The Rules of Poetry.

Poems are lousy history.
Never quite believe their facts.
Believe their feelings however –
It is true emotion, not true fact
that seperates poetry from prose.

If you think it is about you,
you are both wrong and right.
In the end, the poem is yours.
It ceases being mine the moment another set of eyes see it.

Rreading poetry is harder than it looks because
poetry is never about one thing,
one person or one situation.
It’s a hodgepodge,
a Jackson Pollock,
even when it reads like Dali.

On the other hand, what you feel when you read it
is true, which makes it simpler than scholars would have you believe.

Poetry lies to tell the truth.
And tells the truth so sharply no one quites believes it.
That’s OK.

For me, poetry is often therapy.
But don’t worry, it takes my therapist a lot of work
to get me too. If only poetry was about one thing.

For me, poetry is often play time.
I never got over e. e. cummings and Ogden Nash.
Every time I think I am a grownup,
I write something silly, cleverly disquised.

For me, poetry is work.
I write too many words, and then comes
the cutting away. Damned hard, that.

I have to write every day,
even when I don’t feel it.
Even when it does not appear here
because it is either too bad or too raw.
But I do it. It is easy to rust.

I studied poetry as a young man.
I know all about rythmns and types of poetry.
and rhymn rules.
I’ve never been good at rules.

About this poem

Inspired by a note from a reader asking me about one of my poems. And this was one of the playtime verses.

The picture is not one of mine. It is a piece of legal stock photography.

Tom