Dennis Hammes' Rules of Poetry

Rules of Poetry
(as posted to the rec.arts.poems newsgroup)

  1. Make certain your readers understand that, with five billion people on the planet, your feeling is perfectly unique. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.

  2. Make certain your readers understand that, while the species has been making arts for 27,000 years (that we know of), your feeling has never before been experienced. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.

  3. Make certain your readers understand that your feeling is both too unique and too novel to be couched in the standard language of any country or people. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.

  4. Make certain your readers understand that, while you may condescend to use their pathetic attempt at a language, you must alter its spelling and punctuation according to the dictates of your most-novel and -unique feeling. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.

  5. Make certain your readers understand that their pathetic rules concerning sound and form, and their effect on rhetorical period, have nothing to do with the expression of your feeling, since your feeling is so unique and novel as to be utterly unaffected by the manner of delivery. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.

  6. Make certain your readers understand that any who do not understand the finer points of your feeling, including especially that it [is] unique and novel, is a troll. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.

  7. Make certain your readers understand that your feeling is so pure that any rules of language or techniques of poetry would only sully it. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.

  8. Make certain your readers understand that you, yourself, are so unique and novel, but especially so pure, as to have no need of any technique discovered by lesser masters. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.

  9. Make certain your readers understand that nobody can read your poem, or understand your unique and novel feeling, nor especially its purity, without your personal intervention and help given in several sessions to their pathetic inabilities to read their own language. If your poem does not say this, your explanatory prelude must.

  10. Make certain your readers understand that your pure spirit will be available eternally to help those pathetic trolls understand your unique and novel feeling, and personally chastise those who just don't get it. If your poem does not say this, you have endless space on [the internet] to explain this at length, especially if your poem can't.

(Posted here with the permission of the author, Dennis M. Hammes)

Over to PJR's Rulez 4 aspiring ~poets~.
Over to the alt.arts.poetry.comments FAQ Web Page
Over to the Newsgroup Regulars Page
Over to the Poetry Tips Page
Why new poets should Read Lots of Poetry.
Over to The List of r.a.p. Trolls

You are visitor #

since June 28th, 2009.