Poetry Question

In hon­or of Nation­al Poet­ry Month, the Acad­e­my of Amer­i­can Poets has been send­ing out a poem a day via email to sub­scribers. I’m enjoy­ing them, but one of them just…

Have you ever found the form of a poem to be so weird that it gets into the way of the mean­ing? I’m find­ing that to be the case with “Fer­rum” by M. NourbeSe Philip. I did get the words, but the for­mat was so dis­tract­ing as to make read­ing a chore, rather than a pleasure.

Cyn is Rick's wife, Katie's Mom, and Esther & Oliver's Mémé. She's also a professional geek, avid reader, fledgling coder, enthusiastic gamer (TTRPGs), occasional singer, and devoted stitcher.
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3 thoughts on “Poetry Question

  1. Pre­ten­tious. Per­haps, good poet­ry, but done in a pre­ten­tious and inex­cus­ably egre­gious manner.

  2. The for­mat­ting strikes me as a case of con­fus­ing obscu­ri­ty with depth. How­ev­er, I should point out that I’m tired enough to not be able to remem­ber my login for this site, so I may not be being suf­fi­cient­ly char­i­ta­ble to the poem. 

    Weird form should, I think, con­vey some kind of mean­ing. It can work, but it can also just be a barrier.

  3. Weird form can be mean­ing­ful if it serves a pur­pose or is rep­re­sen­ta­tive… this poem is just annoying 🙁

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