Talk about poetry? Hmmmm. Today's poetry. On the streets,in bars and coffee houses? Slams? Private lists and forums, maybe some blogs as well? And I'll rail against the ink and paper monsters that won't wake up.
But first is an observation and a disappointment. I'm not crazy about this real short line craze. A line should be a breath of expression. Each line must invite the audience to the next line or it fails to carry the weight of the poem. At least a foot is required. But a foot and a half is still pretty fast.
The more spoken, the more obvious the line. The line is treacherous if you ignore it. Each line must lead to the next and the next or the tongue tip trips. The journey stops.
Makes me wonder how the single word line smiths keep their audience past the exhaustion of racing toward the end of every phrase.
I can understand being bored with pentameter, nothing moves so 16th century as pentameter, but even jazz has riffs, poetry as pizzicato chops of stones? Will more messages get through? Only if the channel is set to cummings and only cummings does cummings well.
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