Poetry Pinhead

As a student of english literature, I’ve always had a hard time with poetry. There are a handful of poets that I like, and who I will read for pleasure, but for the most part the majority of the poetry I’ve read and am knowledgeable about is the product of my education. Poetry, and especially poetry following the Romantics, is too much work for me to enjoy. I’m not one of those cats that can just “feel” a poem, so I have to sit there and read, read, and re-read the damn thing until I’m finally able to decipher it like a Sudoku puzzle. Some people might say I’m just not passionate enough to fully appreciate poetry. To those people I say, “not so.” Why, just yesterday I had myself a good and thorough cry (Stand by Me was on…or was it Armageddon). I’m also intrinsically non-musical, so trying to graph, or even hear, metric patterns aggravates me more than a toothache at an ice cream party.

For my tastes, rap hip-hop is more entertaining than modern poetry. I apologize to all my literature-brethren about this. I obviously have a flawed poetry-palate. My guess is that rap is so simplistic that even my moronic brain can understand it. Case in point: the new track “Flyentology” from El-P’s album I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead. I’m loving it. Here’s the video:

El-P also wrote a poem, “A Draconian Love Song,” that I thought was pretty good (again, take my poetic analysis with a grain of salt.) I’d cut and paste his poem, but since he’s a blogger and he posted on his blog, I’m simply providing him a link. I’d rather him get the traffic than me.

I’d also like to point out that fellow blogger Anniina has been writing and posting poetry to her blog for quite a while. And if you think reading poetry is hard, well, writing it is exponentially harder, and I’m super-envious of her poetic chops. She’s been curiously quiet of late. Maybe some traffic will spur the Muse.