Funny

 

 Question 22: Should poets live impeccably, according to their style of poetry? A cross-section of poets is unfortunate. Many seem willing to break social rules based entirely on their nascent ability to compose pantoums. Their style is fetching but their lives are retching, sorry wretched. Time will tell and timing helps. Latinists say impeccable means without sin, or speck, which is not a common characteristic of the cross-section. Some say poetry is born in sin, which doesn’t seem a dilemma for many of them. Yeats professed this false dichotomy, “perfection of the life, or of the work.” It sounds easy.

 Question 23: Is a monologue a poem? An enormous amount of poetry is monologue and who on earth the poet is monologuing with is anyone’s guess. It is a foundation of English Departments. Once upon a time poets spoke to someone. But for years now they have cultivated monologuing, often for hours in their room before releasing their crafty drafts upon the universe. Rant is another word. Some of these rants are stunning in their prolixity and attempts at logic. Diarists do the same thing. Meanwhile, where would we be without the soliloquy? Silence. Missing out, it’s fair to say.

 Question 24: Can poetry be funny? This question answers itself. Comedy is intrinsic in language, so will be in poetry by design or accident. Perhaps your concern is that poetry’s expected to be serious. Must it? No one is saying that, but poetry is sometimes seen as a place where serious things are said seriously. This is far from the end of the matter. Our efforts at tragedy can come out the other end like comedy. And vice versa. Ogden Nash lamented that his every effort at seriousness only came out funny. We are all eternally grateful that he persisted.