Hello, Rainy Day Dreamers!
What do you think the purpose of art is?
afternoon rainfall
lulls me into a long nap
I dream of haiku
No Such Thing as a Bad Poem
One fun thing about being a dad to four kids is watching how the older ones react when they see their younger siblings say or do something that will trigger a response from me.
A few months ago, our youngest, T, made a comment about how other people were doing something as a justification for why she should be able to do something. K and E shook their heads and said, “Rookie mistake,” and laughed. T got to hear my thoughts about how the standards for our conduct are not set by other people, and that she must learn to create her own standards that she holds herself accountable for.
More recently, G announced he was horrible at poetry. He only wrote bad poems. K happened to be there for this pronouncement as well. This time she said, “Get comfortable. Dad has a lot of thoughts about this. He gets pretty passionate.”
She wasn’t wrong.
There is no such thing as a bad poem. That’s not to say all poems are good, or have the same inherent level of quality. Poems, like all art, fall into a broad range of quality, that has both subjective and objective elements. Not all poems are great—in fact, very, very few are.
But badness isn’t something that makes sense when used to describe a poem. A poem is a sketch of your feelings. It would be like trying to evaluate an ice skating performance based on the same criteria you used for ranking the temperature of peppers.
Poetry is something you once did effortlessly. Making rhymes, singing songs, dancing, and drawing are activities every child does. As Lynda Barry puts it1,
“We draw before we are taught. We also sing, dance, build things, act, and make up stories long before we are given any deliberate instructions beyond exposure to the people around us doing things.
Everything we have come to call the arts seems to be in almost every 3-year-old.”
Making poems is part of being human. Sadly, most of us stop making poems, just like we stop drawing and dancing, because we are introduced to the idea that we are bad at it. We get self-conscious. As part of “growing up,” we develop a desire to never look foolish.
The truth is that there is nothing more foolish about writing silly verses than there is in sitting in your car for two hours a day heading to a job you don’t like.
Most of us would never tell a child that their poem or picture, or dance is “bad”. Most of us would also genuinely believe that a child’s efforts in these endeavors were actually good. We give them grace because they are children, they are beginners.
But, when we get older, we expect ourselves to be experts at everything we try. Because we are scared of doing a bad job or looking foolish, we never get good at artsy things.
Again, Barry wonders2,
“How old do you have to be to make a bad drawing?”
There are no bad poems.
That is just not something that exists.
But, that doesn’t mean you cannot get better at making poems.
I asked G, how many poems he had written.
He didn’t know. I asked him if it was more or less than ten. He decided the number of poems he had written was around twenty.
Twenty! That’s nothing.
I asked him, “Were you good at the trumpet after you had played twenty songs? Were you good at basketball after you took twenty shots, or even played twenty games?”
How often do we barely start doing something creative before quitting because we are bad at it?
If we desire to be good at something, and I think that is a noble and natural human impulse, we have to embrace not being good for a long time.
Also, it is normal and natural to like doing something even if you are not good at it. You don’t even have to want to be good at it to keep doing it.
Art is ultimately about self-expression. Art makes you more whole. Writing poems can be something you do just to discover how you feel about something. It can be between you and your journal. It can also be something you do to connect to other people.
You do not have to like poetry (although if you don’t, I’m willing to bet the way you were taught poetry in school is at least partly to blame). But, you cannot honestly say you write bad poetry because that’s not possible.
You may not write good poetry, but then again, how hard have you tried? Is it fair to say to a beginner that they’re no good? No! It’s ludicrous!
I love poetry and cartooning with all of my soul. I write a lot of poems, and I make a lot of comics. Am I good at these things? 🤷
However, I am getting better—and for me, that’s part of the joy.
Your life would be better if you spent more time acting like you did when you were three.
Dance, sing, make up funny rhymes, and draw. Do these things not because you want to be a famous artist, or because they will make you more productive or creative. Do these things because you are a human, and they bring you joy.
Write poems to your friends and enemies. Write poems as text messages or as notes for your child’s lunch. Know that you cannot write a bad poem and that each poem you write helps you understand your place in the world a little better.
Write more poems because someone else might understand their place in the world a little better because you were brave enough to look foolish.
Return of Virtual Busking
In December, I ran an experiment where I created custom haiku comics for anyone that wanted one.
It was like I was a street performer, except I was making haiku comics.
I had a lot of fun, and lots of people received haiku comics that they loved. Many used them as gifts for graduations, birthdays, and anniversaries. Several people printed them out, turning them into physical keepsakes.
This summer, I’m virtual busking again!
How It Works:
If you want a custom haiku comic, just send me an email or leave a comment with what you want me to write a poem about, and within about 24 hours, you will have a custom haiku comic.
I will send you a shareable image with your haiku and my Venmo and PayPal links.
You can tip me whatever you want. You can tip me nothing totally guilt-free! You can tip me $1 or $25 or whatever amount feels right to you, and it will be much appreciated.
One last thing, I do reserve the right to post your custom haiku on social media or add it to a later collection. If it’s okay with you, I will include a note like this:
For Kevin F:
lawyer listens to
your true tale of injustice
nothing she can do
Want a custom haiku? Reply to this email with your request, or email me at jason@weirdopoetry.com. Feel free to share this widely! Let’s fill the world with haiku!
Please feel free to share this offer as widely as you like!
Here are some of the custom comics from December:
Be the poetry you want to see in the world!
Cheers,
Jason
Making Comics, Lynda Barry, pg 15
Making Comics, Lynda Barry, pg 3
Beautiful thought food. My poems just arrive and ask to be transcribed. Sometimes I wonder if learning more about poetic forms would be a good thing or a bad thing. What do you think?
Loved everything you wrote here! The idea of being bad at something but also enjoying that something has been a huge internal struggle for me recently. I think especially in the age of social media, it's hard not to compare and not get discouraged. And it makes it feel like I can't fully share any of my artistic endeavors until they're "good" but that's also not true. Anyway I'm done with my ramble haha. Super appreciated this post! ☺️