Friday, March 21, 2008

a sincere question that will nevertheless reveal my stupidity to the Universe


whut is up
with poems--



that look like this


all over the page

why do the lines look all separate-y like that?



what is the purpose of the separate-y lines?




i have a hard time reading
poems that look

like this--

this--(they usually have lots of hyphens)------

or like this first because they look too smart for me

and second because they are just---

fucking hard to read

and third because i distrust them

and i don't understand line breaks anyway

kathy i know you know

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I join you in your stupidity. Kathy, enlighten us.

potato said...

I think it's because poets can't draw. They're trying to draw something, it just looks really sucky. William Carlos Williams was trying to draw a wheelbarrow.

Kathryn said...

i think it has to do with a field and projective verse and charles olson or something. something about a field.

megan,line breaks are for tricking people. you think it means one thing and then it means another thing and sometimes it's for taking a breath and sometimes its for rhythm and sometimes it's for something else. trickery, all of it. that's why poetry is good.

Megan said...

trickery! awesome! what is projective verse? i will look it up.

Megan said...

you really did just explain line breaks to me in the best way ever. i learned about line breaks as an undergrad and then i forgot what i learned, which probably means i never quite got it.

so when you teach a poetry workshop, there should be a week on your syllabus entitled "line breaks as trickery."

Anonymous said...

I never thought about line breaks like that either. It's kind of amazing. You are a born teacher.

TheNeez said...

I used to write poems on overlapping pieces of paper. The cool part of it all was that, by themselves, each piece of paper had it's own poem on it, but when you put them together you got one big poem that was unlike the others.

I was also stood up for prom.

Kathryn said...

also sometimes it's for meaning two things at once which is the ultimate trick. i forgot to say that one.

neez i love you.

megan did you look up projective verse yet? can you explain it to the class? at least explain it to me because i kind of don't get what that dude is talking about...

i tried to read charles olson in grad school and it just made my head hurt.

flabby-abby1973 said...

gibble-gobble

Megan said...

oh yeah, i was supposed to look up projective verse. i will post about it this week, when i finally do.