I read a lot of different styles of poetry and enjoy a lot of different styles of poetry, some more than others, of course. I tend to focus on the actual poetry more so than the name of the writer (unless I loved someone's previous poetry/book and am thus compelled to read more of their poetry/procure their other book(s), and which is not to say I don't read poetry by people I know, because of course I do - but I also acquire plenty of books by people I don't know personally at all, have never met, have never heard them read live, don't know much of anything about them, and sometimes don't even remember exactly how I got the book, and that would be the case with this chapbook I'm reading now). I don't know the author, I'm not friends with the author here on social media, and I'm not even going to say the author's name other than saying I wasn't previously familiar with the name.
Anyway, I realize we all have different creative styles we're drawn to and I think I tend to be fairly open to a variety of different styles (in fact, I tend to get annoyed by contemporary poets who seem to think most poetry sucks and even more annoyed by contemporary poets who don't even read much poetry). But I started reading this chapbook and felt like it was so basic and boring that I was wondering if it was some sort of a joke. I kept thinking, "Is this a real chapbook?", but of course it is, because the name of the press is real, the chapbook looks nice, and so on. Of course there's the possibility that maybe "I just don't get it" in terms of the style of this particular writing, but I mean, like I said, it's pretty basic (or so it seems to me - short poems, short lines, basic words, which is certainly not a bad thing in and of itself, but to me these particular words are pretty boring and don't seem particularly multifaceted or complex, but again, maybe I'm missing something).
Maybe I'm just bored by the basics and don't want things to be narrowed down by about 20 words cut into short lines. But on the other hand, maybe someone else would read these particular poems, interpret them quite differently, and they would really resonate for them. Even though I don't particularly like this book or don't get this book or both, I do think it's interesting that there are so many different styles of poetry existing alongside thousands of people who almost never read poetry at all.
I read poetry and I write poetry and me personally, I don't usually want to narrow myself down to really short lines, but on the other hand, I AM structuring myself into a certain personal style and chosen format that breaks my own lines to a particular extent or else I wouldn't be writing poetry. My poetry isn't all the exact same style, but I'm not drawn towards writing lines that are as short as they can possibly be, to the point of two to four words long. That would make me feel as if I was narrowing myself down TOO much and as if I wasn't sharing or expressing enough. Part of my personal poetry process involves WORDS of course and personal poetic expression, but also thinking out loud and structuring my words/expression in my own brain's style, and I don't want it to be incredibly broad, but I also don't want it to be particularly narrow, basic, and simplistic, because that's not me. I'm not drawn to simplistic language.
