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Hi @emily-waldorf , I’m thankful we can all continue this conversation, even amidst the strong opinions. I think your idea about the heart and soul of poetry would line up well with John Keats: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (from the last lines of “Ode on a Grecian Urn”).

Now I don’t necessarily disagree with that definition, but it is pretty vague, and when we dig into beauty vs ugliness, there’s a lot of room for subjectivity and change. Take, for example, Van Gogh’s art. A lot of people today absolutely love it, but in his day, it was widely regarded as ugly. In fact, in the recent biopic about him, “At Eternity’s Gate,” someone asks him, “Can’t you see that this is ugly and unpleasant?” So is it ugly or is it beautiful? I think it’s beautiful, but I’m sure there are people out there who still think it’s ugly.

Another example. I once wrote a poem about zombies (I know, super original) but what I did with it was show the zombies taking advantage of the world we’re too busy for (they have potlucks in the parks nobody goes to, their kids play in the yards nobody plays in, they sit on the front porch rocking chairs nobody sits on, etc.). And by taking two unlikely, fairly cliched ideas (zombies and seizing the moment) and combining them, I thought I made something pretty unique and thought provoking that would make readers think about how they may just be the ones acting like zombies with their mind-numbingly routine lives. However, a student in one of my professor friend’s community college classes didn’t think so. She thought the poem was dumb, said it sounded like it was written by a 12 year old, and said poetry should never have zombies in it. Of course my professor friend and I disagreed, but I think that goes to show how subjective the idea of beauty can be sometimes.

As for the essay I wrote a couple of years ago, I don’t think I worded it as a lack of authenticity of voice at the time. It appears I worded it as sounding cheesy, overly sentimental, and afraid to address the world around it, which I would argue often leads to a seeming lack in sounding authentic. Anyway, here’s the link to the essay I wrote on the topic of mediocre contemporary Christian poetry for anyone who would like to read it:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZB_GTt617eg5FqBiSDkeaA4s7Ac8soALHvdZh-yXLQg/edit?usp=drivesdk

And thank you for your compliments as well. Your poem reminds me of Longfellow’s “The Rainy Day.” Thanks the encouragement you share through it and thank you for being willing to share it with us!

@anne-of-lothlorien I think you’ve got it 🙂 Welcome to the world of short Japanese poetry.