself for a while but was very dismayed by the whole thing. It just seems to be one massive ego trip for some people, telling each other how wonderful they are. As for taking words literally, this not only happens with metaphors in poetry but with any kind of writing, which means that even when telling a story people react to it as if it were the truth and comment accordingly. Arrrghhh!!! It's not my fucking diary. But alas I had to kill my blog and unfortunately not in a metaphorical sense.


I suppose that this is the same reason why blues music is on its deathbed. People's misinterpretation of lyrics, by taking them literally would lead them to believe that the blues is fairly boring. So when Lead Belly sang "Somebody been digging my potatoes, trampling on my vine", people must assume that he has a problem with ruffians in his garden, and when Robert Johnson sang "Beatrice, she got a phonograph, and it won't say a lonesome word", people must think that his girlfriend is having a spot of trouble with her hi-fi. Both of which would be deemed not interesting in the slightest. Oh well, I believe I'll go dust my broom, ("his house must be really dirty if he has to do that").

Mark