Fark Lyric Poetry

Fuck lyric poetry.

Yes, that's right. For damn near a century and a half now, English verse in general and American verse in specific has been in the stranglehold of lyric verse.

When was the last time you read a narrative poem? Any of you read Omeros? When was the last time? When, in fact, was the last time you read a narrative poem written after Queen Victoria Died? One that wasn't a damn book?

Yeah. That's what I thought. And yet, where do all the great poetry quotes come from? Not from Sappho, that's for sure. From narrative poems (and verse drama -- thanks Nuncle), that's where. Sure, we may love us some T.S. Eliot and some Sylvia Plath, but those are mood setting pieces -- and besides, at least for Sylvia, she sells more when she's a'narratin' (Eliot does too, when his work is bastardized into a story-line).

So you sit reading through and writing terrible lyric poetry and you wonder why no one loves you.

Because lyric poetry is fucking useless.

Unless your entire life is based on being some pathetic emo kid, the lyric won't get you far (and even Keats wrote narratives, y'all). Sappho sucks, the reason we have western culture is named Homer, and we poets better wake up to that fact or we will be about as relevant as Jazz.

That's all.
Just a damn rant.
I'll come back later to rant some more.

Go think about politics and wars and write something that tells a story or get the hell off the pen.

Peas,
GMP