Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

 

I think I am missing a gene. The gene that is responsible for all things arty and creative. I can’t draw / paint / sew / sculpt / play the piano / sing / cook to save my life*. Not only can I not do it, but it doesn’t really interest me that much. I admire those who are artistic; I think they have fabulous skill. I can see and even understand most of the fruits of their labour. I can kind of recognize a truly superb piece of art / music / food from a mediocre piece. I ‘get’ that stuff. Mostly.

 

The thing I don’t ‘get’, at all, is poetry. I don’t get that shit. I don’t understand it. It seems, in my uninformed, simplistic, uncultured opinion, to be a complete waste of bloody time. Why torture yourself to find words that rhyme; or phrases that hint at some deep and meaningful, yet completely obscure hidden sentiment? Why not just come out and say what you want to say? Just say it for goodness sake.

 

Some past lovers or friends etc have on occasion sent me some of their poetry that they have written. I can see it means a lot to them to share it with me and so I make myself read through it. But bloody hell; poetry exhausts me. It is pure torture to have to wade my way through stanza after stanza of jumbled up words trying to figure out what the fuck the person is trying to say. I usually completely miss the point anyway. 

 

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient sleepless eremite…

Pardon?

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day….

Hot and sweaty with a bit of relative humidity? 

 

No, I don’t ‘get’ poetry at all. I’ve tried to make myself like it, but to no avail. I think that gene is permanently disabled.

 

I mean really, what is so wrong with writing something this:

 

Dear Tertia

 

I quite fancy you.

Wanna shag?

 

Regards

Your Lover / Secret Admirer etc

 

That I ‘get’. Nice and unambiguous. 

 

The rest of the arty farty, flowery shit? I’m sure it is really lovely / good / excellent etc, but quite honestly, I think it is all a bit beyond my simple brain. Give me math or bullet points any day; now THAT is awe inspiringly beautiful in its postmodern simplicity ;-)

 

*For years I wondered what my ‘talent’ was, my special skill. I thought I was totally uncreative. I’ve now realized it is writing. I think writing is my creative skill. So, I am not a total philistine. Well, not a huge big one anyway. 

Comments

[andrea]

Love poetry myself, but maybe that's a hang over from swooning over the boys from Dead Poet's Society when I was 17 :)

[~Lucy~]

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

- Keats.

Ohhh, my favorite poem. It's about eternal love and the newness that each day brings with someone you truly adore. It's about stillness and appriciating all that makes us love a person - lying on their chest, listening to the rise and fall of their breath, hearing the heart beat of the one you love. He wrote it for his fiancee, whilst he was dying of TB, poor bugger.

For more:
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/star.html

[stephu]

Hey, not all poetry is rhymey and highfalutin and confusing!

And not only that, but i think you do write poetry. The pithy last sentences of many of your posts... the images you describe for us of your home and your life - they're definitely poetic!

Here's my fave one line poem. Maybe you'll see poetry in a new light?

"Artichoke

Oh heart weighed down by so many wings..."

- Joseph Hutchinson

I love it cos you can see the artichoke in your mind, yet it has other layers of meaning as well. All in one line.

:)

[Jodie]

Good poetry absolutely makes me swoon. Crap poetry makes me retch.

I did really badly at art in school. There is a disconnect between what I see, and what ends up on the paper. But I have a few musical genes, so I'll go with that.

Love that Keats poem. And Shakespeare, my God, that does it for me bigtime.

[Dani]

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
You don't know jack-shit about poetry,
But dear Asshole, we still love you. ;)

xoxo

[alchemist]

I love poetry. I spent a year in an MFA poetry-writing program until I realized that nobody actually reads the stuff any more...and that grad school sucked ass. I write fiction now in between doing other stuff.

