What is “Bad Poetry”?

Perspective. Preference. Taste. Resonance.

These are very personal things. A reader’s experience of poetry and their reaction to it is also deeply personal. What resonates with one reader may not resonate with another. So, who is to say if a poem is bad or not?

If someone were to read an extremely simplistic presentation of words, a veritable “thought for the day” style of poem that, in two lines, does no more than make a person feel…perhaps deeply…perhaps shines a light into a dark corner of their mind…has that piece of writing not achieved something significant?

Must we all be devotees of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Frost? If the rise of the Instapoets has achieved one positive thing it has been to touch the “common person” with the written word in a way that – in the modern age – the classic poets have largely failed to do.

I’d like to think we could all drop our literary elitism at the door for long enough to acknowledge the value in that.

Bad poetry is not bad if it brings a little light to the darkness of someone else’s world.

Michael Cunliffe

Author: thoughtsofodvito

Michael Cunliffe sprouted from an alien seed pod rumoured to have been scattered in the Scottish Highlands by the sons of the notorious Ragnar Lothbrok around a thousand years ago. At an unknown point in time he found himself transported by some little-known form of alien technology to the strange lands of Far North Queensland, Australia. Later in life he became a hippie, grew his hair long, drank schooners of ice-cold beer and listened to articulate neo-Grunge Rock artists. Now he enjoys peace and quiet. And he writes poetry. View all posts by thoughtsofodvito