Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, Special Edition on Humour June 2024.
The demise of poetry, poem by Mark Roberts.
The demise of poetry
This poem has no merit.
It has spent too much time
speeding around mountain curves
without considering the need for punctuation,
crossing to the wrong side of the page
while avoiding Capital Letters
and ending lines with its brake light
out.
This poem has been snapped by speed cameras
chased by critics driving modified sonnets
and pulled over to have its stanzas examined.
It has collected far too many demerit points
in sponsored workshops run by official poets.
If this poem get caught breaking conventions one more time it is likely to dissolve into messy
prose and spill all over the page.
© Mark Roberts
Mark Roberts lives and writes on unceded Darug and Gundungurra country. Along with Linda Adair he edits Rochford Street Review and P76 magazine. His latest collection, Concrete Flamingos (2016) was published by Island Press and he currently has two manuscripts looking for a publisher.