Fiction press...

I've never been one to be fussy about poems or writing in general. In fact my writing's far from perfect and I realise and cherish that; as it means I have more to learn and I can still improve. When you stop improving I feel it would be time to stop writing completely if you ask me.

Reading the poems (in particular) at fiction press, I no longer believe that EVERYONE can write. A lot of the poem have one major flaw: they are too self absorbed. While the imagery may be something to be impressed about in many of the poems, the poems lack two very substancial ingredients: Structure and craft.

The images are all emotion spurts. They come strong but don't last because the writer does not do it credit as a whole for the poem. Rather than explaining or exploring the powerful images they have created, they move on to try to create OTHER powerful images. All disjointed. All random.

Random images do NOT constitute a good poem. If there is no coherency in your poem as to the images, how are people supposed to understand what you are writing? If there is no structured story in your poems, what message can you convey? None. Isn't the whole point of a poem to convery a message? I think so. In fact, many times, a GOOD poem will have undertones and implicit messages in addition to explicit messages. Many writers fail to do this. This is something I'm still trying to master myself.

Reading other peoples poems has opened my eyes alot. I'm not talking about reading GREAT poets like Hemmingway or Blake. I'm talking about reading EVERYDAY people's poems. I can see what I like and what I want to inculcate into my own writing. And I see my own weaknesses as a writer as well. It is truely an eye opening experience.

I now believe anyone can write... but not EVERYONE can write GOOD poems.