The Flight of the Rocketman

Life does not cease to be funny when people die, any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. -- George Bernard Shaw

Worked today. Ended up back in the college I graduated in and also taught for a couple of terms. Strange how completely and utterly different it looks now. So much change. I was taken aback. And the usual reaction that follows, "Is so-and-so place still there? Is so-and-so restaurant still good? What happened to so-and-so building? Everything looks different!" I felt so alien walking around the area considering it was a major part of my life. I really didn't feel like I belonged. But then again, I left La Salle with a lot of bad blood. Certain things unresolved, certain things never said. Honestly, I feel it is better that way.

There was this big poetry reading but I was just so angry. A lot of people think that going up on stage and saying just anything cool, anything that gets a reaction is considered poetry. They say shit and fuck a couple of times and talk about penises and how much they love someone who doesn't love them back is considered poetry. They think that as long as their verses rhyme that it is a poem. Argh! What happened to the objective correlative? What happened to the idea of the metaphor? Thank God for Vim Nadera and Nerissa Carmen Guevarra. Real poets who know about literary language, who do not sacrifice quality for sentiment. They go for the heart reaction, not the gut reaction.

Of course, I must admit, Vim Nadera's poetry tends to lean towards the political and I never liked my art to be overtly political. I like subtlety. I like my art to make people think, I don't like it forcing people to think.

This is going to sound really bitchy, but one guy goes up on stage and asks the audio man to put on the CD that says 'stalker.' As the CD goes on, some sampled and looped beats begin to churn and electronic effects start coming in and the person begins to recite how he follows this girl around. How he knows all her boyfriends and how all the boyfriends have gotten into "accidents." During the 'chorus' part of the song, he starts to exhale deeply and lets out tiny, quiet grunts. Then he continues. All this in a prosaic manner... All this tell-tale stuff of being a stalker. If you want to know about the power of stalking, listen to Sarah McLachlan's song Possession. Now that's poetry. If you heard it, you know that your... Poem? Do we call it that? Your monologue is merely redundant; it is unnecessary. It's been done before. The only difference is the music you played.

Then two people got up and had the gall to say that they are renew-ing an old tradition called Balagtasan. They then begin to read from a piece of paper an argument between two people over the size and power of their penises. Okay... Sure, it was in proper meter and rhyme but it wasn't a real argument anyway. For those unaware, the Balagtasan is an old tradition of debate. Two people come up and then begin an impromptu debate (the topic is given then and there) and they must argue in proper meter and rhyme against each other until the matter is settled by a mediator.

What these two people were doing was... I don't know? Is it a parody? It was just so non-sensical and it wasn't even entertaining. My friend looks at me and says, "I think this is comedy. It's comedy."

And that's what people are going to think of when they hear 'poetry reading.' People are going to think poetry reading is some sort of comedic entertainment. Poetry is supposed to be entertaining, it can even be funny... but most importantly, poetry is suppose to move us; make us think and feel strongly. It is suppose to make us wonder.

And these people want a reaction. They think it is just playing with words; but there are rules, there are objectives. When you know the rules, when you know what has been done before, then you can break the rules but never lose your objective.

Make them wonder. Make them gasp. Make their heart skip a beat. Do not pander. Do not toy with them. Move them and then make them think.

That's what poetry should be. I haven't even tried to submit a poem in months because I know what I should try to achieve and I haven't done that with any of the drafts I've written in the past few... Don't take it too lightly.

Remember: before all this, poetry used to move the world.