Rant, Ranted, Ranting and Raving!

The ability to write does not a poet make, anymore than me splashing paint on a  canvas makes me a painter. I've grown bitter and jaded at the idea that just  because someone can take a picture with a phone, put it through irritating  Instgram filters, that they are instantly expert photographers. It takes time,  practice, patience, discipline and diligence to hone and perfect one's craft. Do  you think Richard Avedon became a Master instantaneously just because he picked  up a camera and "clicked"? Did Van Gogh become brilliant the second he picked up  a paint brush? Did Kurt Cobain become a rock star and icon the second he  picked up a guitar? I know the answer is rhetorical: of course they  didn't.

I'm frustrated with all the hacks and wanna-be's who think they  have talent when, sadly, they do not. Their infiltration dilutes the mastery of  the truly talented. Too often I see bad poetry lauded and applauded. The notion  that "Howl" is a celebrated piece of work absolutely disgusts me to my core.  This doggerel by that hack Allen Ginsberg and his beatnik ilk has ruined and  mired poetry, I believe. They lowered the bar so low that suddenly wishful poet  posers popping up left and right, trying to imitate the garbled garbage of the  beatniks. They stabbed the stake in the heart of poetry, which is now barely  beating. The glory and golden age of great poetry is long gone. This modern era  seems obsessed with further mangling poetry by imitating the bad poetry that has  influenced them. We must bring back the classical style. Poetry has lost its  appeal and romance. No one cares about poetry anymore. There was a time when  poets and poetry were celebrated, and now we are but remnants of days gone by;  reduced to relics clinging to an archaic art. No one will remember us and our  verses will fall into the black holes of obscurity.

It makes me ILL that  the singer/songwriter Jewel is the highest paid poet in history. Her collection  of poems, called "A Night Without Armor" is absolute contrived balderdash. You  mean to tell me THAT'S what's considered "good" poetry these days? Even Billy  Corgan published a book of his poems that were terrible yet people ate it up. I adore both  these artists as musicians, but when trite drivel is lauded, those of us who ARE  better poets get pushed to the wayside.

So, what exactly I am trying to  say in this diatribe? I'm weary of the non-talented being deluded into the idea  that they are somehow skillful and adept. For some people, poetry is a "hobby";  poetry is not a "hobby" for me. It is my craft and my self-expression which I  take very seriously. I get the sense of people saying, "You know, Martha, I'm  gonna start writing those poems I've wanted to write these past 65 years" and  people having "become poet" on their "bucket list". People read "Howl" or  Jewel's poems and they must think if they can write such malarkey, so can I! I  can be a poet, too! I'll just slap some seemingly profound crap of paper and  declare and proclaim it's poetry; voila!

Some of us work hard at being  good or the best at what we do while others are complacent with mediocrity or  twaddle. My dream and goal in life is to be remembered and celebrated as one of  the best poets of my generation. I know; I know: how narcissistic can I get,  right? But I think most of us, the ones with what I refer to as "The Poet's  Soul", deep down that is what we want: recognition for our diligence and mastery  of our craft. But I fear these ambitions will go unfulfilled.