Eponymous

This is the central title from my first collection 'Poetry is Dead'. It discusses my experience of Literature lectures.

Teach me. Preach of Literature
Intricate designs of structure and precision
Introspection in introduction
So harshly forced
By second-rate minds in torturous decline.
That any tiny sentiment to find
Is hunted, chased by these dogs
Trained and slavering
Crudely hidden by the Pseudonym of pupil.

How cruel
Degrade life's work to criteria for A grade
One way to lose the potency of taste
One generation formed so true into the opinion
That poetry is dead.
Not one shall put pen to page
And each tongue remains blank,
Each scrap of silver sold for little change
What a way to waste everything those old poets made.

Academia in pandemic
Bored and doodling over Blake or Byron
Another antithesis to every verse
Malnourished minds so deprived of
Food for thought.
Poetry is dead
and I am bored.

Reviews

[bobc]

A...read through this a couple of times. Kind of like it...likely because I've had similar feelings about academic critique...intellectual exercises and inaccessible.

But I'm just not sure about your ending. I can't connect with 'Poetry is dead/and I am bored.' as your response to the lecturers. I actually thought you intended to say the opposite. ...bobc

[Francis-Gray]

Thank you for the read and response, as always it is highly appreciated! I'm glad you enjoyed it to some degree.

I understand the confusion, the final lines are simply the conclusion I had come to after a single lecture whereas the prior stanzas are aimed at my general concerns of my time in education. I had previously considered expanding on the points but it felt right to end the poem at that point. But I do see how it is slightly vague and is potentially inaccessible to outside readings.

Thanks again!