Sunday, July 22, 2018

Getting Down With A Poem Commission

By Timothy Allen


The world is rather bland. It can be drab, can be nothing but shades of gray. But there are little things that can be done in order to add a few splashes of color into the world. But those colors are not literal. In some cases, they can be metaphors, because the world is full of color. Part of that metaphorical color is a poem commission.

A poem is a series of words. But it is also so much more than that. The words at the end are supposed rhyme, but they do not always have to. The main thrust is the length and the emotion behind the words. They have to pack punch, they must go right through the core of the reader or the listener. They cannot just fall on unseeing eyes or deaf ears. They have to stick. They cannot just bounce off.

An art commission is a transaction of the economic variety. A client wants some art. So they find themselves an artist. The client pays the artist some money, and then the artist creates some art and then gives it to the client. This was how many of the old masters honed their skills and put food in their bellies.

There a multitude of reasons for commissions. For one, not every single person on the face of the planet is going to have an artistic inclination. They can appreciate it, yes. But they are not inclined to create it. So they hire people who are, people who may not have steady jobs because they are pursuing their art.

Poems have a lot of purpose. But they are mainly there for prose, the prose that helps moves hearts and minds. There main use is to be heard, read, and then analyzed at length by graduate students.

Poets do not grow on trees. They can found in certain places, however. Places such as a cafe, but it would probably have to be an indie cafe, and they are most common during the local open mic night. Of course, they can also be found around college campuses. Then there is the internet, as they all kinds of artists can be found online.

Money is going to be an issue. Yes, its true that some people want their artists to be pure, to be untouched by the realities of money. But artists do not live in a vacuum. They need to eat, to pay rent, to pay utilities. So they are going to need their the money from the commission, because that is what a commission is. Its an exchange of money for services.

Now, the most important factor when finding a poet is the overall skill. Anyone with a dictionary can put a bunch of words together, can put together a bunch of sentences. But not everyone can create prose, and it is this prose that is the lifeblood of the poem. A good way to check this is to simply get some writing samples, as some poets are going to have some of their works ready as samples.

The world can be bland. Humanity can see that it is. So it created its way out of blandness.




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