Can Poetry Be Bad?

Well, of course, I will be brave enough to take on poetry.  What makes poetry really good and how do we tell the difference?  I mean let's say we have Shakespeare and some Hobo on the street and they both write poems, wouldn't each one be brilliant in there own right.  Poetry I think is just a way for people to simply express themselves or an idea or something they have just been thinking about.  Some are in a scheme others are just in random lines.  Poetry is great to someone so there is no such thing is bad poetry.  Or is there?

Comments

[Brett N]

I think that there is such a thing as bad poetry. For example, when I had to write poetry for class in elementary school. That was bad poetry. I am not going to attempt to say what makes a poem bad, but there is something that just makes some poems bad and not worth reading. The problem I have though is that some people judge poetry by how many metaphors and hidden meanings a poetry has. I think that those things contribute to make a poem great, but a very simple poem describing something without any hidden meaning or references can be great also. I do not attempt to claim whether some poetry is bad or not, but I know it is out there.

[Kirsten H.]

Yeah, when I read this post my mind went directly to poems everyone had to write about prairies in fourth grade. We got a booklet with all of our poems in it, so I went to go find it. I was going to write mine on here as an example of bad poetry, but I've had a change of heart.

The point is there is defiantly bad poetry out there and it's not all written by fourth graders. I think that poetry that is forced is generally not all that great. It has to come from somewhere-- whether inspiration from a blooming flower or just genuine thoughts, good poetry has to come from some desire the writer has to express an idea. I feel like if the writer doesn't have any kind of goal in mind, the reader won’t get much from the poem.

[Shannon M]

I don't think poetry is necessarily meant to be bad OR good...

I think poetry is, and should be a way for people to express themselves, like writing in a journal or diary. To judge other peoples expressions or feelings is wrong, expecially when they are written down.

[Adrian L.]

Of course poetry can be bad, just like any form of media can be bad. But poetry is so hard to understand sometimes that it's hard to tell whether it's good or bad. Probably as much good poetry is considered bad as bad poetry is considered good, just because of the abstractness of many poems. Also, people may take different poems different ways, changing the value of the poem to them.

[Theresa Y.]

There definitly can be bad poetry. It depends, though, on how you define good poetry. Good poetry, like we learned in class, should achieve a number of different things. Good poetry is defined by how effectively it gets across its message, or how beautifully it is written. By that, I mean the extent to which it causes an emotional response or connection in us. That I think should be the definition used in defining what is good poetry, and what is bad poetry. Yes, all poems will elicit different responses in different people, but some poetry almost universally creates such a moving feeling whereas other poetry is almost universally felt as dull, cliche, or just plain stupid. So, there definitely can be good and bad poetry, by the response that most people get from it.

[Theresa Y.]

There definitly can be bad poetry. It depends, though, on how you define good poetry. Good poetry, like we learned in class, should achieve a number of different things. Good poetry is defined by how effectively it gets across its message, or how beautifully it is written. By that, I mean the extent to which it causes an emotional response or connection in us. That I think should be the definition used in defining what is good poetry, and what is bad poetry. Yes, all poems will elicit different responses in different people, but some poetry almost universally creates such a moving feeling whereas other poetry is almost universally felt as dull, cliche, or just plain stupid. So, there definitely can be good and bad poetry, by the response that most people get from it.

[Dr. Felony]

Her head traveled down the bike path
that was my chest

Until she reached the tree
that was my stump

I knew I would not last much longer.

***
I think this answers the question

[Kaplan]

I think a better question is, "Can Poetry Be?"