All the professional poets think their poems really mean something but I know it is just an agitation of the heart.

The critics say that all the poems everyday people write are too subjective, too personal. They maybe right but to try to write for an audience would be a sin to our poetic hearts.

A poem is trying to convey a feeling. That and nothing more. It is not trying to express a philosophical idea or truth. When it does you, see that the poem is no good. If the author was trying to express and idea, poetry is a handicap method. He would be better off writing an essay.

A poem is like a spiritual chant. What can not be express any other way through speech or essay so it comes out in as a poem. The feeling is first then the condensation into words. But he words themselves has no meaning. I mean the words are not connected to the feelings. It is the rhythm that is the direct expression of what the poet is feeling. The words are chosen according to the tone. The tone is directly related to the mood of the author.

I say choose for a lack of a better word. But there is really no choosing. It is a correspondence between feeling and sound. Experience produces feelings in us. When there is feeling it feels like something is moving within us. What is really happening is that our consciousness is being affected, in order to control this. The mind create a rhythm to direct and guide the force.

This is the basis of music and dance. People discover that sound, especially sound with meaning associated with it (words) has a tremendous ability to influence their minds. This is the basis of chants and poetry.

The above is my poetic theory. Anyone who has reflected and experience life can see some truth to it. I do not mean to say that all poems are just feeling and expresses no truth, (truth here means rational, logical, philosophical, not general truth like "good guys always finish last."). But those poems that are written for those purpose are no good. It lacks humanity. It is cold.

It is like these modern poems. They are pathetic. They have a destructive, agitated tone. There is a lack of any rhythm, any depth or in the ones that does the feeling does not run very deep. There is a bluntness, in your face tone. I see this in the poetry, music and art. They all follow this same trend. It is nothing more than the poet's sentiments. In this sense the critics are right. But I see this even among the professional poets. Their poems stink. A great poem, after you read it, whether you like it or not is still great in itself. Its structure and rhythm is unaffected by your sentiments.

Anybody with a little insight can see that something is missing in today's "arts". I will say this though: I think the muses of our day are perverted and sick.