Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Weird poems for the sake of...publication?

Sometimes it seems that what journals are looking for is just something strangely formatted, with broken syntax and bizarre tangents. Something edgy. Something "fresh" (and by fresh, I think they mean strange).

I could write poems like that - I'm sure I can, and in fact I have, to a degree. But to write them only for the sake of shock value and to show my strangest side only to be published seems like a strategy that would not take me far. I couldn't sustain it. I wouldn't want to. I know that not everyone can always follow what I'm saying in my poems, but I don't want anyone to have to work all that hard.

It is my opinion that accessible does not preclude surprising, inspired, daring.

Oblique? Okay.
Opaque? Not so much.


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