Necessary poems

There's a school of thought that claims poems can only be any good if they "need" to be written. The argument goes that any poem arisen from a prompt, exercise, workshop, etc, is inherently flawed because there wasn't a necessity of expression at its source.

The opposing argument, however, would have it that many poems can become necessary. From this perspective, an inconsequential or artificial starting point is irrelevant to the degree of necessity that's expressed by the finished product. In this respect, I'd personally suggest that the dichotomy should be nuanced to reflect the difference between a writer's need to write a poem and a reader's need to read it.

However, my own conclusion goes further. I've seen rubbish that's been written out of so-called necessity, while I've seen exceptional poems that were written out of exercises. It all depends, like always, on the individual poet's capacity for taking a point of departure and taking it on a journey.

One such example can be found in Paul Stephenson's terrific recent pamphlet, Selfie with Waterlilies. He clearly states that many of those poems in the afore-mentioned chapbook were born out of workshops, yet that doesn't make them any less authentic or moving. The success of a piece still depends on the poet's capacity to make leaps and thus engage the reader, whatever the source. That's the key to writing a necessary poem.