I got an email the other day from someone at Graceland that is putting together a book of poems from Graceland poets. I’m not sure i fit into that category, but i did submit one. (doesn’t that sound like i have a lot to chose from?)
the book will come out the end of next year. I’m kind of hoping that it’s a high class book and I get rejected. If that’s the case my poem will never be read. Unless I post it on the bbb and someone reads it. that’s what I’ll do:
Derivative
By b gunner johnson
I’m writing this poem with the fear of it being labeled derivative, or worse; me, Of who or what – I don’t know. Of Dickenson, or Poe, or Barr or Wallace Is this a fear that lurks in the hearts of all of us? Of my father, the poet – the buffalo by the sea? Of the unknown reader – of someone who looks through me?
Will the reader’s eyes dance among the words? Or stomp with joy their pretentious flow? Can these words rise – can they inspire? can they evoke a heroic heart? Can they dance at the wedding of Harmonia and Cadmus? Can they bring out the best in us? Can they reflect greatness, can they stop a war? Encourage recycling, eliminate poverty and racism? Can they forge plowshares out of spears? Can they bring a smile to a friend or enemy? Are they the best that’s inside of me? Or are they derivative and meaningless?
(Is it derivative in line 12 to allude to the Greeks or is it better to mention Ginsburg and the Beats?)
Is meter and rhyme important today? Is it derivative to balance what I say? Is a poem about a poem about a poem or me? Is it derivative of the past, can it set my soul free?
Is being labeled derivative the same thing as being derivative?
I’m finishing this poem with a fear a fear of it not being labeled derivative. Of having wasted my GU education. What if it’s not a poem, but the ramblings of an unstable ego? What if it’s revealing something about me, something I don’t know? Is it nothing like Bishop or G1 or Eliot or Frost? What if it reflects a part of my soul that is lost? Am I a fool to answer the nine muses’ call? Is it better to have rhymed and lost than to not have rhymed at all?
(I hope you noticed another reference to the Greeks in line 34.) October 2008.