Bruce Whealton: Existential Writing

How does a poet find something new and original to say?… something creative? Something that will astonish the reader? I think one idea is to write what is personal – personal experiences and perspectives. Jean Jones said to be honest. I think the “Confessional Poets” were great at this. Confessional poetry involves thoughts, feelings and experiences that are quite personal, certainly honest. In some cases these might be quite unflattering things that the poet is sharing.

This is similar to the idea of what separates a poem from greeting card verse. A greeting card is generic and can be used, applied to an occasion and given to anyone that fits the occasion. For example, a father’s day card could be given to any father, or if not any father, any number of fathers. Sure, not every father’s day card works for anyone and any father, and for that reason we spend time finding “the right one.” However, there is a generic, if not cliché nature to greeting cards. In contrast, if I write a poem about my father, I’m going to be talking about my own unique experience of having known one person in particular. These are very much my own feelings, experiences, thoughts and memories. Maybe others can relate to what I write, and we do hope experience is universal and shared. However, such a poem, if I do it well, or right, expresses something unique; unique about my memories, the relationship, and about my father in particular.

I think this is partially what we seek to publish. I don’t mean specifically, poems about fathers. I mean poems that avoid generalities, cliché, greeting card verse.
Maybe this can be helpful for people to know who might want to get published on Word Salad.