This is no longer a poem

When I read a poem, I view the world in the way the poet views the world. In which case, the following line only adds to the rest of the irony of the poem (with the 'no juxtaposition or enjamb / ment' part and the 'un-poem (not) fall[ing] into [my] lap'):

don't sit on my specs miss

Too late. I'm already doing that. That's exactly what any reader does.

It's like saying DON't think of an orange. And what do you do? You think of one - you can't help it; it pops up in your mind the harder you push it out.

Poetry's all about breaking the rules anyway, especially modern poetry. So the odd use of form, the oddball enjambment, the fact that parts make no sense (but I get what you meant, anyway - such as the beginning couple of lines), the fact that there's capitals in odd places - all of these break the rules, right? And they look clunky. They look awkward rather than artsy. Instead of making a statement to say this is an un-poem in an artistic way, you do so in an awkward-I'm-sidling-out-of-the-room-surreptitiously way. Not to say that's bad as such - just that the effect is...grey. Some parts flow well, some don't (more on that later), some bits are punctuated right, some aren't - and it's all for the purpose of half-following the rules to produce something at least halfway understandable while still breaking as many rules as possible. Fine. But it's not great reading all the same.

A story with words, the rhymes and binds
Your feet to the wall. stuck vertically

Juxtaposing story and rhymes bordered on the cliche. I only read on because the next bit flowed well - 'binds your feet to the wall.' Granted that sentences as a whole makes little sense, but I get you. Interesting you say that - it's true, I guess: I don't enjoy rhyming poetry since I think it's hard to do well without regurgitating the same ideas to fit the rhyme. Rhyme is binding. But the 'story with words' bit...at first I didn't like it, since I thought: all stories are 'with words' are they not? Do you, in some way, mean to differentiate them from the stories without words - the ones that are experience but never told, written, recorded, thought - just felt?

Okay, so we've established that you do not like rhyme, the rules of it, the binding nature of it. To prove that you have a first line that only halfway reads right

. To further prove that you begin the next bit with 'stuck vertically' uncapitalised - not that I mind, terribly, when people don't use capitals (in fact, I think it looks lovely when the whole poem is in lower case - it seems to flow beautifully) but in this case you've juxtaposed a rather obvious capital with a non-capital where there should be one...and I do not like it. It looks weird. But I think it's supposed to look weird, isn't it? Because if we used capitals or lowercase consistently, we wouldn't be breaking any 'rules' would we - because if we always write in lower case, then that becomes the norm, and that is a PATTERN, a rule we must follow for the rest of the poem - and you are trying to do away with patterns which means being totally RANDOM.

Well, I think so, anyway. :lol:

It won’t fall, this un-poem, into your lap

Won't it? I feel like it has, regardless. Un-poem sounds clunky - the words on this line flow alright, but the idea behind the line sounds clunky as well. Half-formed. Half-way between absolute chaos and absolute order (both of which are a kind of 'order' since with both you are consistently chaotic, or consistently logical, so never inconsisten) - this is where the poem is. Were I to personify the poem (or rather, the un-poem), I would think it the clumsy child, not quite a teenager, not quite a child, awkward in social situations, frail, random.

So...that's what seems off about this un-poem, with all its marvellous inconsistencies. It's frail. It's weak. It shows what poetry becomes when we only half follow the rules. On the one hand, you glorify your rejection of these rules. On the other, you also make us painfully aware of the fragility of the in-between, of the halfway-there. Here is the paradox of the poem.

So you’d better jump up and search under the cat

Gaze upwards, Gawk downwards
Grape to the edges of literature

I liked the image of searching for the un-poem under the cat. It was amusing, when so much of the poem feels so grey, so intellectual, lacking in any colour or music or light. I read it through because the intellectual side, the paradoxes, all the little things intrigued me - but I know I did not read it for it'ss aesthetic beauty. But then again, that's the point entirely: it's not supposed to look pretty. It's meant to be the odd-kid-in-the-room, the one that doesn't fit in. Capitalising the 'G' - argh...that only added to the Greyness of the unpoem (intentional, I assume) and to me 'G' is an ugly letter. It's guttural, it's grotesque - I don't know. I didn't like that much. I also felt it detracted from the playful image of a reader searching around for the poem - I guess, just to add to the utter greyness of it all.

