The Hall of Gratuitous Praise
for the poets & writers
is writing just a path through a feather quill maze
with blank paper passages dawning words of grace?
is this labyrinth of stanza’s allays
just an ancient crafted ancestral craze
to reach The Great Hall of Gratuitous Praise?
.
navigating calligraphy corridors, baring our souls naked outdoors,
with hearts deeply mourning and fragile egos yearning,
evading negative captors whilst lost in average chapters
chasing literary accolades
on our way to The Great Hall of Gratuitous Praise
.
is our chosen path one of wrath or of sadness?
is it all just a kind of socially accepted madness?
what really fuels us to find this throne?
is it actually the fear of bleeding alone
compelling us, forcing us to go on?
.
and what is it that we expect to find?
some kind of solace for the mind?
everlasting joy for all our days
or a life spent basking in some sweet spelling haze
in this fabled Great Hall of Gratuitous Praise?
.
is it our yellow brick road or a paragraph of rough phases?
these trapdoors and tangents turning our pages
this Questing through boggy ink stained places,
seeking happily ever afters where we believe grace is
plotting our way to the Great Hall of Gratuitous Praises
.
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Comments (12)
It's a trap we're in, in some ways. We write for the sake of writing, yet we are human beings with needs for love and support and kindness. Is it fear of honesty that holds us back, demands the construction of a Hall of Gratuitous Praises? God forbid somebody gives a real answer and not just a "well-done" or "nice poem", perhaps thinking they don't want to offend or else that they'd rather have the latter than the former, themselves. In the end, though, doesn't this deny us the real connection that we want? Certainly don't want "evading negative captors whilst lost in average chapters"... (nicely penned)... for how can we grow this way? Beautiful and thoughtful piece... sincerely 💙Anneliese
Excellent! The word choice on this was top tier and you captured the essence of that nervous energy involved in creative endeavors. I really enjoyed this.
Wasn't there an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch where Melissa Joan Hart encounters a Hall of Gratuitous Praise? A hall, as in the hallway of an ordinary house, packed from shoulder to shoulder with people who just cheered and applauded every time you opened the door? I do remember watching that one, and loving it! Not just because it was funny, either, but because it was a genuine wake-up call. I'll have been a college student then, scribbling every minute of the day and forcing people to read my scribbles, and my first thought was: "Wow, I wish I had one of those!" Then my second thought was: "Actually, how long would it be fun? When you knew it meant nothing? And those people hadn't even read your story, and were telling you nothing about it?" A great early lesson for a young writer, and your poem's just taken me right back to it, Kayleigh. We should cite the Hall to every would-be author who's just starting out. Oh, and if the Sabrina allusion was deliberate, you receive the Doc Sherwood award for obscure reference of that day!
I guess I write for both myself and for validation as well. I hope that makes sense, lol. I really loved your poem. It made me feel that it is okay to get validation.
Here we are together, plotting in more ways than one! Brilliant Kayleigh!
Both funny and though provoking. And salient. Nice work.
Incredible <3
Your skills are ✨✨
Great poem, Kayleigh! You are starting a conversation that many of us are scared of having. ;-) I think this is one of the greatest problems for writers (not just poets). A majority writes for validation, while claiming that they just write for themselves. We are among the least self-confident people on the planet, after all. Social media a double-edged sword. We pressure ourselves to write all the time and share everything because of FOMO. And if only a few people respond to us, we feel isolated and alone.
Great poem!
Mmm. Thoughtful. Do we write for the approval of others? Maybe. Do we write for ourselves? I like to think so. I think there is a lot in this, Kayleigh and it is something that I think about a lot being part of this platform. I like to think that my praise is not gratuitous but I'd be lying if I didn't say I like to be the recipient of it from others and I didn't get a little frisson from a comment left. Mmm. You've got under my skin a little with this one. And I like that. And also, I don't. But if it prompts deeper thought, that can only be a good thing. One of the writers I follow has turned off their comments today and I do wonder why.
Fabulous!!! Love this!!! 💕♥️♥️ Especially this line "Is it our yellow brick road or just a paragraph of rough phases?"