Introducing AntiPoetry

Time and time again I’ve heard comments like ‘such an image is so lovely, it’s poetry’. Every time such a phrase has made its way to my everyday life I wondered, does that mean poetry is solely pleasant? During some reading, I was introduced to ‘Anti-poetry’. It’s basically poetry that doesn’t pinpoint only happy go lucky rays of sunshine emotions. My favorite poet, William Shakespeare, wrote a poem called Winter which is a stellar example of anti-poetry. Instead of writing metaphors and similes of how fluffy snow is and the cool breeze, he writes about freezing milk and raw red noses. The poem is unique because it’s a different take on a subject, I’m sure, tons of poets write about. His adjective aren’t the kind laced with enthusiasm and cheer, there are more so gritty and more realistic.  It brings more authenticity to the poem and gives it more meaning to the reader. He doesn’t focus on solely the negative but straddles the medium. Just as Walt Whitman in his piece called Beauty. Walt does comparisons between the young and fruitful and the worn. Yet he consistently chooses the worn subject. He finds beauty in the experience objects and people such the father, mother of many children and the rag adhering to the staff. I feel as if he’s finding beauty in what tends to others and does the dirty jobs.
When it comes to poetry, often times everything flyers sugarcoated and what isn’t gets overlooked. Depicting reality without using solely adjectives that portray happy emotions  is more realistic to the reader, though depicting reality while using negative adjective does not give the reader a realistic image of the subject. To be a great poet, I personally feel, it’s imperative to master the skill. No great poet is remembered for painting a picture too bright or too dark to believe, well I sure don’t remember them.

-NicaMarie