Bad Poetry

As an individual who occasionally gives in to some mysterious whim and writes some potentially poor or pretentious poetry, I feel a little presumptuous speculating about what makes bad poetry so unbearably… bad. The World English Dictionary’s definition of poetry is “literature in metrical form; verse”, which gives us plenty of insight as to what poetry is, literally (no pun intended), but does not give us any idea of what constitutes good poetry, or what we should look for to determine poetry’s worth.

I surmise, then, that bad poetry lacks originality. It does not inspire the reader to imagine any circumstance that they have not already considered, nor do they envision a setting they have not already encountered. Bad poetry is matter-of-fact and practical. It reuses age-old phrases and images that not only fail to stimulate the reader, but also cause them to think the piece trite. Above all else, bad poetry has no imagination.