A Yam is not a Potato

Back in the library, there is a poetry reading.  I have been thinking about poetry lately and will tell you what I think about it.  I think for there to be a poem, there has to be a very rigid structure.  Now you are calling me a fascist.  But anyone can find 12-16 words, order them somehow, randomly if they want to, and call it a poem.  It's called found poetry.

FOR EXAMPLE:

black rectory myth
reference desk
biographies

OMG JENNY!  THAT IS LIKE THE BEST POEM EVER!!!! 

I hear that poetry is all about evoking images.  I have just heard the poet upstairs say "Floating".  Then he said it again.  Soon he will say "Bones" or "Raven"  I know it. 

Then poems got a bad rap for rhyming.  Poets were all like: "I DON"T HAVE TO RHYME TO BE A POET.  ALL I HAVE TO DO IS STRING WORDS TOGETHER.  DONE AND DONE!" 

Done and done.  Now if poems rhyme we will call them old fashioned.

The poet just said he feels the "humiliation of his race."  Well.  Poems can also be political.  I just wish the poems were black and white, so that I knew what a poem was.  I don't like how ambiguous they can be, or subjective.  "But that is a poem.  That's what makes a poem."  OK.  Still, I don't like it.  If I order fries for lunch I don't want yams.  A yam is not a potato, OKAY?!