For that title alone, I am going to get lynched (or as the dictionary says: executed without due process of law, especially hanged, and in the pressence of, or by a mob). I can see the mob already ganging up on me. I can smell their smells. I can taste their bitterness.
How can I hate poetry? Oh, I hate poetry. I thought of saying: "I 'do not like' poetry", but it is not true, I hate it. I cannot stand it. Even if it is published on a book by the most renowned person... But, don't get me wrong. I can manage to enjoy some of it. Yes. It is like "reggeaton" music. I hate it, but after a while you have to sing the song (if it is one of the better ones, of course) and sometimes even dance to it. So yes, I can enjoy some poetry. I enjoy "more" the poems by people that I know in person. I won't read poetry from people that I don't know, unless it is for some technical reason (being which: that I need to count verses from some poem, that I need reference for some reason, that I have been recomended poems of someone whom "I would like", or I don't know, it even has to do with the mood that I'm in). So. Poetry, big no, no.
That being said.
Yesterday was the presentation of a magazine that the University of Puerto Rico, specifically the English Department, published, it is called "Tonguas" (get it? tongue=lengua). And I was so very happy to have two stories published in it. Very happy to see my babies in page 77 ("Los Nuevos Miércoles"), and page 82 ("The Echo of the Night on the Distance"). The magazine is an expression of "young art"; more multilingual and democratic it cannot be. There is photography, there are paintings, drawings, there are short stories, and poems. I, being a poetry-hater, can say that 98% of the poems are good. I also have to make a confession: I was on the editing team of this magazine (I have a credit, woohoo!), and I HAD to read a LOT of poems. And I learned that poems were a different kind of writing.
What I hate about poems is the "full of themselves" quality that they have. Poems are so selfish. They try to be so pretty and/or so demanding of so much attention, and I'm not that person. I have to read a poem at least three times to get half of it. My brain doesn't compute their intricate word choice. It just doesn't. Poems are so small and still they want to be this grandiose thing... Oh, but wait. Then you have the five, six, seven pages long poems. Don't even get me started with those. Isn't poetry suposed to be concise? Why is this poem ages long? I don't know. If the poem doesn't keep MY attention (because it wants my attention, and not some elite person) on the first page, then it dies. I'm really sorry to say it. (Although, the same eye goes for narrative, but I'm more lenient with stories).
I also learned that poetry was about images; about choosing the right words and connect them. But, with word choice, rhyme and sound are neglected (most of the time). I love poetry that rhymes. Even if I don't get it, those poems I like, sometimes maybe love... That is why music is so liked in the first place (at least most of it), because the lyrics rhyme. (Oh God, I can see frowned brows everywhere!) (Oh well). And sure, there are lyrics that don't rhyme, but in some way they have some kind of rythm, or beat.
So, on the presentation of "Tonguas" there was an open-mic. And guess what was the main course. Poetry. I was like: "Damnit!" I sat there, listening. And what impressed me more was not the poems, but how people would speak them. Some were very shy, some were very outgoing and loud, and kept the audience. But, poems, very little of them caught my attention, (altho I stayed for the whole thing; there was a lot of people). The best thing that was read there, was a nice short story. Also, there was a poem titled: "Conjugando verbos" ("conjugating verbes", you caught it) that I particularly remember because of the word choice, which was a grammar-class-like love story, which I found very original. Also, there was a poem in which ALL the words started with a "P", all of them (except for articles and conjunctions and whatnots), I also found that one very original. Also there were poems with a hip hop beat to them, they rhymed or had a beat, and they were the ones that stayed in my mind (altho, I don't like hip hop that much). So I guess I hate poems because I find them lacking much originallity?
I cannot help to hate poetry. I can't. I've searched for a poem that could/would change my life, but I haven't found it.
