The bad poetry people write
is either overly grammatical
or overly conscious of the world
of other poems into which
it hopes to speak—to be speaking—
of the “conversation,” that is—
and therefore is craven.
I’d like to build a smaller poetics
that works on its own terms,
several miniature monuments
marking only themselves
and according to themselves—
like children’s gravestones
set in Victorian flowerbeds!
• • •
Leave a Reply