What It's Not All About

"It's all about the ... ."

How many times have we heard that lately? Something (pick a topic: person, place or thing) is "all about the" something else (fill in the blank). Rarely do you hear "it's all about the" method, the means, or the manner of that something else.

And there's a reason for it: the "it's all about the" person, place or thing is just too glib. Too slick. Too easy. And, for those reasons, it's also false.

The hardest thing about writing poetry -- at least as I'm able to see it -- is in getting real. I mean, that's "what it's all about," wouldn't you think? But go to an average poetry reading sometime -- even by published poets -- and really listen to what's being said. How much of it is honest? How much of it is the poet's self-selection of the truth? How much is self-justification? How much of it is the poet trying to hide -- from you, from him or herself? You might be surprised at how much honesty you really hear! Or, maybe not ... .

We look at the Anthology of ... or the Collected Works of ... , admiring the poet's power of expression and nuance -- and perhaps not think of the other stuff. The stuff this outstanding poetry we now admire stood out from.

And when you look at some of that "other stuff", you can see readily what makes the collected or anthologized poetry stand out from the rest: honesty. Fidelity to truth, at least as much of it as the poet is able to apprehend and communicate through the medium of poetry.

It gets down to the word itself. I can remember one poet saying that some activity or another (walking in the woods, admiring a sunset, whatever) really "stokes my muse." How on Earth, thought I, do you "stoke a muse?"

You can stoke a fire, you can obey a muse -- but how do you "stoke a muse?" OK, what he obviously meant is that this particular activity really got him in the mood to write poetry. But his mixed metaphor betrayed his (perhaps unconscious) feeling that he was in control of the process -- the fact that the process was there long before either of us existed did not seem to occur to him. And his cracked verbiage revealed that flaw in his thinking.

I do remember logic class: I remember it clearly because the first instructor was so bad I decided to audit the same course a year later by a professor I really respected (and, in memory, still do). He spent at least a month going over so-called "informal" fallacies: not the "therefore, all men are Socrates" fallacies of formal logic, but the "When did you stop beating your wife?" type of fallacies. Those are the kind of fallacies that crack your thinking before you even begin to reason.

It's important to mention now, because I hear those informal fallacies all the time: hasty generalization, jumping to conclusions, ad hominem arguments, etc. The title for them all is more Latin: non sequitur. "It does not follow."

Emotional honesty is vital to all expression, especially poetry. Its very life blood is most transparent in free verse. Which is one reason that particular form remains popular: the minute you "talk falsely" at Open Mic Night, you're busted.

But in formal verse, craft can sometimes disguise dishonesty: emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. That's why you have to have a solid purpose and a strong foundation before you can start writing it successfully.