good/bad poetry

a poet on my circle of poets list asked a question about what makes a poem good or bad. here is my opinion:

i have very strong opinions. i verbalize them without hesitation. does this mean
i am right? or my opinion of good/bad poetry is to be heeded. not necessarily.
i think poetry is totally subjective.

a particular university professor essentially said my work sucks. others (the vast majority) don't agree. does the one "educated" opinion outweigh myriad voices over the course of my life, no. i don't think so, unless i let it.

having said that. there are certain qualities to good poetry. syntax, diction,
spelling. if a poet uses a word that is utter and complete jibberish i tend to
think, this is bad poetry. although, gertrude stein used complete gibberish (in
my opinion) as a device. (consider stein's opening of one poem: "sweet sweet sweet sweet tea" i have read this likened to a flamenco dancer. i didn't get that when i read it, but maybe that is just me).

sometimes what is lauded in mags as great poetry, causes me to yawn and scratch
my head. go figure. it rambles on and on about nothing in no particular voice other than that of a fly upon the wall. i was told by the aforementioned professor that i should use language of common speech. sure. you do that if you want, but i will write the poetry that makes my soul sing. that is how i do my poetry. conformity is not necessarily a good thing. sure i can write for that professor but why?

so i don't ever surrender my judgment on what i think is great poetry, neither do i surrender my judgment of bad poetry. i don't care if the person has awards and published works. if i don't like it, to me, it is bad poetry.

i like poetry to have an internal rhythm, an elegant diction and unforced rhyme
or buried rhyme. let's face it, rhyme is dead, so let's bury it! HA! i like clipped lines, each word meaningladen, and not rambling on for days to tell me something in a mediocre fashion. (but then again, what is mediocre?).

center justification is amateurish to me. unless it is clipped and trimmed like a gumdrop hedge in a perfectly manicured garden i struggle with it because the eye has to find the first word, it has to read between the lines in a sense and that diminishes my enjoyment by my glimpsing the next lines while in search of the line i am in. it is akin to playing poker with your cards all splayed across the table. it just doesn't work for me.

i have described mediocrity as lacking the force to drive me through the poem,
to call me to it's conclusion, to keep me captivated.

of course there are some works we buckle down and force ourselves to read (for example, ginsberg's howl is quite a lot, and one can get discouraged with the unfamiliar allusion and sheer breadth of the poem), so my dull-wit some would say could contribute to a lack of driving force. i am ever sharpening my wit then, and returning to works once thought dull and trying them at different seasons of my life (although i wouldn't do this is with just any author only the ones lauded as great whom i think suck).

poetry is wholly subjective. what i like, what i don't like are my opinions alone. some agree, some don't but i don't put too much stock in other people's opinions of my work, i just keep at it, listening to the voice of God and trying to capture something living, something grand. i've a poem about that. perhaps i'll post it someday.

you tell me what good/bad poetry is to you. i am curious. i think we might have some common ground, if nothing else, we'll have an interesting discussion. that poem i mentioned is a performance piece and will undoubtedly be flubbed in this formatting situation, but i'll paste it here unless it is unbearable (to me, the formatting that is).

mistaken identity

i no longer look at the keyboard when i try to log into my email account
when the words invalid password flash on the screen in reprimanding red
my heart pitter patters and i think they finally did it stole my identity they
wanted to be a short hispanic woman who writes poetry that doesn’t sell
and edits books and doesn’t get paid. they wanted to read all the boring
replies to my witty inquries and see for themselves how many rejections
i get in a month. they went in and changed my password and shut me out
of my own email account, how dare they? i wonder as i rekey the password
carefully spelling it out this time, still nothing i'm locked out of my own
boring and unknown life by some hacker by the name of lemonjello who spends
his evenings war dialing to find my computer dutifully answering the phone
sharing myriad secrets with him and his room full of buddies. they are looking
through my pictures and seeing smiling faces i know and love so well.
trying again with concerted effort, b-o-, wait, i can’t tell you because you may
get into my account and lock me out of my own uninteresting life and rifle
through my inbox, reading torrid passages from my hard drive, circulating
rumors of my failed attempts to capture something grand, something living
and commit it to paper. reprimanding red again. oh no, what i feared has
happened and i am locked out of my own uninteresting life and have to fight
with yahoo! to let me back into my near empty box to read my boring emails
from friends and relatives who could not care less about my obvious need to tell
all about my uninteresting life. wiping my sweaty brow i type in, siouxsiepoet tab
b-o-s-*-* enter, and there it is, hello kitty in pink then my inbox. whew. i made it.

ah, there’s nothing interesting there.