What Elvis Taught Me

I've been trying to figure out what's wrong with my writing for a while now. It's been called banal and devoid of heart and wit, among other things. I didn't completely disagree, I knew something was amiss, but I just didn't exactly see what others saw. Then yesterday I watched Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock (1957). I know, I know, I can't help it, I have a strange affinity for cheesy Elvis flicks. Anyhow, in the movie Elvis goes into a studio and records a love song, hoping to shop it around and get a record deal. When he listens to the playback he says "Is that really how I sound?". He was disgusted and thought he sounded like everyone else on the radio. I was baffled because it sounded good to me. It was a very nice song, his voice sounded good, it was perfectly fine, nothing wrong with it. But he didn't like it and gave it another shot. This time the studio musicians jazzed it up a bit, added a little soul. And Elvis put his own form of down and dirty soul into the vocal, that signature Elvis sound so recognizable around the world. The difference between the two performances was like night and day and something clicked in my head. The first version was perfectly okay, but it was flat, lifeless, lacking soul, character, personality. That's how my poetry reads. Even I'm bored by my poetry. It sounds nice, it makes sense, it may even be emotionally stirring if you can relate to it, but it's stuffy and flat. Especially my earlier poems. My prose, on the other hand, is less boring. My blog entries may be boring in parts, but I almost always manage to infuse some wit, humor, and hopefully just a tad of my own style. Why can't I do that with my poetry? I'll have to mull it over some more. Huh. *scratching head* Like my grandpa always told me, you learn something new every day. But whoever thought I'd learn anything from Elvis?