prose poem test

The prose poem is the true test of a poem: Could the piece be unlineated and still be a good poem.

rope-ladder

To read a good poem is like climbing down a rope-ladder, line by line never sure there is another length below you that can hold you, and not sure it reaches all the way to the ground.

no performance required

Performance cannot enhance a good poem but it may elevate a lesser one.

cannot wear out

No matter how many times you read or hear it, you can’t wear out a good poem.

twisting tolstoy

Bad poems are all alike; every good poem is good in its own way.

conditions favorable to life

Like a habitable planet a good poem should have an atmosphere and weather.

shows promise

Sometimes it’s enough that reading a poem makes you want to read another or the next one.

vital organ

A good poem while entering the body via the brain, will lodge itself under the sternum, close by vital organs, the heart and the lungs.

flows over

Whether slight or expansive, a good poem is always a superfluity.

investment grade

To know a good poem is to own a lifetime annuity.

fire in the hole

Perhaps people have trouble understanding poetry because so often a good poem is trying to explode its genre.

hidden transmitter

A good poem will always continue broadcasting from an undisclosed location.

skeleton showing

In traditional Japanese architecture some of the skeleton of the structure is left exposed, and the same is true of a good poem.

going low

Reading bad poetry helps you understand all of what it takes to make one good poem.

shipping lines

The good ship poem sailed on.

hot hand

A good poem is perhaps just a winning streak of lines.