Poetry / Lies My High School Poetry Teacher Told Me
1.
williams
poetry no
pronouns
2.
That stabbing means rape
and the knife symbolizes a thingy whatchamacallit.
The other sex abhors the knife as much as circumcision.
Cut the poem vaguely like a shoplifting trip
to 7-Eleven. Take whatever you want,
but buy the doughnuts because
if it’s not a torus, it’s a phallic symbol.
3.
Mugging Kills Parent
Single Mom’s Son Left Behind
Knife Found Near Victim
pasted headlines have
no high queue of words strung with
intent to harm you.
4.
(Note: two stanzas, iambic quadrameter, ABAB.
About pretty words for pretty subjects. Use repetition.
Last line breaks:
Because nothing rhymes with ugly.)
5.
Teacher said don’t write
about life, love or death at 14.
What do you know?
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S1 makes little sense, who is Williams? Why break the lines ‘poetry no/pronouns?’ This stanza needs to be expanded upon as it leaves the reader confused. It’s an interesting concept throughout, I see what you are trying to get at but the form and content is too cryptic and blunt. When you say ‘Knife means/you know’ know I don’t know what you mean by that. Since you have not established a personal narrative pronoun in the poem, when you say the ‘other sex’ it could be either sex. Who is the narrator of the poem? It is not established who is speaking and in what voice, 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Doughnuts is spelled wrong. The teacher may have been wrong as you say, but it doesn’t come off too clearly what she said that was wrong.
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A very unusual style; cleverly reflecting the school-style notes contained within. I like the language and cynical humour that you’ve used here, e.g. the comparison between ripping apart a poem to ripping off a supermarket. I don’t know enough terminology to relate completely, but i can emphasise with the concept of distate for dissection of verse.
No suggestions to offer, as this piece makes its own rules.
I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for posting it.
I like this…quite amusing. Fun to read and shows why rules in writing should not be described as “rules”. I never liked that either.
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