I’m reading an article on former Poet Laureate Billy Collins, from a newspaper in Norman OK:
“One of the reasons people don’t read as much poetry anymore is the fault of the poets,” he said. “It’s not the public’s fault. There’s an awful lot of bad poetry out there. I’d say about 87 percent of the poetry in America isn’t worth reading.”
It’s the other 13 percent, Collins said, that he lives for. “Poetry should be transparent. Transparent poems tend to teach themselves.”
“Or those poems should say something about the state of the poet and his environment.”
Mr. Collins is probably right, but just a little off the point. The problem is that poetry is being written at all, not just that it’s bad. The problem is that our society is superficial, shallow, impatient, and selfish. Before one can write a poem, it’s necessary to have the artistic impulse that can be expressed in no other way. Is anyone capable of thinking that deeply in the days of Twitter? It’s not fun or easy, gentle reader. Writing is hard work, and poetry takes serious stillness.
Poetry is an art form, the function of which is to reach for the ineffable, that which can’t be reached in any other way. There’s so much bad poetry only because there’s too much poetry. People are try to use art to describe thought which is simply not worthy of art. Transparent or not, speaking to the poet’s state or not, it’s garbage in garbage out.
People want to write poetry because they think they ought to want to write poetry, but they haven’t had the collision with consciousness, or the long dark night of grief, which demands to become a poem. They’ve only had the thought that wants to be a journal entry or a letter to a friend, or a blog entry. That ain’t art.
A poet is first an explorer of his own pain and joy, and an artist with language second. And poetry should be the last resort of the writer. Then if the right words are in the right order, it might be worth reading.
Metaphor 
Hey, amigo, not a bad idea. Sometimes these things tumble out in a pent-up rush and one loses wordcount as one hacks away through the underlush, machetes blazing.
Tweaking might well be in order. Maybe a two-fer in there after all. Thanks for the suggestion.
I am deeply grateful for the mini essay, Joseph. I'm only sorry that it's stuck here, buried under such stata that it will be seen by too few. Seriously, I think you should tweak it a little and ask Billie to post it on Mystic-Lit. It's far more than a comment on a blog, and it says important things about poetry and the creative impulse. Thank you!
Sorry about the mini-essay, Kyle . . .
The trouble with poetry is not, as my good friend says here, that it encourages the writing of more poetry, but that it encourages the writing of more bad poetry.
As a poet of some experience, I am not of the Collins school of poetry that would state all poems come pre-installed with handrails, arm and head rests, and shatter-proof safety glass.
Do that an you end up with poets like Collins and all the homogeneous, over-MFA-ed programmed poetry that comes out lacking bite or blood, devoid of discovery and mutual exploration.
It's like engaging in miniature golf at Disneyland with everything appropriately mapped and marked for your safety and convenience.
No thank you.
Kyle, you've hit the Twitterhead on the nail—far too many readers are just as lazy as the far too many "poets" who have no business writing or calling it poetry.
One has to have something to say, first and foremost. While the mindful poet may not know what he or she is going to say, any seasoned or seasonable poet should know by the conclusion if the piece says anything.
Anything of merit.
Therein lies the trick.
Ball-peening words into shapely lines and stanzas hardly accounts for essence anymore than placing plastic flowers on your sill with the expectation they will bear new blossoms. It just won't happen.
I have seen the work of far too many poets who have become darlings of the literary world with nothing more to say than can be found in a recipe on the back of a box of Bisquick.
Collins is one of those. Sure, he's clever (or tries to be as this quote about poetry illustrates) and has written some very good poems, here and there, but his overall work hardly measures up to the popularity he enjoys.
I do not begrudge him this, his success, but, as a poet, I also am not going to let him get away unscathed with it either. Much of his success stems from the fact he teaches at a college, has access to publishing through university presses, can assign his books as reading fodder for writing classes, and is the very invitable-to-any-event antithesis of another overrated poet in Charles Bukowski.
Book a reading by Collins and he can be counted on to leave the vanilla smear of smug satisfaction on his readers and listeners because they are, like him, just clever enough to "get it."
But does one have to dumb down one's work so that people get it? In a word, no.
It's really quite simple, this business of poetry: If the journey in the poem did not take the writer anywhere, anywhere of interest, it will not take the reader.
The poet should know if this is true once he or she places their name at the bottom. If it does not, set it away somewhere and count it among your necessary exercises in futility.
If it does, then read it, post it, share it, reader's be damned. If one person "get it" then it may well have been worth it. After all, the poet who is a poet knows he or she is charged with this work to speak for others, to attain what is universal even if it is uncomfortable or unrecognizable.
Sometimes, the greatest gift a poet can share is a kindred sense of being utterly lost. Take me somewhere I've never been, never considered, never imagined as ever having existed, and I am booking a coach class ticket on the leading edge of the wing, if need be.
There is more poetry being written today than at any other time in history. Just as there are more pizzas being served, more gold balls being slammed into trees, and more animals being adopted from shelters.
It's a numbers game. But that does not inherently infer that quality will maintain assurance with those numbers. Not at all.
I'm going to go write another poem and see what happens. A hawk just overblew its reeded flute from one of my oaks. Maybe there's something more in that than first heard. We'll see.
If not, break two eggs into a small bowl; add two tablespoons of butter; mix in lemon pepper and 4-oz of crumbled Feta and stir well; place small bowl on top of head and overturn . . . enjoy.
Yes, he wrote that in the poem "The Trouble With Poetry." There is no foreword to the book, THE TROUBLE WITH POETRY. He has also said it in numerous radio and online interviews.
He wrote that in a poem, not in the forward to the book? Cool. That's what I call fighting fire with fire.
I don't think Billy Collins is off point at all. In his 2005 book, THE TROUBLE WITH POETRY, he writes in his title poem, "The trouble with poetry is that it encourages the writing of more poetry." I think he pretty much nailed it.