Thank you!

hi Random, sorry I haven't gotten a chance to write many comments to your work. Jess (weirdelf) actually told me about a week ago that you are really talented and that I should check out your poetry. Let me be very out in the open here, Jess is my friend, so I don't want you have any pictures of me defending him in secret here. Like you I follow Christ, and it is refreshing to see another believer on here. I hope your day finds you blessed and in good spirits. With all that said I have to be honest and tell you I'm a little dismayed by this poem, "Mr. Paragraph," and your response to a critique of "Divinity." Please understand that in priciple I agree with you on a number of things you say. ie., that you should freely be allowed to write the way you want, that technically we write for ourselves, etc. I just think that perhaps you are being a touch thin - skinned about Jess' comments. Can he be a bit rough around the collar at times? Who isn't? I can tell you that he is earnest and straight forward in his assesments. Look at it this way: a lot of poetry sites will let you post poems and you might get a few "WOW! What a great poem!" sort of comments, but I can pretty much assure you that none are as interactive as this one. And that makes it valuable. Look, if you only wrote for yourself you would have no need to post your poems, but let's face it, on some level you do want feedback, you have asked for it. Now, taken or not all feedback is valuable. It gives you a gauge as to how your poetry is received. You may not change it, but you may tweak it. I guess the best example would be this: I am a chef, but I had to start out as a cook working under other chefs. I had my own way of chopping onions When I went to culinary school I learned how their way to chop an onion. When I took my first job I learned that chef's way of chopping an onion. When I took the next job I learned that chef's way of doing it, and so on. When I became a chef in my own right I then was able to use my own way of chopping an onion again, but you know what? It had evolved, not changed, but evolved. I was more efficient, faster, more dextirious, and cleaner. I could only have gotten those things by listening to my mentors, not necessarily becoming them or conforming to them, but heeding their advice and adding it to my own style. I am looking forward to reading your wonderful poetry that I have heard so much about, but I do hope that you and Jess can keep this public bickering aside. :) God bless. Mark W.