A FIELD GUIDE TO NORTH AMERICAN POETS copyright Marc Kelly Smith March 2024
INTRODUCTION
THE BROAD SPHERE OF NORTH AMERICAN POETICA can be divided into two sub-categories: Poets and Audience. Poets being all species of writers and performers who scribble, blurt, stutter, type, bellow, mumble, and/or scratch out that most elevated form of communication Poetry.* Audience being those who are attendant to, entertained by, and subjected to its power or lack thereof. Whereas, a point can be made that the poet sub-sphere exists as a smaller set of individuals contained within the larger sphere of audience (excepting, of course, those poet species which never listen to or read poems other than there own – see page ___), this guide shall deal with the subset poets and the larger set audience as separate entities. Bear in mind that most poets at some point during their maturation period were audience members, however brief that time period may have been.
True Poetology, the classification and study of poets and their audience, is a relatively new science. Few scholars have made it a focus of their studies. We believe this book to be the first comprehensive undertaking of its kind. It deals exclusively with the North American Poetry Society and is the result of scientific observations made over the past 3 decades, during which contributors listened to, read, and suffered through the verbiage and personalities of over a thousand poet individuals from over a hundred different species, some to such an intimate level involvement that suicide, murder, and unclean self abusements came to mind. Fortunately, on only a few occasions did researchers surcomb to emotional outbursts and overwhelm their senses of political correctness and diplomatic decorum. To those who have been injured by our investigative indiscretions we apologize. To those who have injured us, enjoy reading about yourselves in this guide.
* Though many critics and scholars have tried to offer precise definitions of what poetry is none have created a theory that serves any universal utility. It has been said that within today’s poetry world if two people at any one point in time come to an agreement that a piece of literature, or merely a collection of random words, is poetry then indeed, it is Poetry. No other requirements seem necessary.
PHYLUM POET
The most unique aspect of Phylum Poetica, which keeps it distinct from other orders of the arts kingdom, is that individuals may evolve in a lifetime from species to species. A poet often begins his maturation process as an audience member and, depending on internal and external influences, may blossom as a Young Wonder or degenerate into a Bearded Barrail Cronie. Indeed some species evolve and devolve back and forth from lower to higher to lower forms and, in many cases becoming reborn as a Laurellark in the waning years of their careers. There seems to be no natural restrictions to the evolution and devolution which individuals may go through. However, certain prominent patterns have been observed, such as the annotated surveillance that most Barrails move downward on the scales of respectability from Blathers to Glass Rim Mumblers, and finally to Stone Tongue Matchbook Scratchers. These evolutionary tendencies are noted in each specie entry under Life cycle.
HOW DO POET SPECIES DEVELOPE FROM ONE GROUPING TO ANOTHER?
POSING It is possible for a lower form poet to successfully infiltrate and deceive higher forms posing as their equals, sometimes for their entire later lifespans. Posing as a superior form is not as difficult as lower species believe. Many of the higher forms are natural posers and very insecure. An adept posing species has intuitive sense of which higher forms to avoid and which to infiltrate. For instance, a Barrail Mumbler posing as Barrail Elite would never try to extend his posing infiltration to include the Tea Tootling Sonneters.
DATING This is probably the most common avenue for advancing from one species to another and interestingly can both higher or lower one’s status. The transformative effects are temporary, lasting only as long as the dating goes on. The status and style of the lower form will rise slightly; the status and style of the higher form will lower.
SEXING Similar to dating sexing achieves the same results only in a much more volatile way. Status changes are often permanent especially in regard to the lowering from higher to lower forms. Some species thrive on sexing and move through an entire evolutionary cycle without writing more than a few poems repeating them in each new arena with the attached flavor of their new status.
MARRIAGE To stabilize and legitimize a new status gained from dating and/or sexing species resort to marriage. This ends the evolutionary process for the remainder of their life span.
PROCURED EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT: Many poets evolve during their lifetimes from one species to another through an educational process via schooling and service to various poetic institutions. Just as the human embryo metamorphoses from foetus to a recognizable human form, so to do poets incubating within educational dimensions. This procured evolution is common to some extent in all poetic species.