Sidney Beck Poet Couplet

I Don'T Know

I   DON’T  KNOW

So what’s wrong with saying “I don’t know”
When your poem is good,   and feels just so?
A technical requirement  to state categorically
What you have said, albeit metaphorically.
Like asking Einstein to place his  e=mc2  formula
Neatly in the correct position on a page of algebra
Otherwise he will lose marks and gain only “C”
Or  ordering  Michaelangelo to sign properly
So that his paintings may be in a catalogue
And the gallery guide can give  her monologue.
Or what if Curie  was given a low academic gradation 
For fooling around with radium and radiation?
Or  Sir Humphrey Davy,   remembered with odium
For accidentally stumbling on the discovery of Sodium:
Imagine his schoolteacher fillng out the report card  -
“Davy is disorganized and needs to work hard”
So please allow poets to say  that they do not know 
The category into which they must go.

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Debra Squyres January 18, 2012 at 8:40 AM Love it !!!! I often just simply...don't know...lol or take a guess, though I am attempting to learn some. I am a mere student in the poetic field with no teacher...only a heart with a voice that enjoys writing verse, be they rhyme or not. Poetry is art, like mine or like it not, it's the readers choice, as it is mine to write. Well said !!!

Leo Larry Amadore January 18, 2012 at 8:32 AM A reasoned and well-presented argument interestingly written in clear couplets. Many of us post poems that are rather difficult to classify and choose (perhaps, at times, erroneously) to label them "blank verse" or "free verse" when they could be classed as rhymed or alliteration based on internal rhymes or near rhymes...and, in my opinion, there are far too many attempts being made at constructing exotic/esoteric poetic forms instead of concentrating on the sounds and sense of precisely phrased and logically valid creative works...mind and music with all their diversity needs to be encouraged and supported. Good work!