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Like the sailors belt out in 'South Pacific', "there ain't nothin'
like a dame!, " I'd say the same goes for rants. When the moon
is full-- or the craw, or the head with pressure-- there is nothing
like a rant to set things to rights again. Every poetry type has its
purpose and rants are especially fine for a primal scream of
the soul; one that cleanses the pipes and puts the boiler back in
working order for just as a poet sings-- he also must be permitted
to merely howl when the blood is up and words are like
burning arrows on the tongue. I've found some of the most
delightful parody in reading the rants of others as well as
the yips and cries-- with nothing sacrificed in terms of
music to the ear or inventive images. And so often
found blessed release in writing my own.


Poets are poets in anger, in self-righteousness-- in pique,
in feast or famine-- and there is no denying that a poetic
approach can be applied when simply howling the head off
over politics or annoyances, or affairs of the heart that can
shoot off like meteors filling the sky with a rapid streaks
of light, dazzling to follow. They are the laser knives of the
word world and should be given more respect. How often do
you hear the criticism, "Well that was nothing but a rant--"
'nothing' indeed. Rants may be the red- headed step
children of poetry-- but they are nonetheless a powerful
tool for self-expression as legitimate as any other... more truthful than most.

One thing that attracts me to rants is the undoubted honesty
of language cutting precisely to where whatever rankles the soul
appears most painfully. And we can often find the funniest
satire in a tartly turned rant piece-- perhaps seeing a glimpse
or two of ourselves either in subject matter or in the channeled
voice of the ranter. Ranting is big-- which allows for a theatrical
stepping back while its subject is viewed in much the way an
audience might, with its heated and heightened language
sweeping the listener away the way a play will its
seated patrons.


What are so many of Shakespeare's soliloquies but rants gone
full-blown poetic?-- just listen to King Lear at the height
of his madness, raging in the fury of the storm
about the nature of women

Behold yond simpering dame, Whose face between her forks presages snow; That minces virtue, and does shake the head To hear of pleasures name; The fitchew, nor the soil'd horse, goes to't With a more riotous appetite. Down from the waist they are Centaurs, Though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit. Beneath is all the fiend's; there's hell, there's darkness, There's the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding, Stench, consumption! Fie, fie, fie! pah! pah!

Does it matter that Lear in his madness, rants against
the sexual nature of women not even seeing it's the more
traditionally held masculine characteristics of covetousness and
the will to power, rather than the female sexual nature that brings
about his undoing? That its his own fundamental misunderstanding
of women in general that has choreographed the catasrophies
of a lifetime?--- Not at all. What we respond to is the power
of his fury. That's what stirs. Are rants over the top?
The good ones are.


Rants come with their own implied soapboxes and they are goodly
pulpits. And though we are past the age of high iambic pentameter
a rant is still a wonderful source of creative outlet for rage and
outrage. It's a psychological as well as creative tool; used well,
it can capture an audience and flick their tautened emotions like
nothing else. If you're not viscerally affected by any rant worth
its salt, either you're not paying attention or your Pollyanna side
prevents you from seething in the way you might if allowed to be
carried away by another poet's head of steam. Think Lear.

It's a raging rapids ride. It's shooting the moon, storming
the gates- and bound to make you breathless by its finish if
you permit that horse to buck as much as it wants. If your
rump is sore, and your thighs are red by the end of the
ride- the rant has done its job.





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