WEIRDNESS EXPOSURE AND SELF-PROMOTION

This cynical age is sending poets to the same scrap heap as full service gas stations and penny candy. I have become nostalgic for the days when you needed exact change to buy something from a vending machine, make a telephone call or ride a bus, the days when pockets were for more than cell phones and credit cards. We the upholders of an ancient tradition have become living anachronisms, bards, and matchstick men. A collection of misfit kids standing on the corner, waiting for the bus with exact change in our pockets.
--David (Buddha 309) Hargarten, April 9, 2009.

As a general rule, poets are fringe dwellers.  Poets have opinions, Poets have a skewed view of the universe.  Non-poets (also generally) see poets as shiftless lazy daydreamers who accomplish nothing but navel gazing or they hold poets in awe for being able to explain life, love, truth, or other Platonic Forms.  Neither of those perceptions are true.

Poets are cynical, jaded, acerbic, opinionated, annoying, less than punctual, or more than punctual.  We don't understand, Life, Love, Truth, Beauty, or any of the other Platonic Forms.  That's why we keep writing about them.
The one thing that connects every poet in the universe is that they are WEIRD.

WEIRD in the same way that snowflakes are different, Weird in the way that individual cats have separate idiosyncrasies.  WEIRD in the way dogs attack invisible things and couches.

Poets come in varieties
there are
stage poets
page poets
academic poets
street poets
beat poets
form poets
function poets
free verse poets
pedants
hacks
purebreds
mutts
rhymers
anti-rhymers
context poets
subtext poets
and poets that want to burn grammar

BUT THEY ARE ALL FUCKIN' WEIRD
Are you a poet?
Are you haunted by words?
have you ever caught yourself free forming on public transportation
When I talk about the Weirdo Nation, I could be talking about you.

I would like to say a million more things about poetic misconceptions, but I will limit my comments to the basics.

 centering the text

does not make things

more

poetic

rhyming is not always a good thing

"finding your voice" sounds lame, but is absolutely necessary

listen to all feedback, even if it is negative.

experience and practice is the only way to write better poetry

There are some people who will never "GET" what you write

and finally

WEIRD IS SEXY

YOU SHOULD CHECK US OUT