What is it that makes me instantly turn away from poets? I mean, honestly, what did they ever do to me. They're just people, trying to express their inner hopes, desires, and dreams. What is it that make me believe that they're all crack addicts, trying desperately to make a buck.

I think that the only poetry that I truly enjoy is the work of those around me. For some reason, description and illusion are much more powerful when I can invision the mind that made them. It might have something to do with my nature. I am more interested in the mind that created the atomic bomb than I am with the bomb itself. Poetry itself doesn't really effect me unless I know who's writing it and why.

I guess that's why I always have trouble with poems that have no real purpose and are simply written for their "literary value." The most notorious poem that upset me was the poem by William Carlos Williams, "So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens." What the hell does that mean? This guy's not even trying to be intelligible. You could argue that it's not supposed to make sense, but honestly, what's writing that you can't read?

The poems that talk about some personal emotion that I can think about interest me, but the "Red Wheelbarrow" makes me wonder if Williams was just high and wrote down the first thing that popped in his head.

When it comes to writing, I like the author to attempt making sense. In poetry I think that it's sometimes a goal not to be understood. That way, nobody can tell you if it's crap. But of course, true art can't be rated, can it?

Jordan