I do not like poems. A poem.

I do not like poems. A poem.
by stuart baum


Simply put, I do not like poems.

I do not like their pretentions.
Why not say something directly when you can?
Why talk about cat footprints on a snowy windowsill, when you really mean that beauty is ephemeral?
Why talk about butterflies when you mean little girls or transformations or, again, that beauty is ephemeral?

I do not like their conventions.
Why break a line
In the
Middle
When there is plenty of room
To the right side?

and why use all lower case
or cut wo rds in ha lf
when that bre aks Strunk & White's ru les?

I do not like their punctuations.
Why use dashes to indicate speed–or impatience–or quickness of thought–or
Use a period. After. Each. Word. To show slowness of action. Or thought. When you can simply say "He spoke quickly." Or "He spoke methodically?"

I do not like their inventions.
There are no such word as "borogoves" or "Religeorge," so why make them up when there are already so many thousands of perfectly good words that are so rarely and barely used?


Did I mention that I do not like their conventions?
Why repeat a phrase repeat a phrase or use the same word three three three times in a row when we get the point point point the first time?
Why compare someone to a summer's day or to a tree? Or compare cancer to a rose? When a person is a person, a tree is a tree, and cancer is, well, simply horrible?
Or force those infernal rhymes internal? (As I did so inelegantly in the lead in line to this stanza, which is a fancy poetry word for paragraph.)

And the word poem, itself, is an ugly word.
Ugly to read.
Ugly to say.
Unless you em-pha-size both syl-lable-s by saying, "Poe-em."
Which is like a humble brag for Poe-try, because who does not appreciate the man who bridged stanza and paragraph so well. (And lived and died so poorly.)

I do not like poems.

I especially do not like this one.

And.
I am sure.
You. Agree.