Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Minimal Poetry

As Mark Twain once said, "Forgive me the length of this discourse, I hadn't the time to make it short."

Minimal Poetry would tend towards that trend of saying more in fewer words. In our modern world, most of what we see of this would be related to either Social Media, Facebook posts, and Tweets, where brevity is required, or in commercial settings, names of companies, brand, and logos.

The Huff Post ran an article on this.  From which a take a quote that questions the lack of validity often given to such Minimal Poetry:

"If there was such a poetic form as the two-word poem, it would be the ultimate in literary minimalism and the vanishing point for that most characteristic of modernist trends in poetry: ever-greater compression, or breviloquence. Why couldn’t the form of just two words have its own unique esthetic challenge that is just as valid a self-imposed restriction as a rhyme scheme or the seventeen syllables of a haiku? If a haiku is no less a poem than an epic, why should a two-word poem be any less a poem than a haiku?"

Having worked hard in the commercial word to create some of this Minimal Poetry to express the aims and desires of the company instantly to a hopeful buyer and brand follower, I can testify to the number of hours involved in it. It takes a lot of time to get it just right.

The two words poetry to express some of the following are below.
RoundBelly = maternity clothes
Eco Sprout = organic children's clothing
These are by no means the best examples that exist out there, and I am sure I have written some better Minimal Poetry myself, but these are the ones that I used often enough to remember them.

Here are some others that come to mind:
Don't squeeze the Charmin
Finger Licken Good
Third Rock from the Sun
Sleeping Angels
Toddling through the Demolition Zone

Besides commercial and online social adventures in Minimal Poetry, protest signs are a great source.

What do you know of Minimal Poetry?

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