Anyway, I still read a lot of poetry (currently reading Hafez). I also pay close attention to song lyrics. Poetry, like painting and much other art, is about form as well as content. Straightforward prose is more like "documentary" photography, in that content is the main thing. Poetry expresses a love of words FIRST, and other stuff after. Which can be deeply, deeply irritating to those who enjoy clarity. If you enjoy ambiguity, confusion, and those photo puzzles where you have to guess what it's an extreme close-up of, then you're the type for poetry. If you fetishize words, that's also an indicator. (If you just don't know how to punctuate an ordinary sentence, that's a different problem; please do not write poetry)

As for missing a gene - clearly you're creative. It's not the same thing as being artistic. Creative is about making stuff; artistic is about particular forms. You're a terrific writer, and blogging is a valid form. So don't sweat it. Just be happy you can buy a pair of bead earrings without having to go "aw, I could make those myself, should I really buy them?" etc.

[wix]

Alchemist made a great point about poetry concerning a love of words. I love poetry, and I'm a better poet than essayist, which perhaps isn't saying much about my free verse. But I also do a bajillion other 'art' things besides writing poems and stories (drawing, painting, printmaking, bookmaking, ceramic sculpture, mixed media, multimedia, etc etc). I have one art degree and am eyeing another, maybe two. I could have ticked off six boxes in your poll. When friends introduce me, they describe me as 'the creative one' or 'the artist'. It is nice to be good at something that others admire, but it can be frustrating at times, too.

[Lisa]

I'm with you; poetry only makes me think the writer is a complete twat.

However, I have written the following in honour of your column:

If I were to compare thee

To a punch in the coight

I would see your bunch of fives

and raise thee a kick in the cobblers

Says it all really.

[Angie]

I don't get poetry either.

My thing is Scrapbooking. Am quite divine at it, really.

[Laura(southernxyl)]

I shoot the hippopotamus
With bullets made of platinum
Because if I use leaden ones
His hide is sure to flatten 'em.

Now really, what's not to get?

[Carrie]

Thank You! I thought I was the only one who would admit this. I have good friends who have MFAs in poetry, been published, etc. They send me their poems for comment. All I can say is, "that's nice". I can write prose, but am the most un-poetic person on the planet. I learned how to read poems and Shakespeare in college, so I can appreciate the Keats poem, and others that are really classic, but I would never choose to read a book of poetry if I could help it. I'm not really proud of this--it seems to me I'm missing some part of the beauty of the world, from the way others describe it. The only talent I posess other than writing is singing, and I'm not good enough at it for it to mean much. My kid is two and is already making up her own lyrics and music and trying to play the piano, so maybe she'll be different.

[-Blue]

Song lyrics are just (oftimes bad) poetry and they make sense, yes?

She's a craze you'd endorse, she's a powerful force
You're obliged to conform when there's no other course
She used to look good to me, but now I find her [drums!]

Simply irresistible

A little Robert Palmer just for you. ;)

-Blue

[Sarah]

Writing, and being down right hilarious is your special skill. I can't grock most poetry, its to dense for me. I do like some poetry, but it is much more straightforward. At one point I had dreams of being an actress and a singer, but my teacher insisted upon Oprah. I just don't get opera. Also, Shakepere--ok, maybe I understand a sonnet or two, but otherwise I don't understand, and I don't get what everyone is all excited about. I do cook, and I do it well, but the thought of a sew project or something requiring a glue gun, and I just want to take a nap.

[amy]

Another thing we have in common. I was looking for the ABSOLUTELY NONE option on your poll. I am a mediocre writer and cook; everything else is completely abstract to me--I'm WAY too literal.

[Peach]

I have to say I am a poet, have a degree in creative writing and even *I* don't get *published* poets. To me, poetry is a personal expression. It's a way to express thoughts, feelings, or ideas and get them out of my freaking head in a way that make much more sense of them than I could have ever imagined without the words on paper.

But to make other people read them? That seems wholly unfair, because all people think of things in different ways and forcing someone to spend so much time trying to interpret and think, ugh. It's too much work! If people choose to read them, sure fine, let them, but then it's on them, not the poet. I could NEVER send my poetry to anyone to read and comment upon. If they ask, fine, if not, let them be.

