The Craft of Poetry

One of the few journals that has accepted my work has recently gotten a new editor. This editor has stated that there will be less attention to 'free association' writing, and more to the 'craft of poetry'.
Phew!
I know what that means.
It means he's not likely to publish me in future issues.
Not that my poems are 'free assocation'. They aren't. I work reasonably hard on each and every one, giving great thought to the nuance and meaning behind each and every word and image, after the initial inspiration that burst forth. There is a clear form, even if it is not an established form.
There is an addiction to phony formalism in poetry that sickens the soul. An adhesion to a formalism that does nothing to further meaning or expression.
It's interesting that I reject the standard forms of poetry, because I don't reject the standard forms of song - the 12 bar blues, the 32 bar song form, the 3 chord country songs. It seems like a contradiction, but it isn't really - I expect more from poetry, or something different. Songs can almost be poetry, but mostly they are just songs. I don't mean that in a demeaning way, because they are tied to music - the greatest art of all. Poetry is something else however, and if it is forced into the confines of an accepted form that will only be recognized as such if coming from a practitioner of the 'craft of poetry' it is as dead as snakeshit.

Is there craft in this poem?

Art

One must believe that there are modes of expression

that pull back the curtains

that cover the core of life.


I think so.