I’ve noticed of late
That many poems
Are just obese
Paragraphs of prose
Of startling proportions
Masquerading around as poems
Super sized
and bloated by
Too many words
Taking up
entirely
Too much space
On the reader's plate
I blame our society
For this blight on poetry –
For we have let our poems
Go the way of our bodies
Eating superfluous words
Addicted to phonemes
and morphemes
Now, I don't mean to imply
That all poems are fat.
All I am saying
Is that the majority
Of Prose Poems
Could benefit from a diet.
Nor am I recommending
that everyone stop reading
These Unhealthy,
super sized poems
Cold turkey
Nor am I suggesting
The other extreme
That we get back
To the anorexic poems
that are nothing
but skin and bones
and sans punctuation
And yes,
I also realize
that haiku
is little more
than a bite-sized snack
And hardly enough
To curb a reader's
Hunger attack)
(and the same
can be said
of the tanka
and the cinquain
mere morsals
to the gourmond)
So what's the answer
To this conundrum:
Use less words?
Chew gum?
Twiddle your thumbs?
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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