Epigramititis: 118 Living American Poets
by Kent Johnson
BlazeVox Books

These epigrams of yours can barely work—
an ounce of lard in which a thought might lurk;
or an attempt to hurt dressed in a bramble
of brittle thorns that break off as you ramble.
Precise and gleaming, wit’s lightning blade
Requires rhyme to buttress what is said:
One cannot stab with daggers made of dough,
Or vivisect with blades of melting snow.
It’s rhyme that sets the epigram apart
And gives the snicker snack to this fierce art.
(Or at least in English—other poets may
Autopsy dullness in a classic way
With stressed and non, their feet may sharply kick
But their translated spurs can barely stick.)
Slapdash free verse with line breaks here and there
Cannot be honed to an instrument of fear,
But brings down brick-bats on the careless head
And resonates with dullness when it’s read.
So the effect is quite the opposite intended,—
The offender becomes the jest of those offended:
An easy target for their japes and jeers,
A roaring fool; the sheep to his own shears.
Whitman was not a wit, Rochester was:
The rhymester wins hands down in witty wars.
So, Kent, instead of “epigrams” of wood,
Recast your lines, and then seek to draw blood.