Poetism Commentary: "The Poem Within A Poem"

The poem in question: The Poem Within A Poem

This poem is two things: the description of writing Accepting Denial and a mini-commentary on the stupidity of my junior-year English teacher. I have mentioned her before, and actual details are upcoming in the commentary for Pretense.

The lines

A card or five is passed.
A glance, a slight frown, a desire.
The cards inspire,
And words flow to the page.

A paradox is formed.

Denial is accepted;

reference the assignment I described in the Accepting Denial commentary.

The lines

The poem within a poem is praised,

and

A star shines in commemoration.
The boy is victorious.

are a reference to the gold star sticker I got on my assignment, in addition to the grade (the answers to the questions of why they still gave out gold stars in high school, and why I cared enough to write about it, are ones which escape me).

The line

But rejection draws near, inevitable.

Is about my junior English teacher, the one who had a small grasp of things poetical, and the one who hated every piece of poetry I wrote in her class, except for Pretense.

The inspiration for this poem was trying to remember that even though my current English teacher was so stupid, I could take comfort in the fact that not all English teachers were the same way, and some of them liked what I wrote. Hence the closing

The poem within a poem
Never perishes.

This poem also belongs to a small number of my poems that are about writing poetry (though this one is unique in that is about writing a specific poem). A few others that reference writing are Poetisms, Here’s Your Explanation, Insincerity, and A Day In The Life Of.

A funny thing (to me, at least): the capitalization in the title of the word “a.” I am aware that there are generally rules for capitalization in titles of books, articles, etc. I’ve never been completely comfortable with those rules, and I feel free to break them at my whim, especially when it comes to poetry. (Obviously the construction of titles such as “a new beginning” or “to whom it may concern” are stylistic, whereas “Weep For The Damned” is me breaking capital rules, because I can. See also: “A Day In The Life Of.”)

All in all, I don’t think this is a very good poem, but it is part of my history, and a reminder of influences I had in my teenage years.

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