Christopher Robin

Posted 10 Years Ago

congrats on your top writer badge!! you deserve it!! truly one of my favorites:)

Posted 10 Years Ago

I'm fairly new to this community, but I have already noticed the overwhelming amount of "woe is me" poetry and I have to say that your comments about the whole situation are awesome. I agree wholeheartedly. I make no claims as to my proficiency as a poet or writer, but I know I'm much more appreciative of a harsh critic than a "wow pretty words nice emotion" review. And I love your final statement about the art of poetry being a form of entertainment, because my favorite kind of poetry tends to be the quirky, nonsensical, childish (if you will) poetry--none of this "my-boyfriend-is-a-jerk-agree-with-me-please" poetry. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I look forward to reading more of your work!

Posted 10 Years Ago

I'm sure you poor tortured poets out there have realized by now I'm a harsh critic. I'm not here to pat you on the back and say 'wow that was really moving because I can relate to that, now look at my example'. I'm here to speak the truth, and the truth is as horrific as it is obvious; this should be the lighthouse, the final bastion against illiteracy in this morbidly twisted and abbreviated internet world. Yet time after time I read pieces with grammar issues, spelling mistakes, and worst of all, constant prose labeled as 'poetry'. Poetry has to have some rules: rhymes, meter, stanzas, couplets, patterns, anything. Prose can be anything you like, free verse no rules and there's nothing wrong with that, just don't claim your work to be something it isn't, and if you're unsure, surely you're in the very best community possible to provide you with this knowledge. The 'woe is me' card is so overplayed and usually so poorly executed I feel as though there should be some sort of screening process before allowing people to post their self-obsessed depressive ramblings. Herein lies the problem, searching for 'good' poetry on this site uses an equation of - views + comments + upvotes /100 = average score of poetry. I can see how this works in theory, but in practice - misery loves company, sad people vote for sad things written better than their own sad things. Where is the sifting through the dirt to find the gold nuggets? I don't see it. I feel as though art, especially poetry should be both evocative and inspirational, this site is slowly turning that into a morose mess of mixed feelings and attention complexes.
The solution? The same as the problem - the writers! Take a break from your first world problems for a moment and consider the luck, chance, fortune, technology and freedom that is allowing you to sit at a computer screen and say whatever it is you like on a site anyone can read and admire. Perhaps that will place your troubles into perspective and we can all have fun and return to a time when this sort of art was a form of entertainment, not self-deprecation.