Chunks Of Prose: Muddy Waters

Leaves, By Me

You can tell people all kinds of truths, except the truth about themselves or their offspring, or their works. The truth about my oeuvre is that it's all poor imitation, except for this colored drawing,

this sketch,

this sky painting:

and a few of what I stubbornly call poems.

Until 1994 when the Alabama State Poetry Society was revealed to me, I didn't presume to call my verse "poetry." The "poet," Mr. Ralph H., chided me for saying that I wrote verse instead of poetry. Upon acquaintance with the output of the ASPS membership (and their contemporaries around the country), I understood why he said that. What most of them wrote might at a long stretch of the definition have been poetry, but it sure as H. wasn't verse. We all long to belong, so I settled in, consenting to be called a poet.

What happened was that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some famous poets started occasionally dispensing with obvious forms, end rhyme, and a few other traditional elements of poetry. The world at large took this to mean that all the bonds were loosened and anything one chooses to write down and call a poem is one. Maybe they're right. I don't know. I DO know, but who am I to judge? The waters are muddied.