The Poetry World

" the poetry world "

Any rational minded human being would most likely believe that when you think of an art form as pure and spiritually freeing as spoken word, there would be no drama....

But I guess the spirituality of the art form does not take away, or change the innate characteristics of people...

I think a big part of the problem is when you take art and start making it a competition. I'm not just speaking about poetry slams, but when people strive to be a better poet than another instead of trying to be the best artist they can possibly be. people don't realize the limit they place on themselves when they compete with others. When you compete with a person you at times emulate their take drive and style, which takes away from the natural talent you possess. which in turn keeps you from reaching the top level did would be able to reach simply by trying to be the best you can be for yourself...

Even worse than those that compete in poetry, are those that do poetry for money only. These people rob the art of it's innocense. I think doing poetry strictly for monetary gain is like making poetry stand on the corner and whore. What happened to when you used to write just for the necessity to release, for the desire of expression. Now, I am not knocking anyone that is making an honest living of their talent, but your priority in writing should be and always should be for expression not a quick dollar.

And then there is poetry beef! which is quite possibly the dumbest thing in the world that exist! One poet not liking another poet 4 absolutely no reason, or even if there is a reason it something juvenile. Now I know poets are emotional, but some of this is just ridiculous. We have to not be so darn sensitive. I try to keep myself as neutral as I possibly can be. Not taking sides just listening, and observing. When poetry cliques (like little mini poetry gangs,lmbo) are introduced into poetry beef you end up with groups of people not communicating with each other due to maybe 2 people having a problem with each other. Are he still in high school? I often times make reference to poetry beef being like the movies "the westside story" or "warriors". There's tons of singing and dancing and no real action.