[Andrea]

Bwaahaahaa! Yet another reason to like you. I agree 100% on the poetry issue. Don't get it. I try, but I don't get it. Doesn't move me, affect me, make me wistful, it just bores and annoys me.

I was going to chastize you before I read the end of your post that of course you have a creative talent, which is writing. Your writing is so easy to read and understand what your mood was when you wrote it. I *try* to do this to no avail. I've been told I'm a funny writer at times, but anytime I try to convey anything but humor, especially when I am trying to write about something that has profoundly affected me, when I go back and read it, it appears to me like this:

"I am like so bummed!!!! I have never been so depressed in my life!!!! I can't believe such a bad thing happened. Sux big time. Bummer dude. :-P Onward I suppose. Oh well!!!!"

Sounds totally corny doesn't it. But it seems to be all I can crank out.

I really fancy my own cooking creativity. I can look at a menu, and suggest exactly what needs to be added or changed based on the proper combination of textures, flavors, food groups, and colors. It's like looking at a painting and knowing just what touch of color or shadow is needed here or there. I pretty much can't do that with ANYTHING else, but I can with food. We all have something.

[Jodie Buckland]

Tertia is a gorgeous babe
Her teeth are nearly straight
We love to read about her Cooter,
Marko, Adam and Kate.
She likes to drink,
She gave up the fags,
She SO doesn't look like a guy.
We can forgive you T for not liking poetry
We know where your tastebuds lie.

;)

Love you, T.

[wix, who could talk about poetry all day]

It occurred to me that poetry might be easier to 'get' if you hear it, rather than read it. Sometimes the intended cadence of the words is clear, sometimes it's not, and if you're inexperienced with poetry I can see how trying to suss out the way it's meant to sound would be a challenge.

This is a good resource to give some poems a listen, if you like: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/

Recently, I liked a poem archived at http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2006/04/10/index.html, "Grandpa Putting Salt on His Ice Cream" It's a short one, so if you can't stand it, you don't have to suffer very long.

[MsShad]

Oh great. My poems about my son tell a story. Does a story redeem them at all?

[kathleen999]

Oh come now, T!!!

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely, and more temperate"

What's not to get? She is more beautiful than a summer's day, and more even-tempered.

Shakespeare is hard to get through but so so beautiful. But then again, I am an opera singer, and I like all that complex stuff. Except for the poetry where they write lots of allusions to things that absolutely no one would ever understand, just to be obscure. But that's not poetry, that's pretentious hackwork to me.

I write poetry too, or at least, I used to before college roommates started snooping around in my papers. That cured me.

[Elize]

I dont get poetry either. waste of time.

my "thing" is photography. love love love it

[Jennie]

I don't mind poetry if it features a man from nantucket otherwise it's all just words. I love crafty stuff be it quilting/sewing/embroidery etc etc but my real skill I must say is POAS now that's an artform.

[Flicka]

I have a whole degree in English that is supposed to render me an expert at poetry. And truthfully, while I like some of it, I don't like an equal amount. Poetry is so subjective; very rarely do tastes in poetry agree absolutely...unless you're talking about that hippopotamus poem a few comments up. That made me laugh so hard my ribs hurt!

I'm an arty-farty type of girl. I own a glue gun, which I regulary use, and I'm an avid sewer/quilter/cross-stitcher. I love it. But that doesn't mean everyone else has to. Because frankly, Tertia, without people like you who love math, the world would look very beautiful and everyone would be very dead because we just cannot run things without help. We'd glue gun ourselves to death. So I see your lack of an arty-farty gene as one half of a symbiotic relationship...we'll make pretty things for you and you help us with the more practical matters of life. I think it's a great system.

[Jessica]

*grin*

I love poetry, but hey, not everyone has to. I admire those who can see beauty in a perfectly executed math problem.

Just for the heck of it, a simple little poem by a woman, Sappho, from around 600 B.C. about children and growing up and coming home ..

Evening Star,
brings home everyone that shiny daybreak scattered:
You bring the sheep home.
You bring the goat home.
You bring the child
home to the mother.

