I NOW drink six cups of coffee every day
Two cups in the morning with you
Because I like spending time with you
Two cups in the afternoon with you again
Because I want to keep you as long as I can
Two cups at night when I am alone
Trying to write a poem about you
I really don’t like coffee, but I really, really like you.
***
I think that everything I want to say is in the title.
Or in the last line.
But the last line alone does not sound like poetry.
If it is, it is a very lazy poem.
***
What makes a poem?
At least in this one, I think the evocation of images.
At least, the dramatization of the idea.
The showing of “how you make me do things”, more than just telling.
Of course, there’s a telling in the showing.
But the details is more showing than telling.
***
Telling is this: “I drink six cups of coffee because of you.”
Showing is this:
“I now drink six cups of coffee every day
Two cups in the morning with you
Because I like spending time with you
Two cups in the afternoon with you again
Because I want to keep you as long as I can
Two cups at night when I am alone
Trying to write a poem about you
I really don’t like coffee, but I really, really like you.”
***
As for the musicality of the poem, what about the repetends?
Repetend — the repeated sounds, phrases, words in a poem.
“Two cups” is repeated three times.
“Like”, three times.
“Cups”, four.
“You”, six.
“Really,” three.
“I”, seven.
***
“I really, really like you”, repeats “really” once.
Now, evaluate.
Do we really need a second “really” there?
The fact that there’s a “really” in the coffee half of that sentence (even if it’s in the negative “really don’t”), I would argue for the two “reallys” in “But I really, really like you.”
Not only because it is true, but because to be madly in love like that can make one do things.
Like drink six cups of coffee.
Like double on the “really”.
***
Someone said that because I am a poet, what I write is poetry.
That in the hands of a non-poet, maybe this declaration is not poetry.
I’m not sure about that.
If I read this from another, I would recognize this as poetry.
***
Again, it is not poetry that aspires to seventh heaven.
It is probably not a poem to crow about.
But if people get it, if people can relate to it, I’d take that.
I’ve always prided myself as “the people’s poet”, the poet of the masses.
The poet of the lavanderas and jeepney drivers.
But mostly of the students who are just beginning to discover the joys of poetry.
I write poems for high schools students; and I’m proud of that.
***
I am not trying to write poetry for the AB Literature students.
Not for them, not for their professors and all those PhD in Literature people.
They can write their own poetry.
They can look up the poetry from the old books.
They can kill each other arguing over Shakespeare or Blake or Longfellow or Eliot.
I just want my six cups of coffee!
***
Or that boy who makes me do things.
Like drink inordinate amounts of coffee in a day.
Or write a week’s supply of Panay News columns in a coffee shop.
Like in a period of four hours.
From 6:45 when he meets me for coffee to 10:45 when I finally leave after writing my advance columns (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) for the next week.
Never mind that the boy can only stay an hour or so for our coffee time./PN
