On My Poetry

My poetry is postmodern with a connection to Hopkins. For the last decade or so the work has had a growing number of aversions. To date it has aversions to direct objects, "I," "of” and possessives, the verb to be, and similes. My personal manifesto for this period of my life may be articulated as follows. 
 
In order for a privileged person to appreciate anything, there is a move toward the margins. For the poet, this means removing oneself as best as one can from the mainstream ideology or culture whose thinking is one of embracing the convenient answers to questions, allowing oneself unconsciously to be led, allowing the “experts” to answer for one. By doing so, the collective consciousness eases language fluent or fluid so that platitudes, clichés, and group-think create for us.
 
By moving toward the margins, the poet is moving to the periphery of the symbolic order also. I am convinced that it is at the margins where one finds possibility, not in worn-out phrases and ideas. If nothing else one finds a starting point for an opposing strategy and perhaps a new language for describing and contemplating the plight of thinking for oneself instead of mainstream ideology, that is after all pop culture.