[Janine]

Ooh, ooh, then you HAVE to read Finuala Dowling. Her poetry is the most accessible I've read in a long time. Brilliant stuff. Check out http://southafrica.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/22758
One of my faves of hers is "I flying".

[Egg Donor]

I love limericks. My favorite nantucket one is this (the only non dirty version I know)

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket
His daughter, named Nan
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

HAHAHAHAHAHHA. It makes me every time I say that one to myself. SO clever.

[Oxy Moron]

Dear Tertia

I quite fancy you.

Wanna shag?

Regards

Your Lover / Secret Admirer etc

[Kel]

Since most of the poetry I have the time to read now where scribbed by that famous writer extraordinare, Dr. Suess, I'm not sure how to comment.

I do so want to get grown-up poetry, have also a degree in English, sometime find I like and think, "Yes, that's just fine!" then (once again) put poetry on list of things to DO and find I can't find anything else that strikes me. Feel impressively dumb, give up on finding anything further.

I like things that are clever or turns of phrases that show me a new way of looking at something -often song lyrics do that for me. Most of the writing of Toni Morrison is poetry for me; whatever physical form of structure she uses.

Kel

[Judy]

Egg Donor and I are on the same wavelength today - what, no Nantucket poetry for you?

[Heather]

Yeah, I hear you on the artsy stuff. I like poetry, but only poems that are easy to understand. I don't want to have to do deductive reasoning to read them.

As for me, I am somewhat musically inclined but I couldn't draw a proper stick figure if my life depended on it!! Tracing... now there's something I can do...

[Suzie-Q.]

I thought all the poets lived in Nantucket.

[scott]

Poetry comes from within, o Tertia.
*Psssst: Not to undermine a sophisticated Japanese art form, but almost anyone can write a Haiku*
Tertia: You with twins,
Snot and suspicious nappies,
Love that motherhood!

[cmvnapa]

I call it the Martha Stewart gene and I don't have it. My older sister got it all. She used to make teddy bears, smocked dresses, all of that fancy schmancy stuff. Me? I can cook, unimaginatively, but it gets the job done. I can massacre the piano. I like to eat. Does that count? When she would make her own clothing, I would borrow items and then hem them to fit me. I was so mean.

[susan (formerly of post-coital babble)]

Here's a poem for ya - appropriate to your last posts too:

Never kiss your honey
When your nose is runny
You may think it's funny
But it's snot

heh

[Orange]

Hey, you're my twin. I majored in English, but I've never been into poetry. I like to write, but have no interest in writing fiction or poetry. (And no other artsy skills...)

I do enjoy writing haiku in blog comments, but generally to be funny and not to convey the contents of my heart and mind.

(And, hi, Susan of post-coital babble! Hope all's well.)

Here's a sample of the sort of poetry I can do:

Gorgeous and divine
That describes me to a T
(T's not for "Tertia")

See? That ain't poetry! But technically, it fits the haiku format.

Feeling bitchy now?
Yes, I often am a bitch
Don't like it? Too bad

Wow, I'm in a mood
The morning's rainy and cold
Motherfucking wind

[Leslie]

It's the Dream by Olar H. Hange

It's the dream we carry
that something wondrous will happen,
that it must happen -
time will open
hearts will open
doors will open
mountains will open
spring will gush forth from the ground -
that the dream itself will open
that one morning we'll quietly drift
into a harbor we didn't know was there

It's the perfect poem for the infertile girl.

[Jenn]

I love poetry. It's magic for me - especially the Romantics like Tennyson and Keats.

But there is a lot of awful stuff written as well.

[projgen]

Yay, Egg Donor! I can't believe it took so long for someone to mention the ly(me)ric form of poetry I love so well.

And while I must say, I quite enjoyed the Nantucket (made me snort) offering, the origins of most of my favourites seem to stem from Cancun.

Now THEM's is poems!

Okay, seriously, I will admit to an undying love for Emily Dickinson, Keats, Browning... but it has to move me. I don't like just *any* poetry. And if you're trying to woo me, don't send me poetry. Unless it's Dickinson, Keats, Browning...