The other day, I decided to try my hand at composing a more modern piece of poetry, but the results were dismal:
A Meta-Analysis of Free Verse in Free Verse
or
Ode on Itselfby Michael Hoke
Imagine
how beautiful
this poem could have been
had you but written it
Yourself
I was struck today, however, when I read a review of Billy Collins’ newest book in the NYT [registration may be required]. It turns out that Collins’ book begins with a poem that starts thusly:
from The Trouble with Poetry
by Billy Collins
I wonder how you are going to feel
when you find out
that I wrote this instead of you
I wrote my piece having Billy Collins particularly in mind, though I did not mean it to be an homage or an imitation, strictly speaking. I haven’t read the rest of the Collins poem, but just looking at the first stanza, I like mine better. [Some less than friendly discussion of the NYT review may be found at MetaFilter.]
Also, I tried to compose a pwoermd today:
by Michael Hoke
VISUALEYES
…but it turns out someone beat me to it.
I think I’m giving up my career ambitions in poetry. I’ll stick to law school.