There Once Was a Man From Nantucket . . .

Settling into our every-other-week posting schedule!

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl           

Moma Rock

            This week, Moma Rock chose the topic, and she asked us to write a poem.

           

            Ugh.  I don’t like poetry.  I won’t go so far as to say I hate it, but it is my least favorite form of creative writing.  There are a few poets whose work I enjoy –  to a point:  Edgar Allen Poe.  Dorothy Parker.  Ogden Nash.  I’ve always considered Dr. Seuss more of a poet than an author, and I like his books (in small doses).  Of course, there are songwriters whose lyrics feel like poetry; the first to come to mind is Neil Peart of the band Rush.  Indeed, in Eighth Grade, our English teacher forced us to read a poem to the class, and I chose the lyrics to The Trees, penned by Peart.  But I’ve never embraced poetry the way others have, and I don’t see it ever happening.

            I’ve tried to figure out why, exactly, poetry makes me cringe.  I was mulling this very thought earlier this week while listening to the podcast of a Chicago radio show that I love.  As fate would have it, that day, the hosts welcomed a local guy who had penned some poems about the Chicago Cubs (whom I do love).  They invited the guy to read his poetry and oh-my-god-please-make-it-stop!  I couldn’t stand it.  Imagine every horrible poem you wrote in a notebook in junior high school stuck together in one loooooong loooong verse.  I’m talking epic here.  Like Beowulf, but about baseball.  And in rhyme.  Rhyme!!  As a bonus, it was read in a severe Chicago accent.  I hate to be judgy, but the whole thing was patently awful (in my opinion, anyway).

            And in that moment I realized my issue with poetry:  the vast majority of the poems to which I’ve been exposed have been really, really bad.  What is usually meant to be a tribute or expression of some deep feeling usually turns out to be forced, trite drivel (in my opinion, anyway).  I’m sure there’s good poetry out there, but I won’t be searching for it, as I cannot handle combing though the chaff in search of the wheat.

            Another sticking point is all the rhyming.  I mean, I know poems don’t have to rhyme, but I also feel like most fledgling poets don’t know that.  So, when they craft a poem, they feel the need to rhyme words like “love” and “above,” or “dream” and “seem.”  And I am left to bang my head against the nearest hard surface.

            Having said all that, a few years ago, when I started this blog but before I blogged with the others, I wrote a poem.  Specifically, it was an ode – less rhyming!  In the spirit of this week’s topic, I’m including it here.  I call it, An Ode to Dr. Drew:

O, Dr. Drew Pinsky, with your white hair

And cool dark-rimmed rectangular glasses

Always toiling to save C-list celebs

From drugs that make them act like big asses

Your smooth affect and crisp ties calm my soul

As you cure Tom Sizemore and Heidi Fleiss

Your endless patience wavers not when forced

To treat Shifty and Jeff Conaway twice

Shall Pasadena ever again know

Such saintly works by a star therapist

Who was on “Loveline” and fathered triplets

And who is a self-proclaimed narcissist?

O how I heart you, dear Dr. Pinsky

Who else on earth could save Rod Stewart’s son?

You’re the reason I pay more for cable

For a line-up that includes VH1

            Yeah, move over Walt Whitman!