Am I a POET?

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calliope

CALLIOPE: the muse who presides over eloquence and epic poetry; 

Am I a POET?

I’m a poet!  Who are you?
Are you a Poet, too?
 
Do I write poetry?
I say I do;
But is it poetry I write?
What say you?

 Was it by sweated brow,
By haunted vision,
I overcame my indecision?

 Did Damascene insights,
Or inspiration’s muse,
Give birth
To my poetic views?

 This begs the question
Long undecided:
Am I a Poet,
Famed or derided?

 

I wrote a poem the other day,
or was it just words
in a different order,
pretending
to have their own reason for existence?

Such feelings are
The price I pay;
when I say
I am a poet
am I honest,
do I really know it?

Addressing myself
I’ve learned to ask,
and every time I pen a poem
I set myself this very task . . .

Can I really
hand on heart
claim to be
a tiny part
of all those great
illustrious sages
who’ve coloured
life’s dramatic pages
in epics, sonnets,
ballads and odes,
presenting prose
in verbal codes,
fantasising fecund dreams,
massaging thoughts and wild ideas,
composing their Byronic idylls,
word music of the spheres?

The net result,
always the same,
I know I’ll have
no claim to fame.

Such images,
they prove to me,
that shallow thoughts,
marshmallow words,
can never in a thousand years,
however many sweated tears,
make me one of their poetic peers.

 

 

Poets Corner

 

 

27 thoughts on “Am I a POET?”

  3. I love the irony, Roland, of poetic doubt expressed in such poetry. Though you and I will never be poetic peers to the greats, nevertheless you bring enjoyment and interest to others through your verse, your words (and for me personally your painting) and that makes you a poet.

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    • You are kind to say so, Nigel. (another of your response I have just found. Sorry if it’s my fault for missing them at the time, but it didn’t reach me in the expected fashion.)

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  5. Yes Roland, you do write poetry! How do I know? I experience it as poetry, love it like a poem….
    Words put together in a different way. I do love your witty way about it.
    Altogether you express the doubt we all feel and probably many of those you now call great also felt. I have expressed it in two of my little posts and I certainly relate very much to your doubting Thomas thoughts.

    Call it what we want. If those who read like it and call it poetry, who are we to argue.

    So, you are a poet.
    miriam

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Thought provoking and excellent POETRY Roland by a very talented and esteemed POET. I agree with Miriam, if the writer and reader think it is a poem, then it is a poem. It then up to the reader to place their value judgement as to the quality of it. An argument that will continue as long as the pen touches paper.

    Liked by 2 people

  8. “Words [and the world] in a different order, pretending to have their own reason for existence” … you have stumbled on the essence of poetry, Roland. You could build an artistic movement around this one line.

    Liked by 1 person

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