Every Poem Should Have ….

/ johnlmalone

Every poem should have a welcome mat.

to let the reader know their little house of words

is warm and inviting; is well kept,

a door bell that chimes rich and melodious,

perhaps a garden gnome suggesting fun, quirkiness

and a bird bath out the front, full to the brim,

where yellow-shouldered honey eaters frolic,

to suggest plenty

40 thoughts on “Every Poem Should Have ….”

  1. I very much like this little poem, John, and can imagine a poetry workshop based around this poem’s title … looking at the things every poem should have, can cover a great many things, and different poets, different days, seasons, times, could have different responses.

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  9. A lovely atmospheric poem, John. I never thought about poems being hospitable. It’s an interesting metaphor. I honestly don’t know how to apply it to my own poems though. I do get easily intimidated by poems with lots of assumed knowledge. As you have gathered I am not particularly academic. I just love words. But I just figure I am the wrong audience (at the wrong front door). I am the same with other kinds of art. I think it’s a kind of laziness. As for gnomes, my kids are musical, and for several days I have been trying to figure out a good joke around the idea of metrognomes. 🙂. But I haven’t quite got there.

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  11. John… I should probably let this go but I need to know what you think. I deleted my long poem that you read this morning from my blog … not only because of your comment about it being polemical but because it had such a lack-luster reception generally. But on thinking about it, that Paul Kelly song you recommended was, in my opinion, extremely polemical. Don’t you agree?

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  12. I’m glad you wrote back, Worms. Yes, that Paul Kelly song is certainly polemical so my stance must confuse you; on thinking about it, it confuses me too. I don’t fully understand why in some works it grates, while in others it doesn’t. I should be more consistent and I will try to be, And another thing, I don’t understand is why the reception to your poem was so egregiously lackluster while the reception of ‘The River’ was off the chart — 72 comments !!! That’s the most I received too for my silly little poem ‘On the Nose’.yet they were both political. I don’t understand that at all, Worms. Can you suggest any reason??

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  13. What day did you post “on the nose”? Perhaps it’s just timing. Or (in my case) perhaps long poems are intimidating to read so people just politely “like” and don’t try and wade through it all. This age of texting and media bombardment is said to be ruining our concentration spans. I can blame many things for alterations in my concentration spans but perhaps that’s one of them. Or maybe there is a general fear of getting involved in political commentary.

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  14. I think the latter. Worms. To be honest, it bothered me all afternoon that we were getting into an argument neither of us wanted. I did not want to ‘argue’ any more about it but at the same time I didn’t want to offend you by being silent. All very tricky. However, ‘The River’ was just as long and political and got 72 comments. I just don’t get it why some posts ‘take off’ while others languish. ‘On the Nose’ was posted on March 4, 2021 —

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    • Oh I am sorry you thought you had offended. It certainly bothered me – the term polemic. But I don’t think I was offended. It certainly made me think about the poem in a different way. I feel it’s important to speak out about what I see as poor governing. But perhaps a blog is the wrong forum. There aren’t a lot of forums for poetry though.

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