“The trouble with poetry”

It’s true, as Billy Collins wrote,
that “the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry”
as, no doubt, it will continue to do,
like Chinese food, fulfilling us
at the time, but half an hour later
we are hungry again,
hungry for the next poem
and the next one

but, really, searching
for the lost, original one.

Delicious!

I agree with Granny5. This is a beautiful rendition of the atavistic hunger we all have for more, more, more! Thank you Jer.


love
paper

Salient thought.
By the bye, ("btw") -- once I went to aChinese auction, and half an hour later I felt like buying something again.

lol... how many chinamen do you have now? prince, you shouldn't have written this for the very reason you did. all i can think now is that i have subject for more poems. it's a smorgasbord, and i love oriental food.

Ah, I completely agree. Nice way to express this desire to find what is so close at hand, but yet to be produced.

I'm going to have to dissent on this. The Chinese food that makes you hungry in an hour after eating is kind of a worn out cliche. If you can find another metaphor or point of comnparison, I think you can find some good use for those opening thoughts and conclusion, which are very worthwhile ideas.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I'm going to have to dissent on this. The Chinese food that makes you hungry in an hour after eating is kind of a worn out cliche. If you can find another metaphor or point of comnparison, I think you can find some good use for those opening thoughts and conclusion, which are very worthwhile ideas.

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I agree in general that the Chinese food business is a well-worn cliche but submit that in a poem that endeavours to be like some chatty dude who cozies up to you in a waiting line, something more original might be a) a disconcerting surprise or b) imposing on his virtually non-existent acquaintance with you.

I think the Chinese metaphor is very apt since it's the devouring of more poems that we all crave.

I kind of like your persona, Prince, and as usual you (to use another cliche :) hit the nail on the head. We ARE always searching for the lost, original one. How did you know?

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

I agree in general that the Chinese food business is a well-worn cliche but submit that in a poem that endeavours to be like some chatty dude who cozies up to you in a waiting line, something more original might be a) a disconcerting surprise or b) imposing on his virtually non-existent acquaintance with you.

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I guess in an opus of your poems, where we get one after another of delicious bites, I can see how this poem fits in. As a poem on its own standing, I do think my criticism still holds. ;)

I'm a bit with Virgil on this one but I do love those closing lines.

Billy Collins often uses food similes and metaphors, for example, Osso Buco, where the skeaker sees himself "a creature with a full stomach."

I think using Chinese food is OK if you perhaps find another aspect of it to use as the simile. Up to line four and the last two lines have a space available between them receptive to many things by nature of the set up and finish. I think that is what makes the cliche aspect of Chinese food pop out so much.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

It’s true, as Billy Collins wrote,
that “the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry”
as, no doubt, it will continue to do,
like Chinese food, fulfilling us
at the time, but half an hour later
we are hungry again,
hungry for the next poem
and the next one

but, really, searching
for the lost, original one.

---

It is really absorbing to me and I remember I had this problem too when I started writing poems. I wrote poems hungrily and unstoppably and spawning one poem after another I never got tired of writing poetry. I was intoxicated with poetry. I wrote poems about nature, love, sufferings and the like. I never got content with a few poems and it was rather menacing as my parents warned me when I wrote them everyday cornering myself in a room and of course secluding myself from the rest of the world. This continued for a few years and suddenly a new circumstance turned up and I joined college and studied science.I was too poor at math and had to labor hard to learn it and it sucked all my time and I had little time for writing poetry. Then I had to go to a bigger city wherein I learned English as a second language for I needed it as a medium of study for I had to depend upon textbooks written in English only. I shifted to English as a means of communication and wrote very few poems since then.

This poem of yours reminds me of all my earlier formative days. I feel nostalgic. Now I write poems fewer in numbers. But I choose to read poems.

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

It is really absorbing to me and I remember I had this problem too when I started writing poems. I wrote poems hungrily and unstoppably and spawning one poem after another I never got tired of writing poetry. I was intoxicated with poetry. I wrote poems about nature, love, sufferings and the like. I never got content with a few poems and it was rather menacing as my parents warned me when I wrote them everyday cornering myself in a room and of course secluding myself from the rest of the world. This continued for a few years and suddenly a new circumstance turned up and I joined college and studied science.I was too poor at math and had to labor hard to learn it and it sucked all my time and I had little time for writing poetry. Then I had to go to a bigger city wherein I learned English as a second language for I needed it as a medium of study for I had to depend upon textbooks written in English only. I shifted to English as a means of communication and wrote very few poems since then.

This poem of yours reminds me of all my earlier formative days. I feel nostalgic. Now I write poems fewer in numbers. But I choose to read poems.

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Yes, reading poems will do for a time as a consolation to writing them but in the end is it not like reading recipe books vs cooking yourself a good meal?