It's time for you writers to stop being a bunch of sissies!

One person's creativity is another person's kindergarten writing. I sometimes notice that editors of literary magazines say they are sick of the boring stuff they read in other literary magazines and then publish stuff that doesn't seem to me to be any different from what is published in other literary magazines. No doubt, in their defense, they would say that I am not competent to differentiate the good from the bad, which is probably true.

Here's a poem, although I'm sure there are some that would not think it is a poem at all, that has some gore in it, a toilet and a relationship of some sort. Assume you are the editor of the Don't Write Like a Sissy literary magazine, would it get accepted? For all practical purposes the author is anonymous.

Haiku Composition

It's hard to tell you I'm no fool.
Perhaps I'll just not try.
I'll write a haiku on the stool,
Then flush, and say that I
Have got this haiku here for you.
You'll read it tenderly,
Then laugh to break my heart in two,
That's all that any heart can do,
Just pop and let the blood gush through
On you who would be free.

No, I won't accept it. It lacks depth. It doesn't make me feel and think. Reading a good poem for me involves feeling and thinking. If it doesn't involve the two, it is not good.

The thing about yes no's poem is that it is boring and conventional. I would not publish it. However, the title of his imaginary literary magazine Don't Write Like a Sissy had me laughing!

I don't see why a poem about bowel movements can't be both creative and great. For example, imagine that god has diarrhea and he squats over Manhattan and creates the Manhattan skyline. Or imagine that all the politicians of the world have anuses in the middle of their faces instead of mouthes. The possibilities for creative imagery here are endless!

No doubt, some people will hold their noses up at such as thing. They are the same kind of people who during the Victorian Era would have hidden the legs of their coffee tables as being too "suggestive".

There is no shortage of such people in the literary world.

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Originally Posted by WolfLarsen

Creativity is all that matters!

Creativity and conformity are opposites! Creativity and rules are opposites! Creativity and a conservative outlook are opposites!

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I don't think this is true. If you wish to write to a form such as a sonnet, then you have to conform to that type of form, or stay within the form structure and then subvert it. That in itself will not stilt creativity which can then execute the poem within the form or subversion of it. If you don't wish to write within a form, then you're onto free verse - ok. Difficult to subvert free verse in a new way though.

Or you could be creative with the form - invent a new form or style. Of course if that may become mainstream, but then you create another or subvert the first.

Perhaps you're on about content rather than form. I've seen an example of one of your poems on a similar thread to this, and I didn't see much in it except a rather clumsy collection of nonsense words which I found neither creative nor innovative. I think content can be creative, controversial and challenging - perhaps about people on the margins of society - or about subjects not discussed much rather than the obvious sex and bodily functions you use in your OP. I think a challenging subject within a beautiful form could be a very nteresting poem due to that contrast.

Rejections are fine, miyako73 and WolfLarsen, as far as I'm concerned.

I wonder what would get into such a literary magazine. Any examples?

How is mindless chaos better than mindless order?

Here's an example written by a Mexican child poet (then-- he is now adult) in English:


Ekiwah Adler Beléndez



The Zoo

My words, indifferent as a gray tortoise,
remind me of an old woman
smoking tobacco by the window.

My words are as invisible
as the old kitchen rag
I use to wipe the grease off the cages.

My words are clumsy
as a frog saturated with mud
wishing to hibernate.

My words have the deliberate solitude of lizards,
their tongues unfold like a royal carpet
straining to hear the inward music
of distant saxophones.

I come in and find abundant thick hairs,
droppings, and tangerine peels,
a familiar scent fills my nostrils.

My words have escaped.
I’m too tired or too wound up
to go after them.

The idea of words escaping the zoo that the keeper is not interested in going after is interesting in the poem by Beléndez.

However, I don't see how "feeling" or "thinking" is involved much here, miyako73. There was some thinking involved to link the title with the last stanza, but in retrospect it seemed obvious. The other linkages between the words and lizards, the tortoise, and the droppings seemed too artificial, or even unrelated to words.

Is this piece creative enough for you, WolfLarsen?

First, the entire poem makes me think of the motivation of the child poet to write unconventionally about the zoo. Child poems about zoos or animals don't sound or read like this. His line on indifference makes me feel how it is to be indifferent like the tortoise or the old woman, and his line on invisibility surely makes me feel how one is being treated like the invisible rag. Those are just from the first two stanzas. If you read the poem literally, you won't think or feel anything. The title alone makes me think about the zoo--is it a metaphor for a complicated person?

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Originally Posted by WolfLarsen

The thing about yes no's poem is that it is boring and conventional. I would not publish it. However, the title of his imaginary literary magazine Don't Write Like a Sissy had me laughing!

I don't see why a poem about bowel movements can't be both creative and great. For example, imagine that god has diarrhea and he squats over Manhattan and creates the Manhattan skyline. Or imagine that all the politicians of the world have anuses in the middle of their faces instead of mouthes. The possibilities for creative imagery here are endless!

No doubt, some people will hold their noses up at such as thing. They are the same kind of people who during the Victorian Era would have hidden the legs of their coffee tables as being too "suggestive".

There is no shortage of such people in the literary world.

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You're confusing puritanical hypocrites - who tried to deny the existence of bodily functions and needs yet fantasised about raping their housemaids - with those on here who find your desperate attempts to provoke a response (by writing about defecation and anuses, etc. etc.) rather childish. Perhaps you need another session with the therapist. :D

H

I looked inside myself and this is what I found.

My guts are broken
The Doc says forever
Inflamed, raw,
Oozing, leaking
For life and maybe death

Broken forever
And always.

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Originally Posted by Bluehound

I looked inside myself and this is what I found.

My guts are broken
The Doc says forever
Inflamed, raw,
Oozing, leaking
For life and maybe death

Broken forever
And always.

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Bluehound this is rather depressed. To write is to surge into a world of energy vision and hope. One must teach oneself to be somebody else for the better only then one can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

inside me is energy
whenever the eyes sadden
desolate faddens
and imperfect glows
I search within me and it gives me power
to lift and be lifted
inside me is realm
the real esteem I need when I seem
slightly off beam

This for me reads better because it promises changes even if one is low one must write themselves up.

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Originally Posted by cacian

Bluehound this is rather depressed. To write is to surge into a world of energy vision and hope. One must teach oneself to be somebody else for the better only then one can see the light at the end of the tunnel.


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Unfortunately, reality bites.

Faeces comes in all shapes and sizes as well as different textures. Have you considered that even you Wolf are not going to be able to swallow every bit of **** that you read as creative?

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Unfortunately, reality bites.

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Indeed it does hence writing. It should by effect reverse the concept in order to sensationalise life. To feel good through writing paves ways to better beings. One has to start somewhere.