I write poetry, rarely. Sometimes I hate some of my poems, specially my old, inexperienced ones (not to say that I'm experienced now...). So, I write them rarely, and I try to make them as literal as possible, because, for me, there isn't a stupid-er thing than to write something "creatively" and then someone doesn't get it, or doesn't know what to think of it, or doesn't get the purpose of it. You can draw all the conclusions you want from a poem, or from a story, but, you, as a writer, want at least ONE person to know exactly (or somewhat exactly) what you meant when you wrote.
So, because I am a poetry-hater, because I am an "I- don't- get- your- deliriums- of- granduer- you- stupid- poem" person (notice that I say this about the poems, NOT about the people who write them, because I know they are capable persons... it is "I" who has a problem (we say that all the time: "its not you, its me..." whatever... so I'm going to shut up)...
People with stern faces stare at me. There is a man with a black hood over his head next to me (that covered his whole head), his arms are tanned, tatooed, sweaty and hugeamungous. There is another man on my right, he is skinny, and his hair is gray, dirty gray. Behind me there is another man, I can't see him, (duh!), because I watch at the angry mob. The sun is pounding on all of us. It smells, but I can't pinpoint the what it is, like blood, like unbathed people, I think there is also a hint of rain inside my nose. And as I look over the buildings of the "plaza", the sky is darkened, and rumbled towards us. The man with the hood pulled me, and guided me through the mob. People spat at me, telling me: "poemcist!", "son of the devil", "blasphemous", "motherfucking-bitch-ass poem-hater!". I couldn't understand. Others pulled at my clothes. My hands bound with metal casings, I held my clothes as good as I could. Some people hit me, even a stone struck me on the head. The man with the hood protected me. We were near the platform, and as we went around it, I saw the blood. Dry, clotted blood, mixed with mud, under the wooden trapdoor. We climbed the platform. The executioner (the man with the robe, of course), slid a thick rope around my neck, he hung the other end on the piece of wood that would hang me. He tightened the rope. The people were screaming, kill him, kill him, hang him already. And then, I saw a glimpse of the executioner's eyes, through the peepholes of his black hood, it seemed that he pitied me. And then, he pulled on the lever that opened the trapdoor into my doom. My neck cracked with a hard yank, and I knew I was gone there, but before I lost all life, the executioner took his hood, he was, Joel. He didn't say anything, but I knew he was a poetry-hater too. Then, the people started to poke me with sharp spears, and that's when I bled. Gladly I was dead. But then, with a mighty thunder, the rain splashed over everybody, and the mob ran, as if they were running for their lives, and my blood, was washed away, so that it wouldn't stink along with the sweat of the people.
On a scroll of parchment that Joel gave me... I, Joel, found this (written in long hand-writing):
I, (Poetry-hater, rhyme-lover, postmodern, bittersweet writer...) present you!... chan chan chan chan chan! (drumroll): a poem by me.
Postmodern Joel
(a cultural poem that is vital)
One day in May, I discovered
what postmodernism meant.
It was such a truth uncovered
that my grand mind only dreamt
of a boy who struggled
trying to find words to say
for a poem that juggled
in absudity and dismay.
Joel, the boy was called
by his brother and sister
by his missis and mister,
until they were appalled
by his postmodernism phase;
when he started to tatoo
intricate poems on his face
caused by an “evil craze”
inside his mind and index finger.
To his yard he darted one day
before lunch, on the grass he lay
rhyming words which lingered,
so they could have a nice sound
and impress many masters.
But he lacked cultural ground,
held nothing but disasters.
So he waltzed to the library,
took some pretty looking book
that had cultural poetry.
He read, and read and then went red
‘cause he understood nothing
he intended to understand.
He came back home pedalling,
and started to tatoo his hand.
He stopped half way up, couldn’t do it:
write culturally about his town,
or him, or whatever was around;
and so follows, what he came up with:
after waking from a deep sleep in May:
Postmodern Joel, it was titled,
a cultural poem that was vital
‘cause of its absudity and dismay.
October 8, 2004
8:35 PM
And on the bottom of the scroll parchment was this:
"All Rights Reserved"
And this:
"Yes, you may say whatev..."
And after the "v" there was just a scribbled line.
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