You're so assertive of this un-poem, but at the same time, so definite about the greyness of it all when we inconsistently break the rules. It's an interesting effect.

don’t drown in your pinot grigio
just enshrine your pistachio

Alliteration intended? I thought the point was to be inconsistent. And you are inconsistently rhyming as well, which adds to that. What the hell are the lines supposed to mean, anyway? Why ask the reader not to drown in pinot grigio and enshrine the pistachio? What does it add to the meaning? Or rather, the non-meaning? In the case of the latter, I guess now you're mixing up meaning and nonsense as well to add to the halfness of the whole poem, but again, rather than sounding artsy, it sounds clunky. I guess because instead of showing us what can be done, you actually do it and leave us be the judge of how it looks.

This is no longer a poem

You don't say. I know that, I've known that from pretty much the first line, the title. Repeating it does nothing for me - it neither adds to the halfness nor the clunkiness. What's weird is that it flows rather...nicely. Were it in any other poem, I might even call that line beautiful, my favourite line. So...maybe you are adding to the inconsistency by now being inconsistently pretty and clunky?

No juxtaposition or enjamb
ment, my friend

LIAR. Oh the irony. For this poem, this unpoem is a clever use of juxtaposition and enjambment throughout. This is where I began to lose respect for the idea - if I had any in the first place. I guess your inconsistency of form, conventions, style even, and all the rest of it stretches as far as to the honesty-idea. I wonder - if you lie here, where else might you have lied? Paradoxes are fine. Irony is fine. Sarcasm is fine. But the tone of this is wholly genuine, while genuinely lying. I don't care how inconsistent you get. Just as long as you don't get inconsistent about telling me about when you've been inconsistent. That's a whole other level of thinking. That's a whole other story.

Honestly, I don't know what to make of this. I read on, nevertheless:

frying the lexis
don’t sit on my specs miss

Another bit of inconsistent rhyming to drive home that point. 'Frying the lexis' being a line that makes little sense. Nonsense with sense, here we go again:

I need them to see how this poem
unexists

I liked the 'unexists'. I want to know who 'them' is. I feel like 'them' refers to the other readers, the ones who haven't analysed this like I have, the ones to whom the poem is less and more real at once.

I want you to see
it will set you free

I must point out here: you are rhyming the third and fourth lines of every stanza. This detracts from the inconsistencies because you're doing so in a logical fashion - it makes your inconsistency less real, less workable. The last line - I didn't like that. Boring, cliche, and the poem does not set me free. You've said not to follow the rules, thinking there's only true liberty in doing that. Alright. But the way you've depicted inconsistency itself throughout the poem itself has been far from enticing. Rather than showing us the aesthetic wonders of being inconsistent and tossing away all the rules in a random fashion, you show us how clunky that is. How awkward. So I guess the last line is ironic, too, in that it won't set anyone free. Total chaos and total order are both binding because they require you to be consistently one or the other. Halfway chaos and halfway order is...a dud. It's unappealing and doesn't look nice.

So...I've learnt how not to write from this. I've learnt the reason for being consistent. Thank you.

Actually, it is still a poem!

Funny how that happens.

This won't be long-- I just wanted to stop by to give you some general pointers and opinions. I congratulate you for trying something interesting, this idea of an "unpoem", in which the irony lies in a balance between the poety being pleasing and enjoyable yet just different and unpoetic enough to not be considered a poem in the first place. I think this fell a bit flat, as far as that perfect balance comes-- but it's a difficult style to try and pull of successfully.

For me, the problem comes with the poem's complete and utter lack of direction. Your narrator is talking to no one in particular, rambling on about seemingly unrelated topics, sometimes contemplating his unpoetry and other times contemplating pistachios, complaining about how rhymes are binding and restrictive and then promptly rhyming. Okay, fine, addressing random topics might make this less of a poem, and in a way that's what your aiming for. But you have to draw a line. You have to come up with your definition of what poetry is and what it isn't so that you can tiptoe across that line, because now it's all this muddled gray area.

Basically? Define a poem. Once you have a concrete statement to work around, then figure out what poetry entails, and how to circumvent the rules of poetry just enough to make the entire poem seem off-beat and different without being an unpoetic eyesore.

PM me if none of this makes any sense, and keep writing!

~Evi

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