“mental squint””mental squint”

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary 

“mental squint”

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Imagine someone telling Homer, “You

Should write like Ferlinghetti.”  That’s where we

Are now. Imagine someone says, “Carew,

Repent and write like cummings, that e e.”

Imagine some fool telling Shakespeare, “Write

Like Whitman, all bombast and nearly stripped

Of vivid figures, speech without the flight

Of “scarlet notes of trumpets” baldly chipped

“the scarlet notes of the trumpet” ~ Homer

Away to selfish rhetoric.  The cheek

Of it is staggering if you think of it

At all.  “Let’s make our ‘poetry’ as weak

As Eliot’s, that academic twit.”

  Or don’t.  Preserve yourself from drugged up pain

   Of ignorance and pride.  Avoid the stain.