New Sincerity

[rayheinrich]

Sure, the poem's subjectively (mine own, of course) awful.

What's missing is the concept of 'audience'.

By now (in the largely unknown history of all things)
there are a bizillion of the very same damn things
running around loose. In our life, we have the potential
(never realized) of encountering a bizillionth of them.
The possibility of any one of these things seeming truly
original to any one person is a damn near absolute
certainty. If we increase the person-number to a million,
it's a bit less of a damn near absolute certainty.
(The poetry of Hallmark is generally understood to be
quite good.)

'Originality' depends on who sees it. Since each one of
us has seen almost nothing, almost everything seems
original.

If you write a poem that two (much less three) PigPenerasts
describe as fetidly reeking of moldy corn, you can be confident
that the possibility of it not fetidly reeking of moldy corn
is about one in a bizillion. And conversely, you can be
confident that there are a bizillion (minus a few ten-thousand
or so) that think it's the most original dingus they've
ever happened across.

In summation: By your great fortune, the gods of poetry
have led you here. If this is the audience you want,
then stay and learn to be original to them. If not, the
gods won't punish you, the punishment will be your own.