Fuck poetry!
But not in the sense of having sex with it.
First of all, I can't have sex with a poem.
Second, even if I could have sex with a poem, I wouldn't want to, because I only have sex with someone I love -- or at least like -- and the point is: I dislike poetry.
To be precise, I dislike obscure poetry. I'm fine with transparent poetry, where the meanings are clear.
To be even more precise, I don't just dislike obscure poetry. I detest obscure poetry. That's why I said: fuck poetry.
So, I maybe I should have entitled this piece "Fuck Obscure Poetry." But that's verbose and not as -- er -- poetic as the shorter title.
I'm even fine with transluscent poetry, in which the meanings are mostly clear but the ambiguity, consciseness, imagery, rhyme, meter, and associations enrich the language.
I dislike a poem when I have to struggle to figure out what they fuck it means.
I figure: why the fuck can't the author be clear? Are they intentionally trying to be obscure? Do they confuse obscurity with cleverness?
Obscure poetry is opaque and dense. Some people get a kick out of that, just like some people are into kinky sex, I suppose.
Oh, that's a good metaphor. Obscure poetry is like kinky sex.
Some people get off on working to decipher an obscure poem, just as some people get off on being tied up or spanked.
Whatever floats your boat.
Poetry is like music, too, of course. Song, in particular.
Some music is complex, even obscure. But usually I can enjoy some aspects of music, even if I can't appreciate the subtleties. For poetry, on the other hand, I often can't figure out what they fuck the poem is talking about. I can't even parse the lines.
But people who like poetry tell me that I shouldn't try so hard to decipher the literal meaning of a poem. Instead, I should just absorb the sound and associations that come to mind.
I guess I'm missing out on something.
Maybe I'm missing out on something with kinky sex as well.
Parsing a poem is like following a math proof.
I don't know if you've ever studied advanced math. But often the proofs are exceedingly dense and long. Even the statements of the theorems are complex. Some people enjoy that. I don't, though I can often follow the proofs if I work at it.
By the way, recently AI has solved some open math problems. AI proofs are written in a formal language called Lean. AI proofs are exceedingly dense and inelegant. Even mathematicians struggle to follow AI proofs. Some human-written math proofs are elegant -- which generally means shorter. Finding short proofs is generally more difficult than finding long proofs. An elegant, short proof is like a poem. Some math is considered beautiful.
Let's get back to the topic of sex. Why? Because sex is fun, because sex is a rich source of metaphors, and because the title of this piece is "Fuck Poetry."
"Fuck" has multiple meanings. In "Fuck Poetry" the main meaning is perfomative. It's a speech act of denunciation, like a curse. It's not a descriptive statement. It's not an imperative. It's similar to saying "To hell with poetry!"
But there's a secondary meaning we can imagine for "fuck" in "Fuck Poetry." There's dance poetry (poetry about dance), there's music poetry (poetry about music) and there's sex poetry (poetry about sex). Fuck poetry is like sex poetry. Is that awkward? Yeah, a bit. But, hey, it's poetic.
Is this piece a poem? Maybe it's a bad poem.
I'm thinking this piece is not a poem at all. It's too transparent to be a poem. If I made it more concise and obscure it would be more poetic. Also, it's not elegant or pretty enough to be a poem.
Fuck poetry.
I asked ChatGPT to write a poem based on the above essay (which I wrote entirely myself). I also said to ChatGPT: a proof is like chains or a whip; a proof FORCES you to believe something. Here's what ChatGPT came up with (I've changed some of the lines and I will revise more of them in the future):
I came for a kiss. You handed me math homework. “Undress,” you whispered, then tied your proof in seventeen lemmas. Some people get off on that. They yearn for the blindfold, the cuffs, the exquisite withholding of clues. They like to suffer and to struggle step-by-step to the final release. Q.E.D. I’d rather be free and see who I’m in bed with. — I’ve followed proofs through forests of lemmas, granting each premise, checking each step, til someone writes *Clearly* above the one step that takes me all night. Your poem does that. You think it's clever. I think it's just obscure and obscene. Give me a proof that fits in my palm— three necessary steps and the answer— and I’ll read it again for the pleasure of watching it work. — “Fuck poetry!” I say. A curse needs no footnotes. Nobody asks what the fuck signifies. It lands. The neighbor looks up. The dog leaves the room. There’s language that doesn't mess around. — You say I should loosen up, let the sounds run their hands over me. All right. I like a voice in the dark. I like a mouth that takes its time. But if you want me on my knees, give me something worth kneeling for. Let the knot slip. Let the last line open the clasp. I want the small gasp when the proof comes clear, when a stranger’s words find something in me I hadn’t found myself. Then I might whisper, “Oh, fuck.” And mean it as praise. A proof takes liberties with my freedom of belief. Whips me into submission. I grant one premise, then another. It fastens them together. “This follows.” Click. “And therefore.” Click. By the time I see where this is going, I’m in equisite chains. I can curse the conclusion. It holds.