SHORT POEMS – WHAT THEY CAN TEACH US ABOUT POETRY?

The question "what is poetry?" is one of the most manipulative topics for an essay you can find. It is basically an invitation to retreat and lean back to plodding going-nowhere phrases. Of course - you can go deep into the theory - but that will be Greek for anyone uninvolved. Even those who genuinely like poetry and know thing or two about it usually give up on those texts. It is almost dancing about architecture. There is always something sorely missed. It's all too much. But at the very least there is largely agreed upon description of poetry "form of text that employs rhythmic and aesthetic qualities of the language to evoke certain kind of intellectual and emotional reaction".

Poetry is a tricky subject to talk about - basically it is everything and nothing in particular. It is not quite tangent and rather transparent and there is always too much to say that will miss the mark completely and will only bring somewhat middling albeit inspiring confusion to the table. It also can be found in the Morrissey songs, but only if you make it so. This is the problem with poetry. It can be made out of everything. Anyway...

If you really want to understand what makes poetry work - you need to turn away from Rhyme of Ancient Mariner or Wasteland and look on the shortest poems. It is where all you can see how the things work.

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Let's start from the classics.

Everyone knows about allegedly Hemingway's six-word story "For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn." There is a lot of story left to the reader's imaginations. Whole narrative can be built around it but it is the lack of thereof in the text that makes it tick. If poetry is about leaving only most important things intact, then six-word story is perfect example.

But it doesn't limit itself to such definitions. Let's take for example Ezra Pound's "In the station of the Metro". It is an epitome of modernist poetry - it is unlike anything before it. It is not a haiku; it is not a exactly regular free verse. It is something completely different and yet extremely compelling:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.

We can see steady gradation of the images in the poem - they come one by one and in the end combine into one indelible something. It evokes the strange feeling it describes. The same technique was used by Langston Hughes in his poem titled "Suicide's Note". It is a contemplation build upon the reversal of the narrative. We have a story told through apology for one's actions:

The calm,

Cool face of the river

Asked me for a kiss.

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Scarcity of words can also represent some kind of a warped narrative. Kenneth Patchen's "The Murder of Two Men by a Young Kid Wearing Lemon-colored Gloves" is a fine example of a poem that tells the story by moving in one hundred and eighty degrees and then another three hundred and sixty degrees and then one more time one hundred and eighty. The result is mesmerizing in it economy of expressions:
Wait. 
                                                 Wait. 
                                        Wait. 
                        Wait. Wait. 
                Wait. 
                                                          Wait.   
                                  W a i t. 
                        Wait. 
                                              Wait. 
                                                               Wait.   
                                    Wait. 
                                                          Wait. 
                   Wait. 
                                    NOW.

The way words are situated on the page tell the entire story. It goes back and forth until the moment comes. After which the title happens.

Obviously minimization of language can evoke comedic effect. Ogden Nash was the master of expressing his thoughts on a certain subject in a short and snappy and caustic combination of words. Such are usually just what they are - a neat couple of words that can make you think "yeah, sure". Here's a poem titled "Reflection on a Wicked World":

Purity

Is obscurity.

Or this, titled "The Baby":

A Bit of talcum

is always walcum

Or maybe this, titled "Further Reflections on Parsley":

Parsley
Is gharsley.

In these poem Nash is mocking both the given topic and conventions of aphorisms and poetry as something "really very special. It is a "snarky smirk in the thick of it full of itself" (don't google it, I've made it up). The same can be said about "Ode to a Goldfish" by Giles Brandeth.

O

Wet

Pet!

It is "nothing to talk about" kind of poem. Everything is laid down and it is beyond discussion. The different kind of "thought-eliminating" poetry is "Artichoke" by Joseph Hutchison:

O heart weighed down by so many wings

It is clearly a beginning of a regular poem but it is cutoff after one line suggesting that the subject is either "beyond what words can comprehend" or "not worthy wasting words". But this is nothing in comparison with this one. "Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes" also known as "Fleas" by Strickland Gillilan is often considered to be the shortest poem in English. It simply states the fact and nothing more. It causes the full stop in mind. See for yourself:

Adam

Had 'em.

But it doesn't have to be such cruel. It can be a simple play with the way words are written. It is the main point of the poem by George Swede:

M SS NG

Thiiief!

And also this neat little poem by Adam Gamble:
                                                   balloon!

          



Hold on tight to your

And if you thought things can't go less - here's the ultimate. Lo and behold! Aram Saroyan's LIGHGHT.

LIGHGHT

That's it. It's over. Why are you still here? Go home, it's over. You wait for some more? No, there's none. It's over.

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P.S.: OK! Here's one more. Crag Hill's epic poem on lack of confidence:

cant'

P.P.S.: All right, all right, here's one more. But this is final: Aaron Belz "Nought"

t