DR. DAVID B. AXELROD 

SUFFOLK COUNTY POET LAUREATE    

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WHAT I LIKE IN A POEM

by David B. Axelrod

         There is no accounting for taste! Certainly there are so many styles of poetry that we have to allow some poems are well written but simply not "our taste." For my part, I write a certain way and thus, am likely to enjoy poems written that way. However, as a poetry lover, not to mention a poetry teacher, I would never impose my taste on someone. I try to appreciate all styles of poetry, admiring a well-crafted poem even if it isn't the way I would write. As a teacher, in workshops I try to help a poet make his or her poem the best in the style the poet has chosen!

        That said, however, the test I most often apply to poems is whether I can believe them. There are poems written because someone said "I am a poet." There are poems written because someone needed to write a poem. I go with the latter. A poem that is written for poetry's sake at best can appeal to poets. It's like trading baseball cards. An objective observer is likely to question "How could you spend hundreds of dollars for that little piece of cardboard?" Only people really into something can appreciate its fine points. Most folks, however, are no more likely to appreciate the value of a piece of cardboard imprinted with baseball data than they are to like poetry written for poetry's sake!

            A poem written because it needs to be said, however, has a more universal appeal. It is a starting place for credibility and with that, empathy. Unless I believe the poem, how can I think it is real or good? I'm not trading baseball cards here; I'm communicating. One person's path is crossing another's.  There is a confluence of energy. The way they use the language merges in the poem. The test or even the trick is to be able to transfer experiences from one to the other. That is why all the poetic formalism (writing poetry in set forms), even when exercised with the greatest precision and skill, as often still feels like just a "drill"  to me. It may show mastery of form, dexterity and even great invention of language, but ultimately, it is only that, form.

            Without "content," a poem is just an exercise, a drill, words marching in step. Art is not just artifice, though as often that's all we are offered. When a poem says, "Here is how I have survived," when it offers a life being lived, then there is a chance for excellence. The only chance we have beyond our own survival is that transfer of some energy, some life-force from ourselves to another. It happens so embarrassingly clearly in birth. It happens so sweetly and simply in the caress of a loving hand. It can happen sometimes in a poem.

            The gift of language, the freshness of vision, the whole history of everything previously written and read can come together in a few lines of poetry and in that way, one existence energizes another. The effect is quite remarkable--it's the antidote for so many ills. All the bad intentions, the toxins, the wounds that have been inflicted are addressed in those few seconds as the poem is read and the good is transferred. How remarkable we humans are that we can do this with mere words. All the fancy technology aside, just a few odd letters, sounds strung together and one life has helped another along. For those who might now be saying "Too mystical. Too diffuse," what would you rather I say makes a good poem? Shall we now pick up our plumes and just rhyme? Very well then...

While it is my job to help you write your own best work, clearly I do like some styles better than others. To the left of this page there is a link to my own poems, which are, after all, what I like!

Here's a link to my other web pages where I give more essays and advice to poets:

http://www.poetrydoctor.org/tips.htm