if i cared

i wish i cared more..
to write a good poem..
but i don't..

if i wanted to work
i would
i'd get that nice
job at walmart..
but it doesn't matter.

if i wanted to wake
with the sun
instead of the moon
i would..
but i don't..
those sunny days
hurt my eyes.

if i cared to call
to check in
if i cared at all...
i'd be sorry.

if only i cared
enough to write
a good poem.

I get that you were trying to go for a sense of apathy here, but it just made the poem drag on and feel very weary and slow. I don't get why the narrator is so apathetic, and so I can't connect with him.

I think you should try to rewrite this poem from a different angle. The narrator seems to be reculsive, lazy, and generally apathetic, but there's no story behind it for the reader to latch onto, or even a hint of a story to catch our interest. Show us the inside of this character's mind, not just the superficial unwillingness to do anything, and you'll have a much better poem.

Agreed Fortuna. Some anti-poetry is written very well and subverts the genre very effectively (just take a look at Wilfred Owen's brutal war poetry), but the main difficulty that I have with this poem is that the audience can't identify with the speaker. The speaker complains about his lack of poetic talent and his inability to find a job, but he doesn't have any redeeming qualities that make us empathise with him.

In this respect, poetry is a lot like storytelling - we need a narrative that slowly reveals the speaker's character. Don't spoonfeed us all the information at once. Be subtle, and use fresh, vivid imagery to convey emotion rather than bland statements of thought. For instance, let's look at the first stanza:

"i wish i cared more..
to write a good poem..
but i don't.."

This scenario has quite a bit of potential. The speaker's apathy could be more powerfully expressed in his unwillingness to write a poem, ironically enough, if you capitalised on this potential. So we might put (if we were writing in free verse):

"The pen collapses on the desk
once again.
Ink bleeds out like a wound
searing through paper veins."

Something like that. Immediately, the active language pulls us into the scene and the audience wants to figure out what is going on, as opposed to lightly skimming over the words, not really taking anything in. As poets, we are constantly striving for fresher ways to express ourselves. It might seem dramatic at first, but the more dramatic, the less mundane, the better.

Hope this helps!

Gahks

I believe this topic is unanimously agreed upon. Nobody want to hear about the lethargic, passive attitude of the poet. Rather, they would like to hear what triggered him not to care, what melancholy even must have overridden his previous bubbly self. In not so many words, we don't want to hear that you don't care. That's obvious. We just want to know why.

I have one more word of advice. Saying that you care not enough to write a decent poem gives off the impression, right from the start, that this isn't a decent poem. You could say "I care not to write," without saying that what you write will be horrible.

With a bit more work, and a bit more insight, this poem could be a success. For now, look a little more into the meaning of your poetry, and, if you can't get that much farther, deepen it.

I believe this topic is unanimously agreed upon. Nobody wants to hear about the lethargic, passive attitude of the poet. Rather, they would like to hear what triggered him not to care, what melancholy even must have overridden his previous bubbly self. In not so many words, we don't want to hear that you don't care. That's obvious. We just want to know why.

I have one more word of advice. Saying that you care not enough to write a decent poem gives off the impression, right from the start, that this isn't a decent poem. You could say "I care not to write," without saying that what you write will be horrible.

With a bit more work, and a bit more insight, this poem could be a success. For now, look a little more into the meaning of your poetry, and, if you can't get that much farther, deepen it.

I apologize for this post, but my computer was taking it's sweet time to load, so I hit the "Submit" button twice. I edited out my comment on this one, but I have to write something, so . . .