Do not be cross with poetry

[ellajam]

There are also those people who have nothing to say, and so pass off crap as being inscrutable. The big question is, are they doing so purposefully, are they doing so because that's what they were taught to do, or do they simply do not know that is what they are doing?

If a poem engenders strong emotions in me, I kneel to it and bring it gifts. It goes without saying they are also intellectually stimulating, although the word "stimulating" seems much too small of a word to describe the event.
I must add, very few poems have done so. I consider these poems the model for which I should strive for in writing poetry and would like to one day write such a poem, but that possibility is exceedingly small.

"very few poems have done so" ...

A passage from Carmen Laforet's The Island and the Demons  (loosely paraphrased as I can't remember it exactly):

Mateo: "Such a beautiful woman!"
Diego: "You think her beautiful? Ah Mateo, you are so easily pleased."
Mateo: "And lucky. Unlike you, I live in a world full of beautiful women."

Ha, it's like people who say they can't find anyone to date, wtf?

Among the Poems You Love thread (and the reading they inspired) and the pieces of their own that our members have posted there are many that have touched me but I have to admit that I pick up those slim volumes of current poetry whenever I come across them, waiting to be clobbered, and it's a pretty rare occurance.