My poems, these days, are changing. Suddenly, without knowing, what has happened, I find myself writing short simple lyrics and miniatures. And I am breaking the rules.. I write about "beauty" for instance, about "loveliness" about souls and spirit. What is it?...this sudden, or perhaps not so sudden pull away from narrative, away from what I call my "flip contemporary voice" to a quieter one? And will this be "death" to any chance of publication?
I think perhaps the change comes for several reasons:
1. I am getting old and feel the need to pull in, simplify, quiet down.
2. The world has become too noisy with traffic, guns, newscasters, and the overwhelming glut of humanity treading through its streets. And one needs to retreat a bit simply to retain sanity
3. I wonder if it's "in the air" this backlash against post-modernism? Is irony falling out of favor? Are we tired from the absence of beauty and spirit in our poems? Because I have friends who've reported the same or similar changes in their new work.
Or maybe I am simply out on one of the many limbs of poetry....not a new one at all; only new to me?
8 months ago
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