Steven Kent: Hartley's Lament
A little child, a limber elf
Dancing, singing to itself
Was heard to say, "Dad, what the hell?
I hate the end of Christabel!
I suffered all those years in school
With kids who called me ‘dancing fool’
And tried to stick me on a shelf.
‘Oh, look,’ they laughed, ‘a limber elf!’
The Mariner I could have been
(You wonder why I turned to gin?)
Or Kubla Khan, the king himself,
But no, I'm just ‘a limber elf.’”
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Felicia Nimue Ackerman: Can A Poem Be Too Brief?
Can a poem be too brief?
The chance is pretty strong
Of coming to a greater grief
By going on too long.
Poets seldom like to crop.
That's true of me, I fear.
It's hard to force myself to stop –
I'd better end right here.
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Bruce Bennett: Bad Advice For Some
“Load every rift with ore.” That you have done.
The problem is, now each line weighs a ton.
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Paul Van Peenen: Sonnet Cycle
I tried to write one,
Despite my fears,
It wasn’t fun,
I toiled for years.
For years! A word here,
A deletion there. Fourteen
Poems long, dear
Lord, it was obscene
The amount of time
I spent on it.
A kind of crime,
I should have quit.
Yes, I played the sap,
Ended up with a piece of crap.
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J. D. Smith: After a Vanity Search, or Sour Grapes
My name’s not up in lights.
Another’s this month’s flavor.
The world’s not into me,
So I’ll return the favor.
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Peggy Verrall: Villanullity
I’d really like to write a villanelle
But now it seems much harder than I thought
It simply isn’t going very well
Sometimes it makes me want to stamp and yell
Maybe give up? But though I’m feeling fraught
I’d really like to write a villanelle.
On other days my efforts seem to jell
Until I lose the crucial phrase I’d sought.
It simply isn’t going very well.
Occasionally, a poet’s life is hell
When lines are slack that truly should be taut.
I’d really like to write a villanelle.
There are so many things I want to tell
Of butterflies, plants, birds . . . Long story short,
It simply isn’t going very well.
I’d like to catch the beauty in a shell
But words don’t come the way I think they ought.
I’d really like to write a villanelle.
It simply isn’t going very well.
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Michael Swan: My Useless Muse
My Muse
is a whiz
at displacement activities.
Her job for the week
is a sonnet sequence
on the futility of human hopes,
and what have I got so far?
Three clerihews,
a ten-liner on backache,
and a draft villanelle
on train strikes.
I was hoping
for a multimedia contemporary version
of the Battle of Maldon
by the end of the year,
but don't hold your breath.
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Tony Peyser: Poetic Injustice
In the 1950s, the poet Thomas McGrath
In some quarters generated enough wrath
That being blacklisted eventually occurred:
One of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
He was a big commie but even poets like me
Know that that not many people read poetry,
Which means while considering this case
That poetic punishment is already in place.
Blacklisting a poet is an unnecessary crime
Like a judge putting a gag order on a mime.
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Samantha Pious: Unfair
Tell me, where does beauty lie,
in the art or in the eye?
It is engendered on the lips
and realized at the fingertips.
It is wilful, it is rare,
it is unjust. You cannot share
it with the ugly or the vile
or those who choose another style.
And yet we all have books to sell!
And my book has no parallel . . .
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Stephen Gold: Wordsworthless
I fashion stanzas all the day,
And like to think that people say,
“There goes a chap of flair and wit.”
(Well, anyway, a little bit.)
Alas, they failed to please my wife,
Who told me I should get a life,
And wasting time on lines that scan
Was unbecoming of a man.
She spoke her mind: We had no cash.
Instead of work, I scribbled trash,
And it was her emphatic view
That sweeping change was overdue.
I don’t deny her sneering stung,
And placed her on the bottom rung
Of my affection and esteem,
For what is man if he can’t dream?
I told her, “Money’s overrated.”
Quite surprisingly, this grated.
“Thanks to you, we are bereft!”
She cried, “It’s just not right!” then left.
I’m sad, of course, that we’re apart,
But one must suffer for one’s art.
What if I’ve an empty belly?
So did Coleridge, Keats and Shelley.
Is there a better use of time
Than days and nights composing rhyme?
Perhaps, so far, I haven’t shone.
But wait! Another’s coming on . . .
