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# Functional Poetry
- URL: https://www.hawkword.com/poetry/functional-poetry/
- Published: 2022-06-24T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2022-06-24T12:00:00.000Z
- Description: Did form come first? Or did it follow function? Eggs did come before chickens, since you're asking. Let me persuade you, though, that function is what followed.
- Author: A. Gee
- Tags: Poetry, Sonnet, Allpoetry Import, #Import 2026-04-25 19:56

Did form come first? Or did it follow function?  
Eggs did come before chickens, since you're asking.  
Let me persuade you, though, that function is what followed.

What right have I to challenge, at this junction  
clichés that permeate our language? They are basking  
in platitudes. Both commonspeak and hallowed,

as if there is a body that would sanction  
and sanctify their "truisms". Their unmasking  
is surely not an enviable chore. They're swallowed

without a speck of doubt. Well, the expunction  
of platitudes and truisms -- that's my tasking  
so writings are no longer sunk or shallowed

by them. What argument do I intend to proffer?  
Look up Lamarck and Darwin, that's my offer.