Discussions of poetry tend to be conducted in a rarefied atmosphere that bears only lightly, if at all, on anything other than itself. Consequently, much effort can be wasted with very little productive result. For example, Simon Armitage's reference (albeit adroit) to the verticality of poetry as opposed to the horizontality of prose,1 conveys nothing to me that I can use as a practising poet to improve my craft. It would seem more relevant to discover how best to fulfil the expectations of my potential readers. So I prefer to consider poetry in the terms expressed by Matthew Crawford in his book Shop Class as Soulcraft.2 Subtitled an enquiry into the value of work, and with its primary reference to motorcycle maintenance and restoration, it nevertheless offers an excellent model for the creation of real poetry.

Crawford's main argument is that whereas excellent performance in skilled crafts is essentially intuitive (based on acute observation and accumulated practical experience) the last century has been one of systematic rule based deskilling – conversion of the observable performance of experts into algorithms that can be followed by the unskilled. But the assumption that this achieves comparable results is unfounded as, although the here's how is present in the rule sets so devised, the why? and the what for? have been lost. So it doesn't take long for conformity with the rules to acquire overriding significance at the expense of quality of the results, as conformity can easily be monitored but quality can be hard to quantify in absolute terms.

As Crawford points out, the primary responsibility of a bike restorer is not to the bike, it's to the bike's owner ; and there lies the key – the repair job is intrinsically a social activity. But the job is also, in his words, a stochastic art – a domain with few fixed rules that's littered with surprises requiring often unique solutions to be devised from experience and first principles. So no algorithm can serve to achieve high quality results.

You may ask what's all this got to do with poetry? Very simply, unless one writes solely for private satisfaction and isn't going to impose the results on others, poetry must have both these attributes – a social relationship and a stochastic field of play. But, despite the supposed freedom of free verse, poetry today is bogged down in rules. We don't call them rules – it sounds nicer to refer to current trends, modernity and so on – but there are so many darned things one's expected, or not supposed, to do3 that the real purpose of poetry (to impart subtle experiences emphatically to our fellow humans) has got almost completely lost in the pursuit of arbitrarily acceptable form. The preferences of the wider public who might want to read our works have been ignored in the rush to keep our colleagues happy and on-side. So it's not at all surprising that, although self-styled poets are proliferating like mushrooms, very few folk other than the poets themselves and their cronies are actually reading their poetry. Ask any general bookstore manager and they'll confirm that the poetry section is basically a token gesture. Nor is it surprising that chatbots are generating 'poetry' indistinguishable from that written by humans – 'the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our chatbots, / But in ourselves',4 having algorithmicised what should have been intuitive.

So if our writing aims to be more than a purely private hobby, we have a duty to our public – just as the bike mechanic's duty is to the owner of the bike under restoration. And if we feel that parallel to be infra dig. because we're 'artists', that just shows we're kidding ourselves. Lots of people have interesting ideas, but poetry is a craft, just like painting, sculpture and motorcycle maintenance. The creation of real art is not about self importance, or even self expression. Indeed, until quite recently (the last 300 years or so), artists often didn't even sign their work. Their purpose was to serve their patron, or to celebrate the glory of God, with excellence – not to be lauded as an artist. But if, instead of consciously and conscientiously serving some purpose external to ourselves, we reduce the poetic craft to a set of rules that anyone can follow without expertise or commitment, we'll produce nothing other than masses of crashingly obvious or laboriously contrived poetry that no-one in their right mind outside the poetry clique would be bothered to read.

So you may feel you have something important to say, and poetry may seem the best medium for saying it, but for Pete's 5 sake try to make it succeed in communicating your message to the general reading public, rather than just pandering to your poetical peers or personal whims.6 I think Pete will appreciate the improvement in your craft.

 [1] Simon Armitage, A Vertical Art, Princeton University Press 2022

 [2] Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft, Penguin Books 2010

 [3] 'must have a title', 'no archaisms', 'must not rhyme', banned word lists, etc. ad nausiam

 [4] with apologies to Shakespeare (Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2. Cassius speaks)

 [5] Pete – the guy in the street, who's probably a lot more discerning and informed than we generally give him credit for (as is his girlfriend)

 [6] It might not be a bad idea to find out what the public wants by actually asking