What even is poetry ? Is it a dead genre from over a century ago ? Or is it whatever comes out when we're given the permission to speak ? Is poetry the place where you're expected to propagandize about your marxist cause ? Does poetry have to have a point ? What's the difference between poetry and a shitpost ? Is it the jagged edges ? Poetry is a shitpost with the sharp edges rounded off ? Is that what poetry is or is it what it has become ? Is poetry about not stirring anything in the reader ? I'm really asking, when I imagine a poet, I have the standard default culturally transmitted view

Which is this

Some sad and/or depressed person making remarks that otherwise wouldn't be remarkable, like a banana taped to the wall of a museum, is that what poetry is ? Is poetry a social construct ? I don't know, all I know was that I should take it seriously, so I'm trying that, see if that poetry's stuff is any fun.

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[–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

I'm clearly in the minority, I didn't get it at first but now I do and I don't even think this is that bad. Read Bukowski.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago

    Hello,
    Thank you for the vote of confidence
    I'm still not sure if I like poetry
    so I asked a machine to bukowskify my text
    but I didn't like it so I asked it to degipitify it
    and to "Go Full Bukowski", whatever that means

    And this is what came out of that machine
    Now I"m certain it is quite gauche
    to use a machine to do this

    kind of like jacking off a dog in public
    which is not something I've done,
    except that one time

    so without further adious

    [OC] this ain't poetry. it's a hangover with punctuation.
    
    are you really a poet
    if your words wouldn’t make poe
    drop his whiskey and say
    “goddamn”?
    
    what is poetry now, anyway?
    some MFA brat
    posting line breaks on instagram
    in between latte selfies?
    
    dead genre?
    sure.
    but the corpse still twitches
    when the rent’s due
    and no one's buying
    your dumb zine about
    "emotional topography."
    
    maybe it’s just
    whatever bullshit you spill
    when somebody finally
    lets you talk
    and you don’t know when to shut up.
    
    maybe it’s a flyer
    for your marxist book club
    written in lowercase
    because you’re “disrupting form.”
    
    does poetry need a point?
    hell no.
    but it needs teeth.
    and most of it these days
    is gumming the reader to death.
    
    is there a line
    between poetry
    and a shitpost?
    or just
    the smugness
    of the person who wrote it?
    
    maybe poetry
    used to stab you in the chest.
    now it just
    offers you tea
    and asks how your inner child is doing.
    
    i don’t know.
    i don’t want my inner child.
    he sucked.
    
    when i picture a poet,
    i see some
    sad sack
    in a scarf
    talking to a cat
    about how
    love is like
    a cigarette
    but with more commitment issues.
    
    banana
    taped to the wall.
    $120,000 price tag.
    gallery full of rich people
    nodding like they get it.
    you don’t get it.
    it’s not meant to be got.
    it’s a scam
    and poetry’s part of it.
    
    is poetry a social construct?
    sure.
    so is traffic.
    and i still get run over by both.
    
    me?
    i was told to take this seriously.
    so i did.
    
    i sat down,
    put on the hat,
    lit the cigarette,
    and stared at the page
    like it owed me money.
    
    this is me
    trying.
    
    poetry in one hand.
    beer in the other.
    no answers.
    just hoping
    one of 'em
    does something
    before the bartender
    cuts me off.
    

    And of this entire thing,
    this is the part that made me want to post it
    I think even my detractors will admit it
    it contains a lot of truth

    when somebody finally
    lets you talk  
    and you don’t know when to shut up.
    
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