The Rules

The Rules

Every once in a while we see discussions about what makes good or important or great poetry and all of these discussion tend to forget several things:

1. Poetry styles change with time and culture
2. Preference is not a judgement of good and bad
3. Dickens wrote to pay the rent

So here are the rules for writing good, important, and lasting poetry:

1. Good poetry rhymes
2. Good poetry does not rhyme
3. Good poetry is highly structured
4. Good poetry has no structure
5. Good poetry tells a story
6. Good poetry captures a moment in time
7. Good poetry is emotional
8. Good poetry is restrained
9. Good poetry makes you laugh
10. Good poetry makes you cry
11. Good poetry is entertaining
12. Good poetry makes you think
13. Good poetry is easy to read
14. Good poetry is difficult to read

Shall I go on?  I can, after all, I am a wordy old bastard and have proven I can talk for hours on any or no subject.

But it really is pretty simple and summed up in the first three points and that is the key to offering a critique, especially critique of styles in which you may not participate.  Critique the piece, not how the piece stacks up to your pre-conceived notions or preferences.  To do this you have to admit other people may be good writers because until you can admit that, no matter who you are, someone else can write at least as well if not better than you, then you are stuck with trying to make everyone else into you and that is not critique, just arrogance.

Someone will decide I am attacking them with the blog entry.  Whoever does so is an idiot, just so we understand each other right off the bat.