Wrote this as a critique before my stroke, I must have been a pretty good tutor, no memories of those times. I have amended it as a poem think it works better wish I could write like this today?

 

THE POETS ESSENTIAL LONELINESS

“I think the artist, feels lonely. 

Perhaps his recourse to art,

in any form, comes from his 

essential loneliness.

                                              William Carlos Williams

You have got to give a poem something of your-

self and a little time and respect before you can 

wear the poem like the scales of Elizabeth Bishop's 

"Fish" or William Stafford's "Dark", to kick it over 

the edge and listen to the wilderness, finding a way 

into a poem so that it expresses a truth, finding 

the poem essential loneliness.

 

I think it’s very respectful how the American 

writers pay homage to their favourite writers 

before they begin to read a word of their own. 

We need to learn from that and give thanks 

to the writers who inspired us. Poetry is like 

the spokes of my wheelchairs spoken word

turning through life at a different 

motion, language.

All words are dis-abled and need the care 

to appear on the page but then it’s time to 

share the poem. Too much emphasis for me 

is put on plagiarism and I think we have 

to learn to trust each other.

Poets aren't marched into a stanza like 

a regimental troop, ok we pay homage 

to the soldier war poets but we are also

breaking away from that regimental con-

formity that corals us into nice neat stanzas.

The road to poetry isn't along the road of war upon 

war, we have got to break free of old regimes 

and follow the beat poets or the poets of the day 

into the new refreshing poems of tomorrow. 

We are being cloned by the past, but we are moving 

forward with a captive mind into what Chezslaw Milosz 

called 'a more spacious form' only with men like him 

are we free of old regimental way's that feed our poetry 

and our education into a dog-eat-dog system.

Only with our darkness and negativity of the past can 

we turn this muck into gold and break the shackles 

of the past and step into the enlightened future that 

awards people without the foot-stomping circus act.

We are not a pack of performing animals we are 

a group of civilised people called humanity without 

the brain-washed divides of war. 

It's time to share things freely, honour and respect 

doesn't come down to how much money you have 

in your pocket. We have to live in a consumerist 

society but don't let greed rule the day, ok we need 

a little to get by but it’s getting out of hand. 

Only when you give, do get your poems back 

in a new fresh-eyed perspective that takes 

onboard the criticism and turns your writing 

into a shared poem of trust.

Good honest writing will always find a way through 

the bullshit metre we can see a lie a mile off. 

Raymond Carver in the book 'fires' says no tricks. 

We’ve got to be able to trust people and just like 

giving and receiving a poem we've got to give 

and receive trust with the magic of truth. 

There are no tricks in writing you can read all the self-

help books you want and steal other writer's thunder 

but that won’t make you into a writer, not until you stop 

kidding yourself. There is only one truth and that's 

your truth, write the poet's essential loneliness 

and that essential loneliness will come back 

and make you less lonely.

                 POETRY IS LIKE SUNSHINE IT'S FREE