The beginning of Danez Smith’s “anti poetica” in Bluff starts “who cares how long i’ve spent with my poems” – and frankly, I don’t. Many of these pieces are pure gimmickry; ‘anti poetica’ indeed.
There is clearly a lot of rage and anger in Smith’s work – and quite justifiably so – but when poets find words are insufficient to get their meaning across (or is it their ability with words?) and need to resort to gimmickry, they lose me. A ‘poem’ – “sonnet” – dressed up in a Boston Matrix where many of the segments are left empty? Arrows; huge black rectangles; words printed at weird angles or blending into each other; one ‘poem’ just a title and a QR code… But Smith’s an award-winning writer – which either says something about him or how awards are judged these days. Style over substance…?
Why should I bother to try and read something that makes me angry?
So I didn’t.
Ian Gouge - Writer 