I hate what has become of poetry in the last 15 years or so.

 

This is not to lay any kind of claim to my superior skill at the craft.  In fact I don’t believe that I have such, only some fledgling examples of raw ideals.  But I do have extensive fingertips dipped into the pages of many that have passed into the darkness long before myself.  And my observation of the changes in poetry have been through these means.

 

Take for example the pop culture interest in Haiku that has made its way to the surface of the world.  Everywhere you go now some one or other is having a Haiku writing contest.  Someone is clawing at the eyes of one of the hardest and greatest forms of pure poetry for the sake of a few meaningless moments of entertainment.

 

A poem composed in the form of Haiku has certain requirements that it must meet.  Unfortunately most of the people who examine this form of poetry only look at the meter, which is common enough, because most people do the same with all forms of art:  Look at the use of blues in the painting, listen to the way the guitar sounds in the song…trash talking, emptied headed social parasites like these have drained the very heart and soul out of the arts, because they refused to feel stupid in the face of such an exceptionally monstrous creature.

 

In Haiku the poem requires that it follow a 5-7-5 pattern.  That is 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 in the third.  Any idiot can compose a 5-7-5 without any really work:

 

Dog in the wild

Eats all he can find free

Then sleeps at night.

 

But what does it mean?  Does it have value?  Does it bring warmth or gather the darkness?  Does it do something to the imagination?  No.  No. NO!  Although following the meter is important, there is a second and more important aspect of all poetry, especially Haiku:  that it have meaning.  Haiku, requires that the writer take two separate ideas and then show how they tie together.  It requires that the writer show that he has thought it through, made a statement, and built something to offer back to the people that read it.  Haiku is not just some other way of using a Polaroid camera to capture a snapshot of time.  Poetry is not finger paints, splattered on the canvas of our tongues.  A true Haiku takes years to compose.  In the case of the samurai, it may have taken a life time for some of those men to come up with that one that would make sense, that would be some kind of gift to be slowly unwrapped.

Below you will see an example of Haiku that I wrote, it sucks, but it is the general idea of what Haiku should be, that is, two points that have no direct link, but are drawn together through the use of the final line:

 

Sun rises in East.

Unseen moon pulls ocean tide.

So too my fate set.

 

This Haiku does not tell you a thing about what the beer tastes like on the beach.  This Haiku does not offer an exhilaration of the wind through your hair while driving a brand new SUV.  This Haiku does nothing on the surface.  It says nothing on the surface.  In order to fully understand it you have to think about it.  You can’t just glance at it and let it fade, like our contemporary brothers have done with their empty headed attempts at being cultured.  Again, I realize my haiku is incorrect for a number of reason (especially since tide should be a two syllable word and I’ve used it as one), but my point stands, in fact it is further validated by this fact of inaccuracy, because the writer of Haiku should in fact take years to compose a single verse of meaning and worth and it shouldn’t just be some tactile Frisbee thrown around at the eyes, ears, and mouths of all those that would listen.

 

How else can we bring to light the obvious destruction of the arts?  Notice music, composition is dead.  Composers now only do work for soundtracks for movies, because simplicity rules the universe and depth of meaning, and any feeling other than love or hate are to complex for the average mind anymore.  Think of poets and composers, compare the two as parallels through out time.  Do you notice that three hundred years ago they all seemed to search for something through the music and lyrics they wrote.  Do you notice that they wrote about something emotional, something great, sometimes things of ugly character.  Yet today, we see only the form.  Only the steps and the clattering of the marching herds.  Meaning is dead.  Reason is dead.  Logic is dead.  Purpose is dead.  Truth lives, but is a distortion of its former glory, a hallow filling with bees and wasps.

 

In order to be truly great in the modern world, one must become the opposite of great.