Water than rocks

Poetry isn’t for everyone. Nowadays, people read novels, non-fiction, short prose and newspapers. Some will prefer to consume information via social media, short videos, and podcasts. It’s true, in the digital era, not a lot of people have time to read poetry. But I never really think much of it. Until I came across a local writer who said “Poetry doesn’t tell me any story”. That sentence kinda echoes in me a lot.

So, does poetry tell stories?

For me, yes. But I might be biased. I admit I was a bit taken back when I first read her comment. I resonated with her previous work a lot, the way she writes was really though-provoking and to some extent, healing. Her structure was really good too, which is something I need (desperately) to work on.

Everyone has their own preferences. But having a preference and saying one generalised assumption about an entirety are two completely different things. I know I am guilty of it sometimes (I’m only human). I would find myself in the past saying things like, oh men are always looking for sex. Or that bosses won’t care about anything but their own profits.

We all have our own agenda but disregard someone else’s belief by making assumptions isn’t the right way to be. So instead of generalising the whole idea, I will say, some self-help books won’t be useful if you don’t apply it to your own experiences. I will say, some poems are just for the sake of writing something out of inspiration. Some won’t tell a specific story. Some won’t even have a beginning and an end. Some poems will be 17 words, but some poems will be 5-pages long.

Who are we to say the 17-words haiku isn’t as meaningful and has enough storytelling than a 400-pages novel? I understand that some genres aren’t for everyone. I haven’t found a horror book that I love, but that doesn’t mean I won’t ever find one. That absolutely doesn’t mean that horror fiction has anything less than other type of writings.

I understand that some of us are even allergic to a certain type of food, or smell, or material. We’re all human. We can be allergic to onions, but please don’t say onions don’t have any flavour. Or all onions are the same.

I think as writers, sometimes it’s good that we have to be strong opinionated. We have to be unique. We have to stand out from the rest. And that belief leads us to write statements that might trigger controversy. But like all things in life, there’s no right or wrong. And as we live in the grey, I hope I can be more like water than rocks. When it comes to accepting others and wanting to be accepted.

I wanted to leave one of my favourite poems of all time. It tells me the story of a man who is torn between two women. One of which is leaving everything to be with him. But he’s struggling between choosing something that is good, and something that he thinks he deserves. If this is not an example of a poem telling a story, I don’t know what is.

she’s young, she said,

but look at me,

I have pretty ankles,

and look at my wrists, I have pretty

wrists

o my god,

I thought it was all working,

and now it’s her again,

every time she phones you go crazy,

you told me it was over

you told me it was finished,

listen, I’ve lived long enough to become a

good woman,

why do you need a bad woman?

you need to be tortured, don’t you?

you think life is rotten if somebody treats you

rotten it all fits,

doesn’t it?

tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a

piece of shit?

and my son, my son was going to meet you.

I told my son

and I dropped all my lovers.

I stood up in a cafe and screamed

I’M IN LOVE,

and now you’ve made a fool of me. . .

I’m sorry, I said, I’m really sorry.

hold me, she said, will you please hold me?

I’ve never been in one of these things before, I said,

these triangles. . .

she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all

over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had

a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when

she screamed and started beating me I held her

wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,

centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and

sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.

there was no creature living as foul as I

and all my poems were

false.

Charles Bukowski – I’m in Love

t.l.

note to self: don’t write when you’re angry.