The problem I have with poetry is that there's just too bloody much of it. I am guilty of exacerbating this problem, I know, but to the best of my knowledge, no-one has yet died from an excess of verse, so it's probably pretty low down on my personal charge sheet.
What I mean by there being too much is more that there's too much to keep track of. It's the sheer quantity being churned out at the minute which, in this age of print on demand and online publication making it easier than ever before to be published, also makes it easier than ever before to disappear into the white noise of millions of words.
The sane response to this dizzying volume is to work out what you like early doors and just read round that area, because Lord knows it's hard enough to keep track just of that. Fairly early on in my writing career (Should probably have put 'career' in inverted commas) I came to realise that I enjoyed the stuff which could loosely be termed linguistically innovative, so I tended to read round that. Possibly I got a bit snotty about other stuff, but that's kids for you. Even then I realised that it was a pretty broad church, and a reasonably lengthy tradition, there was plenty there to be going on with, thanks.
However, recently I had cause to go looking for a poem for a specific occasion, one whch could be reasd directly to a crowd of non-poetry reader. And there's not really a lot on my boolshelves which fits the bill, unless you want a room full of blank faces and a couple of people walking out. So it was that I had cause to read some more, for want of a better word, mainstream poetry, the sort that fifteen years ago I'd have sniffed at as not being worthy of my time by way of covering up the fact that I simply didn't have time to read it, and Lordy, who'd have thought, I found some wonderful poems (I also found a lot of sentimental, lazily written bilge, and gave my twenty year old self a knowing wink, I wasn't entirely wrong).
Now, I've always known, on an intellectual level that this stuff was out there, but running my writing and reading alongside an already fairly busy existence I frankly couldn't be bothered seeking it out. But now (*sigh*) I realsie, and recognise that I am too narrow in my choice of reading, theat there's probably a lot out there that I need to read, that my specialism has lead to aching gaps in my knowledge and appreciation.
Just have to start getting up even earlier then.
What I mean by there being too much is more that there's too much to keep track of. It's the sheer quantity being churned out at the minute which, in this age of print on demand and online publication making it easier than ever before to be published, also makes it easier than ever before to disappear into the white noise of millions of words.
The sane response to this dizzying volume is to work out what you like early doors and just read round that area, because Lord knows it's hard enough to keep track just of that. Fairly early on in my writing career (Should probably have put 'career' in inverted commas) I came to realise that I enjoyed the stuff which could loosely be termed linguistically innovative, so I tended to read round that. Possibly I got a bit snotty about other stuff, but that's kids for you. Even then I realised that it was a pretty broad church, and a reasonably lengthy tradition, there was plenty there to be going on with, thanks.
However, recently I had cause to go looking for a poem for a specific occasion, one whch could be reasd directly to a crowd of non-poetry reader. And there's not really a lot on my boolshelves which fits the bill, unless you want a room full of blank faces and a couple of people walking out. So it was that I had cause to read some more, for want of a better word, mainstream poetry, the sort that fifteen years ago I'd have sniffed at as not being worthy of my time by way of covering up the fact that I simply didn't have time to read it, and Lordy, who'd have thought, I found some wonderful poems (I also found a lot of sentimental, lazily written bilge, and gave my twenty year old self a knowing wink, I wasn't entirely wrong).
Now, I've always known, on an intellectual level that this stuff was out there, but running my writing and reading alongside an already fairly busy existence I frankly couldn't be bothered seeking it out. But now (*sigh*) I realsie, and recognise that I am too narrow in my choice of reading, theat there's probably a lot out there that I need to read, that my specialism has lead to aching gaps in my knowledge and appreciation.
Just have to start getting up even earlier then.
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