WINSTON-SALEM, NC—This past weekend, writers of poetry from all over the country convened with the intention of forming a national poets organization, with the proposed purpose of promoting the writing of poetry by holding contests, symposia, and perhaps publishing a quarterly journal. About 350 people of all ages and backgrounds attended.
To open the conference, several noted poets gave talks about poetry, with topics including how to get published, where to find inspiration, and how to make a living writing poetry (for greeting cards, popular songs, etc.). Already on the second day of the conference, however, the air was filled with tension, and it appeared that partisan cliques were forming.
It all came to a head when the committee appointed to draft the group's manifesto and by-laws was unable to agree on a definition of poetry. The question was presented to the entire group.
At one extreme were those who write verses primarily for the greeting card industry. As some of the most successful poets financially, they felt they should have considerable say. At the other extreme were those whose poetry is completely unstructured in any traditional way, emphasizing unusual vocabulary, exotic images, and usually lacking any rhyme, rhythm pattern, or sense.
A lively side argument involved the question of whether a poem has to have more than two syllables. This arose from a dispute between traditional haiku writers (who demand 17 syllables) and younger haikuists, who insist that a haiku really needs only one syllable, if it is the right one.
Many of the older poetry writers (dubbed with the derisive term "rhymers" or "rhyme nuts") insisted that a poem, to deserve being called a poem, must have some rhyme and a recognizable rhythm pattern. "Your sloppy stuff isn't poetry, it's just pretty prose, on separate lines," as one traditionalist put it. Their mostly younger opponents violently objected. "Don't hem us in!" they shouted. "We want to be free!" "Keep your damned iambic pentameters and your ABAB rhyme schemes. The sonnet is a straight jacket to pure, free literature!"
"Libertines!" countered the traditionalists. "You have no discipline!" "Lazy rebels!" "Keats is turning in his grave!" "It's time for rhyme!" has become a slogan of the pro-rhyme faction, which was immediately countered by "Rhyme is slime!" "Alliteration's abomination!" Things reached a climax when one modernist walked over to where a traditionalist was sitting, picked up her Webster's Rhyming Dictionary, spat on it, and proceeded to rip it to pieces. It was then that fighting broke out, and the police had to be called to separate the poets.
The conference ended thus in pandemonium, with no organization being formed. Several of those in attendance, however, used the experience as material for their poems. Among the titles are "Ode To Sweet Poetry," "Elegy to Rhyme," "Soul Dripped Borning," "Six Was Never," and "Get Well Soon."