The Gift of Poetic Thought: How to Become a Poet
BY ISABELLA ANGELES
This semester, I’ve decided to become a poet. Not because I’m any good at it. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I think the last poem I wrote was inspired by Romeo and Juliet in high school. Despite this, I have decided to become a poet this semester. Like most poets, I don’t consider myself poetic at all.
Google defines a poet as someone with the ‘gift of poetic thought.’ I would like to believe this is true, and I would like to believe that the ‘gift of poetic thought’ is enough to make one a poet. But I know that it’s not. I would also like to believe that I possess the gift of poetic thought, - sometimes in the shower, on a long walk by the beach, or when I lay awake at night. But my issue with the ‘gift of poetic thought’ is that it is just that– poetic thought. Once I take pen to paper, or, more often, finger to keyboard, the poetic thought disappears, and I’m left with a jumble of thoughts that make no sense to me when re-read after a full night of sleep.
A recent poem I wrote was a sonnet. In typical sonnet fashion, it contained fourteen lines written in iambic pentameter with a coherent rhyme scheme that told the story of two star-crossed lovers (some things never change). After many positive reviews and kind words about the content of the poem and its composition, I received one piece of criticism that trumped all the compliments. “It needs an iPhone or something.” This is not slander, nor is it defamation, but this comment resonated with me more than any of the compliments. I was sent through the five stages of grief:
Denial: They don’t understand the timelessness of my work.
Anger: That’s not even a fair judgment! It’s a beautiful sonnet about unrequited love.
Bargaining: It’s not meant to be contemporary! Even if it was, what more could I add to it? There’s no room for iPhones!
Depression: Maybe my poetry isn’t good or relatable at all; that’s why I’m a bad poet– people want something to relate to.
Acceptance: There is truth to all of these feelings. Maybe in this particular piece, there is no room for the contemporary, but people want to read something they can relate to. And if I’m feeling particularly defensive about this, then somehow I know that it’s true– maybe it does need an iPhone.
Herein lies the issue with being a poet. It is hard to please all audiences. This is not to say that any particular poem can be good or bad. Some people hate Shakespeare, but that doesn’t make him any less a poet.
The perfect poem must transcend the regular world and put the reader in touch with the divine. The perfect poem must inspire the reader to take real-world action. The perfect poem must do what poetry once did and adhere to the tradition of timeless poetry. The perfect poem must do what no poem has ever done before: address the ever-changing times while rejecting tradition and conforming to modernity. The perfect poem must be original and speak to only the poet. The perfect poem must speak to and for every reader. The perfect poem must do all of these things and adhere to a certain rhyme scheme, meter, and rhythm while wrapping itself up in perfect, even-numbered lines in distinct stanzas while also telling a story, capturing an essence, and using rhetorical devices. The perfect poem should also adhere to no rhyme scheme, meter, or rhythm: it must also not be divided into perfect lines and distinct stanzas, and it should not tell a story, capture an essence, or use any set rhetorical devices.
Easy enough.
In many ways, being a poet is hard work. I’m starting to believe that the perfect poem is impossible. Maybe no poem can be perfect, but it doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. I surmise this is why many poets turn away from poetry. I say ‘poets’ because, according to Google, we are all poets in our innately human ability to produce ‘poetic thought’. But maybe now that the idea of a ‘perfect’ poem has died, we can begin to write good poems.
There has never been, and will never be a ‘perfect’ poem, but the moment you decide that you are a poet, you are.
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