Waiving his red pen
He made his mute point
That spoken word is knot poetry
Like meting
Meter and anti-meter
And the invariable deconstruction of awe
As if
Employing free
Versus
The hire mind
For awe
That its worth
Save in alliteral weigh
Abut
Alas
Bringing too bare
Undisciplined obscenities uddering
As opposed to the ladder
As any won
May eye
Make this suggestive
Perhaps you’s
An unpronounceable cymbal farmerly no’in as prints
Pulling weeds
Of biblical pro portion
Fore whatever
It maybe worth
There is know space
Sandwiched
Between poetry and knot poetry
Between amateurs and prose
Knot that which isn’t
Nor which is
The wurst
I ever metaphor
Whatever
Call me
I am
An outspoken unspoken word artist
Unspellbound in my crappy weighs
And should upon
In the coming daze
Sow called poets anon meet
As shepherds to sheep affix
Due the write thing
Feel free
To shut the flock up
This poem was inspired by a blog article that a friend shared, entitled, “Spoken Word Is Not Poetry.” My immediate response was simple: “I find it helpful to see everything as poetry.” Of course, this is the gloriously useless mode of perception I aspire to use awe the time. However, this poem represents a more detailed critique of the assertion that spoken word is not poetry. The author of this article pined that many readers at open mics are not trained poets and typically use free verse or prose poetry. I must confess: I am an untrained poet, except by my tutelage under various muses. Further, the often quick use of vulgarities offended the author’s parently higher sensibilities. I strongly suspect that the work of any poet or poets is never complete as truth in word, as opposed to doing the deed in life, because life is F’ing ineffable. Claiming that spoken word is performance art, which it is, seemed to be a means to taint spoken word artists as something other than poets. I certainly don’t mind being seen as more than a poet! I wonder if the author would consider a novelist not a novelist if they read their work aloud — that would be a novel idea! I related to the author’s point that an important part of poetry is the relationship of the reader to the written word without being nailed down by a verbal representation (or layering upon it performance art). Most of my poems are best read silently, to allow for the multiple interpretations and meanings to brew within the reader; this process is at the heart of my poetry. I find it difficult to read many of my poems out loud because I must pick one way to read the poem which inevitably shortchanges the beauty of dancing multiple meanings. I must admit that when it comes to my poetry I am conveniently an anarchist, formally rejecting socially constructed boundaries of form. I do not doubt that the many fine forms of poetry developed over centuries are worthy of attention. Nonetheless, I consider deflating pretensions as fodder for my poetic vocations. If this itself seems pretentious, please feel free to take a meta view of my sow-called poems as self-parody. At the end of my daze, I want parity for awe.
