Friday, February 27, 2009

Transgender Poetry (again?)

Lying in the tub, not long after a bike ride, and a bit of a think - the wide open spaces, and empty roads of southern New Jersey are great for a good thinking! - I finally figured out what's missing in transgendered poetry. Empathy.

Empathy for themselves, mostly.

I would pick individual poems, but that would be unfair to the writer: each is as bad as the last. There's a "woe is me" quality to many of the rhymes, but no empathy. No emotion. They're calculated, and condescending as a result.

I read a recent poem by a (fairly prominent) transgender blogger, and it started out well enough - but then veered into self pity. It took 2 or 3 syllables. That's all. Not much, when you think about it. What the hell happened to writing from the heart? Writing what you feel?

A poem can be many things, but a piece of self-indulgent tripe is not one of them.

Carolyn Ann

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