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04/05/2005: "Poetry (or so it's called)"

I must admit that despite being well-read, my exposure to poetry is limited to the more, well, recognizable forms. Which is to say, the stuff that rhymes, or at least keeps a meter. Which is to say, the kind of stuff no one writes anymore.

In fact, when I read contemporary poetry, I find that most often the author does not bother to write within poetic forms, the effect of which is more like a prose paragraph broken up into the three-word lines. I admire poets of any generation who are able to tell a complete story in so small amount of space, but I wonder, Why not call it what it is? It's a very short, short story. (Charles Bukowski, I think, is perhaps poetry's greatest violator of this.)

As it happens, I am not the only person who thinks such things. My desire for literary honesty is a base one, but in this piece from Slate, former national poet laureate Robert Pinsky, expounds on what's good and bad about my rigid thinking.