Fear: everything I write
In this borrowed book
Will be bad.
Escape: this poem
will tell a reader
that I don’t think I’m ‘all that,’
Really, I know that
my poetry isn’t written
any betterly than the average reader
Anyone who can pick up a book
Can write this poem,
and their version probably wouldn’t be half as bad.
What makes most poems bad
is the sense that
their poet
thought he was writing
a profound passage, fit for a book
to be passed on to generations of readers.
Fact: most readers
probably wouldn’t think that was bad.
But critical me won’t read a poetry book
That
is decorated with superficial praise from unqualified writers.
I’ll take an amateur poem
Any day. You have to think your poem
Is at least okay to let someone read
it, write? right? Or are other writers
braver? Or maybe they don’t care if they get a bad
reaction. They think that
Their book's
existence justifies the book's
publication. Maybe my poems
will be posthumously collected - that
dream of staying virgin, unjudged, unread,
until your death forces you into modestly sharing - don’t speak badly
of the dead writers.
That, dear reader,
is my hedging poem - an apology for this book
of bad writing.