Masturbating and Calling It Poetry (Potentially Offensive Opinions Here, but For Steemit's Greater Good, I'm Sticking With Honesty)

The last couple days, I’ve felt a bit like an instrument. The kind of instrument in an orchestra, that helps to create something awesome. I recently joined @thewritersblock Discord channel, because I realized I have been a bit of a solo entity on Steemit, not doing much to help it flourish other than creating quality content (or at least, in my opinion, it is quality, haha. I put a lot of myself into my posts). Because I have a fairly alpha personality, and many leadership qualities—one of the main ones being that I am great at coming up with awesome ideas—it seemed like I should be a more active member of the community of writers here. Also, because I believe in the entire cause of cryptocurrency at large, but specifically the platform here at Steemit that aims to create a new kind of social media by rewarding actual quality posts, I wanted to do something more engaging for others, besides writing personal type narrative posts that document my life.

It all started not too long ago when I entered a Steemit poetry contest, the only one that exists that I’ve found. Now, here is where I might lose some people, though I don’t want to, but I am afraid that what I am about to say might be offensive in its honesty. The poems that won that contest and seem to always win their contests lack in many things I consider to make a quality poem, providing the kind of emotional/intellectual impact that led me to fall in love with poetry in the first place. I know that I am not the god of poetry at allll, and even having a graduate degree in poetry doesn’t make me above anyone else by any means. However, my years of study came from my love of poetry as an art form, because as everyone probably knows, no one goes studying poetry to get rich, right? And that study left me with a wealth of knowledge about poetry and all types of writing from an insider’s perspective. What I know is this. Cliches are not impactful because they aren’t interesting for the simple fact of being overused. The element of surprise is one of the primary reasons that poetry strikes such a deep chord inside of us, and using tired language generally does not strike many chords. Also, if it is meant to be a meaningful rather than strictly entertaining poem in the way a film like The Hangover, for example, and the deeper current is either missing or not well-executed, the poem is not likely to be very good.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know that all poetry is not meant to be serious, not meant to be deep, but if the only poetry contest on Steemit is rewarding poetry that lacks depth, that often uses cliches, that incorrectly promotes the idea that poetry is mainly about rhyming rather than communicating something special (for the record, contemporary poetry in general does not rhyme, and the reason is that free verse is awesomely effective without being at all distracting as rhyming may often be), it feels like a gross misrepresentation of what poetry is, and also gives Steemit a poor reputation as far as poetry is concerned. What I mean by that last statement is that I have tried to get other serious poets I know in the mix here at Steemit, and their response was that it seemed that most of what was being noticed/upvoted was either teen-angst poetry (which is fine, if other more sophisticated poetry is also being rewarded) or otherwise silly poetry (not necessarily bad outright, but nothing truly engaging and emotive). Why join a community is in this way disrespecting the art, is what I heard from my friends. It would be like someone posting a really shitty photograph, poor composition, poor lighting, uninteresting concept, etc, and having it hugely upvoted, while magnificent photography that deserves to be in museums is left by the wayside, barely acknowledged. To be clear, I bet that also happens, but for some reason, it seems that it is so much harder for people to tell when poetry is quality or not, especially based on what I see posted and upvoted here.

Also, I know that some writing is just meant to be cathartic, to get feelings out, and I think that is great. That does not mean that it's good though. It doesn't have to be good. That's totally ok. Making art for reasons of emotional sanity is also one of art's greatest gifts.

Still, again, I guess I might be sounding elitist, but I really am trying not to. The thing is, there is a real difference between poetry that is quality and poetry that is not, and there are reasons why one is good and one is bad, and it isn’t all just a matter of opinion. I could go into the details of this and talk about imagery, deep imagery, sensory details, narrative rhythm, sonics, diction, etc etc blah blah blah, and if you would like to hear about that, please tell me and I will write a whole post about it, but I mostly here just want to get to the point. Sure, certain people have certain tastes. However, if the overall verdict here on Steemit that I have seen is that cliche and silly is the taste of choice as far as poetry is concerned, that makes me feel more than a bit sad. Sad because that means the art of poetry is lost on this platform.

And that is why I went over to @thewritersblock Discord channel and got engaged with the people who run things over there. And in the matter of a day, we managed to organize a new poetry contest (!!!!) which will be rewarding the kind of poetry I am referring to as meaningful, emotive, interesting, deep, philosophical, truly honest, pushing boundaries, making people think, not just masturbating with overused words and phrases and my heart aches for you from the depths of the deepest ocean and finding the most obvious rhymes ever and calling it art.

Before I go further, don’t let me make you think that these fairly strong opinions I am spouting off here are the opinions of anyone at @thewritersblock. These are my personal opinions which inspired me to do something about it. Starting a poetry contest with that group, I imagine for them has much less to do with any disappointment in the current poetry community here and more to do with positive feelings about creating an even more engaging writing community on the Steemit platform. The people involved so far in the new poetry contest which should be launched super super super soon are wonderful and generous and smart and funny and I bet they even want to see some silly poetry in the mix of all this poetic seriousness I’m trying to cultivate. I am so excited that they helped me bring this idea to life and so quickly, and this is one of the most beautiful things about Steemit in general. It is a real community of people who care at its heart, and that is why it has been so successful, I imagine.

I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS POETRY CONTEST. I AM SO EXCITED TO BE A PART OF IT (I am one of the judges, so I will be reading lots of Steemian poetry, please come by and enter BECAUSE IT'S READY! Even if you aren’t a poet, maybe you are and just don’t know it yet!). LIFE THIS WEEK HAS BEEN BREATHTAKING, TRULY. Sorry about the caps. I’m done with that now :)

I'm going to say it again because of my feelings of elation!

The Writers' Block Inaugural Poetry Contest, which will be held weekly, is now available for entering.

Check it out HERE :)))))

Now before I end, I just want to leave you with two poems which I absolutely love. One is by someone who writes some of the most insightful words I’ve ever read, and the other is just a fabulous poet who really gets how to write a quality poem with a silly tone. This is just to show you that I am not actually biased against any type of poetry. I love anything that is written well and makes me think or feel or both, even silly. Also, the best writers are always readers. So read lots of poetry and I personally ensure to you that you will grow as a writer (and really, as a person too, because awesome poetry holds tons and tons of wisdom).

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Muck-Clump by Mark Halliday (which I can't find anywhere on the internet, so I just took pics from my physical book for you.