What Poetry Is - Part 4

They don't exactly look like their poetry!
Stephen Dobyns on the left,

 and Laura Mullen on the right 
(www.lauramullen.biz/index.htm) 

So, in the past few days, I've looked at two books that randomly caught my attention. The books are at ends of the poetry spectrum. Neither offers exactly what you'd expect from a poem. Both take some amount of work to decipher or hold onto.

Is this poetry? Sure.

Is this poetry you or I like? Well, it depends. There are things to admire in both books, but sometimes I just want a kick-in-the-stomach sort of poem, something that makes me feel an immediate response. Something I can follow and fully get on my first reading. Sometimes I don't want to float and I don't want to be pinged around. Other times, I don't mind doing the work of coming into the poem slowly, of feeling excluded, and then - slowly, included, in what it's trying to tell me.

... Or the work of being pulled around on a leash. Of being told something, but only getting it - really - at the end of the walk.

What do YOU think? What kinds of poems do you like?

Next post - a wrap up and some quotes
Previous post - Laura Mullen's Dark Archive