The guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools

When I was a youngster and, occasionally, listening to what my teachers would tell me, there were a lot of certainties in the things they would say. Not the least of these pronouncements were about what they called poetry, My English teacher, or should that be “teacher of English” believed in three types of writing; Poetry, Prose and Poetic Prose. The later was a category that had something of both the others but was definitely outside both of them. The whole panoply of play writing fell into that catch-all grouping as well as certain other, less easily definable pieces.

Prose had rules of grammar, of spelling and punctuation, of layout and length but nevertheless covered a very wide area. Poetry followed all the rules of spelling and most of those about grammar too. It had its own versions of punctuation, layout and length but it also had some quite independent rules of its own that covered such areas as rhythm and rhyme, lines and verses, voice and register and still more which were even more unwieldy than those. I was intimidated by the complexity of these rules and firmly believed that it was only by strict adherence to them that I would be able to write anything worthwhile. Thus, apart from the compulsory essays and other verbiage required of the inhabitants of the educational system of my time, I rarely tried to write anything apart from the occasional letter or shopping list.
At a later stage I undertook a course in “Service Writing” as part of my training as an officer in the R.A.F. This introduced some new rules an regulations principally concerning conciseness, clarity and completeness. Just as I had managed to do with my early courses I managed to reach the required standards in prose, both academic and military, and achieved what I consider to be my writing licence. I wasn’t brilliant at it and would only use it when forced to do so; but it was there in the store room of my mind. Equally clearly in my mind though was the fact that I had no endorsement for poetry.
Many years later something annoyed me and for some inexplicable reason I chose to vent my spleen in verse and equally inexplicable I decided to read it to a group of friends at a local folk club who were more used to hearing my So-So renditions of other peoples words in the form of folk songs. This was received with a gratifying burst of applause that now, with the benefit of hindsight, I believe contained a large proportion of politeness and sympathy for the spirit of my polemic and not much for its literary merit.
Since then I have plied my pen with increasing regularity if not skill. I have begun many hundreds of pieces and some of them have managed to emerge as fully fledged poems. The majority of them have suffered perfectly justifiable infanticide before reaching the safe haven of my personal archives. Of those that have survived most are only one step above doggerel (if that) but there are some which I like to think would persuade Mr. J J Waddington-Feather, my “teacher of English”, to grant me that elusive item; my Poetry Licence!
In that time I have also learned the truth of that old maxim “Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.”
When driving a car one learns to slavishly follow the dictates of the highway code and the rules of driver’s etiquette for situations not covered in that esteemed publication. However once one has passed one’s test and have gained a reasonable proficiency at driving in various conditions it becomes apparent that there are situations when those black and white rules cannot be rigidly adhered to and one learns to “bend” them slightly in normal driving, and to sprain them in some emergency situations, as well as to break them completely in off-road excursions and competitions. In the same way once a writer has learned his (or her) craft by following the rules laid down in the text books that writer can also start to experiment with minor infringements of and major deviations from those rules on occasions.
It is still necessary to learn the rules and how to apply them until one has established a good standard of writing ability and developed, for want of a better phrase, one’s own “poetic voice”. However once a writer has reached that stage and has gained his (or her) own poetic licence they can then be considered wise enough to decide when to deviate from those rules.
What is not necessary, and indeed what should be avoided at all costs, is the abolition of all such rules and the instigation of a free for all system. A system that would, I believe, lead to the demise of poetry as an emotional transport for the majority and leave it as a vehicle for the self-elected and self-labelled “modern” poets.


In case you are still interested, this is that first poem http://allpoetry.com/poem/1541506