Love-poems

As long as human beings as a species exist, there will be love poems because 'love' (lack of, abundance of, waiting-to-get-rid-of) is an integral part of the human experience and hence the stuff of poetry -- whether great, banal, lousy, average or superlative.

So any denunciation of love-poetry goes against the very grain of what it means to be human. The peeve, if any, must be against bad poetry and that's understandable. If we say that we enjoy reading good literature and the creative process of writing, then, we must condemn doggerel at every available opportunity because... well, we don't want our non-poetry-lovers to use such trash as examples as to why they hate poetry.

But let's understand that bad poetry exists and is not a myth, and I am sure all of us have seen evidence of it. We may have encountered it here on this board or elsewhere but we have all encountered it one way or the other. I am sure all of us have written bad poetry as well -- I wrote tons and tons of them before succumbing to that incurable disease: formandcontentitis. End result? Now everything I write looks like bad poetry and I end up torturing myself to death writing 10 to 20 drafts before I can be even remotely satisfied.

So going back to the argument: no, we cannot condemn love poetry as a genre and I dont anyone has actually said that. And if they have, it's terrible. Hence, let's have as many love-poems as possible... it's good to read about love because as the late John Lennon said, 'all we need is love'.

However, let's make sure that the love poems are, in fact, 'poems' and not some prose split into separate lines to 'look' like poetry. All of us are talented writers (I hope) and am sure we'll be able to sniff out the banal and celebrate the great.

And as a final word, none of us can write like Neruda, Rilke, Mueller, Donne, Shakespeare... but we can all write with our own individual style and create that unique voice, which is our very own and no one else's. If we are able to do that, then, it doesn't matter what anyone says... poetry will be enjoyed and shared.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hey Ashish,
It would be interesting to see samples of your 'love poems' or any poetry you have written,
Keep writing dude..we who shared time and space with you at ISB are proud of you,
Manju
Ashish Gorde said…
As they say, watch this space... but hey there are other poems on this blog that you can check.

You were in ISB, too? Which year did you graduate?

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