
A good poem or poet
is like a good cigar or a
good whiskey. Everyone
Has their own preferences.
~ R.M. Engelhardt ©2023
Poet Writer Albany NY
A good poem or poet
is like a good cigar or a
good whiskey. Everyone
Has their own preferences.
~ R.M. Engelhardt ©2023
So apparently this article has been moving around a bit in Facebook groups. The writer is not the first to coin the term ” Poetry is Dead” or for that matter the poetic viewpoint that T.S. Elliot was the game changer. What is your idealism or belief? This is not so much a critique as merely a viewpoint ( *please read first). To me, as a poet his viewpoint is interesting but what he has seriously forgotten is that Elliot wrote Wasteland in a drastically changed world only a few short years after WW1. Hence why the poem & title “The Wasteland”
I see Elliot’s poems as the new siren, the almost near dead, broken muse attempting to somehow comprehend a vast amount of death & destruction in a new world trying to recover 100 years ago. This was the very beginning of our times. A fearful world which now after 2 world wars and the fear of possible nuclear war which we were born into. The old world of our humanity & our full relationship to the natural world disappeared in the fire. The constant is again the word ” Fear” which we still live with in our subconscious every single day. So it is of little imagining as to why we are poets of politics & protest, dark, brooding rebellion and of end times. Eliot was just the first victim grappling with this destitute reaction to a nightmare made reality and its horrors.
Simply put? The event of World War, destruction & the death of thousands was merely a razorblade cutting into the poet’s soul and the realization that we would all never be whole or the same ever again.
We are still broken.
We just don’t realize it.
~ R.M. Engelhardt
New Poem From We Rise Like Smoke Poems Psalms Incantations Published by DeadMansPressInk Now Available on Amazon
THE STARS IN NIGHT IN FLIGHT
The stars in night in flight
The migration of the birds in
Flight revolutions of chaos around the
Circumference of the sun
(Like shadows)
But the gods haven’t noticed
As the starless night remains
Our dark evolution vast & sad
Beautiful & tragic
But Jesus doesn’t want to be found
& Buddha just doesn’t care
And Gaia just watches
Helpless
The Stars In Flight At Night
The migration of the birds in
Flight revolutions of chaos around the
Circumference of the sun
Humanity has risen
Not risen
Doesn’t notice
Doesn’t realize
Doesn’t care
Denies the stars
Denies itself
The stars migration
Love’s failure to love
One another
Each other
(Ourselves)
Death &
Beauty
Always the
Story of
Ourselves
Never
Ending
~ R.M. Engelhardt
Life, poetry in general is about experience and language. How you present this rare magic is key. The writer or poet is not an expert. It’s how you present it. In other words? Each God is a God and each man is a man or for that matter woman. A line is a line and beauty is beauty. Tragedy is tragedy and you own both. There are no workshops or religions that can ever teach you to be you or how to live or write. You must find these words by yourself and then put them down on paper or find your own way, your own path in the dark.
~ R.M. Engelhardt
Happy Birthday, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Born 4 August 1792, died 8 July 1822:
Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. He was a member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron; Leigh Hunt; Thomas Love Peacock; and his wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.