What makes Good Poetry ? ~ John.R.Haws

What Makes Good Poetry ?by John R. Haws


Poetry of the present age is appalling. For the most part, I don’t like it. It stinks much like the garbage that’s in it. I rarely ever find anything that I consider good. It’s like everything else in modern life - watered down and bland to meet the standards of the mediocre.




So I’ve asked myself, "Self, what makes good poetry? What distinguishes the very best from all the rest?" Is it the subject matter? No. Poetry can talk about almost anything. Is it the rhyming of lines? No. That’s out of fashion in today’s world. Is it the meter? Not really. Good poetry doesn’t have to meet a beater or beat a meter – although it’s nice when it does. Well, what is it then? It’s, it’s …oh, how can I it put? It’s hard work. It’s the struggle between two words. One is OK, but the other is better. So much better, you wonder why you didn’t think of it before.



Poetry, good poetry that is, bites and stings. It arouses your senses. It burns a hole in your brain. It stimulates your imagination. You think, "I never thought it like that before." Yet, It (whatever it is) was always there for everyone to see. A fork in the road1 - some snow in the woods at night2 - some gold rushers slugging it out in a Yukon saloon3… the difference is the view that the writer brings to the reader. And that has made all the difference ages and ages hence4.




So, is good poetry written by a profound writer? Nnnn... sometimes, but not always. Well, then, how do you decide whether a writer (any writer) writes good poetry? Well, you can look for little nuances; visual slight’s of hand on paper. You can look for hidden meanings, alternative meanings, or broader meanings to the words. A great, but little-known poet, once said, "I’m just an ordinary, ordinary, ordinary man."5 How ordinary is he if he has to say it three times? I’m not talking about scattering a bunch of words on a page and calling it a poem. Although, I have done exactly that. I don’t consider it poetry. It was an experiment that failed. No matter how hard I try, I cannot make indented, peculiarly placed words on a page poetry. I have written tons of stuff that has failed to make it as poetry by my own standards. I don’t know how it would fare in the real world. My guess is, someone would greatly admire "... the Emperor’s new clothes"6. No so me.




First, good poetry has to say something. It gives meaning, value, or worth to a person, place, or thing. It speaks-about or focuses-on something that everyone can relate to. If it does this, it’s got a good start. But it can’t just be wishy-washy, pie in the sky, by and by, dribble. It’s got to hit home. It’s got to get you where you live. You’ve got to feel it in your heart, experience it in your mind, reflect on it in your thoughts. Humm… Yeah, I can relate to something like that.




Second, good poetry has great word choices - the very best. This I struggle with everything time I sit down to write. It just can’t be "Jack and Jill went up the hill". Why not "Jack and Jackie went down to Dallas"? The words should impart sensory impressions that take your breath away – like when you step outside on a winter day and the wind sucks away your breath while it pelts your face with snowflakes and you feel the wind-chill factor of –20oF down into your bones. Like that.





Third, a good poem should visually arouse the reader. "What do you mean by that?" For me, it's not enough to simple write black words on white paper. I want more communication than just that. So I search for ways to visually confirm what the words are saying. I use the tools at my disposal, like different style fonts , fonts with different colors, bold print for emphasis, and small fonts for diminished restraint and quietness. I search for words within words, like cLOUDs for the thunder and lightening in clouds. None of this is necessary for the ordinary, run-of-the-mill poet. It most assuredly is essential for the poet that is not content to be just ordinary. One word of caution though. Don't overdo this! It's easy to get carried away by all of these choices and do too much - like too much salt in a chicken soup or too much garlic in the spaghetti sauce. When this happens, the visually superfluous can rob the reader of the true taste and flavor of the words.





Fourth, a poem can be fun. Even a short limerick7 or nursery rhyme8 can make you laugh. Occasionally, it should be fun to write poetry. It should leave you with a feeling of, "Ah… that felt good – like a nice warm bath." Yes, it can be psychotherapy. No, it is not an infectious disease, despise what Cervantes says9. Yes, it can be a mental relief. But it doesn’t have to be. Now and then it can just be fun.





Finally, a poem must be honest. It must be true to itself and its maker. So much of the stuff that passes for poetry today is just the airy, aimless, meandering thoughts of a young mind uncertain of everything. Even in uncertainty there is a certain amount of certainty. Isn’t there? I think so. Sometimes honesty hurts. Sometimes honesty laughs at itself. But as John’s Little Known Proverb # 1 says, "Life is too serious to be taken seriously." Lighten up. Give the reader something to think about, but don't cause them to contemplate suicide just because you’re having a bad hair day.





Furthermore, you cannot expect everyone who reads good poetry to get it, to really understand what you're working so hard to say. The best you can hope for is that most people do. There is too much depth in some poems, not enough in others. One bite of food does not tell you much about the cook. If it’s oatmeal, he or she may be fixing breakfast. If it’s meat, she or he might be cooking dinner. But you really cannot tell much from just one bite. The same is true of a poet. One poem does not tell you much about a poet, but a dozen will give you the essential essence of that poet's perspective.




There are two more personal "don’ts" that I have to include here. I don’t particularly like poetry that preaches at me or asks me to accept some Universal, Cosmic Ideal. Such writings do not impress me. Neither do they move me. I also despise the use of poetic language as a means to push a political view, foreign or domestic. My stomach turns sour whenever I hear such stuff. It may be poetic but it ain't poetry. Everything else though, is fair game. And believe me, that game (like the greased pig at the county fair) can be very slippery.




Now let me see if I can summarize all this verbiage. Write about something people can relate to. Grab hold of and hang on to their attention. Use the very best word choices. Make the verses concrete, down to earth. Spice the print with the tools at your disposal. Throw in some fun now and then. And don't get your hopes or expectations up to high with regards to your readers. Many of them won't get the point. To paraphrase Abe Lincoln, "You can convince some the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot convince all of the people all of the time."




Footnotes
1 The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost 2 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost 3 How McPherson Held the Floor by Robert W. Service 4 A paraphrase of the last stanza in The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost 5 Poem No. 12, JUST AN ORDINARY MAN in POETRY - Book 1 by John R. Haws6 The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen7 A LIMERICK by John R. Haws8 FATHER GOOSE by John R. Haws9 Don Quixote's niece in Chapter 6 says, "... and, even worse, writing poetry, which everyone knows is an infectious disease for which there is absolutely no cure." Translation by Burton Raffel


January 2002
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