why I hate poetry

I don't necessary hate poetry but my neighbor who calls himself a PERFORMANCE POET "borrowed" a book from me and then completely mucked it up during one of his performances somewhere and then GAVE the book to some clown in the audience. He offered to pay me for the book (maybe he noticed the glare I was giving him) and I told him that $5.00 would cover it. He bitched but gave me the money. It was a first edition of a paperback "tittalator" called "The Beat Generation" by Albert Zugsmith( Bantam, 1959).

Okay, Zugsmith wrote this book - the hell he did! Albert Zugsmith was a specialist in exploration films. He "bought" the rights to the name 'The Beat Generation' before Kerouac or anyone else thought to do it, maybe Ginsberg would have thought of it but he was out of the country when the Beat Generation thing exploded. Zugsmith made a movie called "The Beat Generation" which was pure exploitation crap. Nothing like the real Beat Generation nor any of their books, as far as I am concerned - and I have read a lot of the Beats over the years. No matter! It made Zugsmith a buck! What did he care about authenticity? So, he slapped his name on this title as the author but I am sure that it was a team of screenwriters who really came up with the dungheap.

But that's the not the point (of my disgust)! It's that this neighbor of mine ruined a book he borrowed from me! To be brutally honest, I have never liked modern poetry. I liked Walt Whitman because I know people to are verbose like that. Emily Dickinson? Not really. And why are there only two poets from the 1800s that we even learn about in school? The poetry from the 20th century I didn't like at all. Modern - Postmodern - LANGUAGE - (post)Postmodern, whatever the fuck they call it it's just babble to me. I like detective novels because they tell a story. Poetry in the 20th century hardly did anything but take up space on the page. I really really avoid it at all cost. I don't look for books by poets and don't attempt to sell poetry because it feels unclean to me. Ugh!