Stupidity

It took less than a minute to write. It's laborious, it's pedantic, it rhymes for no good reason and sacrifices anything of value in order to pretend meaning. But I wrote this from my colon so I won't be changing a thing. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

This worthless piece of crap will NOT appear in my next book: Suck Free Poetry Volume 2: Prelude to a Battle of Wits Since it fails the primary test of not sucking. If I get a wild hair I may put out a book entitled: Black Hole Poetry: Sucks the Life From You and Not in a Good Way but I'm thinking I'll have to use a working title to get folks to volunteer their work for it. Maybe if I offer a CASH MONEY prize. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

And, honestly, I'm not overly concerned about badly written poetry until the poet refuses to grow and hides behind such excuses as "style" and "heart." Folks this is a poetry WORKSHOP site, not a "please tell me how wonderful I am" site. If you cannot accept criticism to your work and whine at us about how mean we are to expect you to be a member of the community rather than a parasite on our time and talent, tough. If you feel poetry in general and your poetry specifically should be subject to no review and should be reveled at including all misspellings and other basic errors, tough. If you receive relevant and thoughtful critique and continue to make the same errors over and over and trot out any of the above as reasoning, tough. This is, AGAIN, a poetry workshop environment. Each person on this site can benefit from the review, questions, and suggestions of others. You may not implement the suggestions but if you do not, at the very least, consider and review them, then you are an idiot. If you think that's too harsh, tough. I'll use myself as an example. I normally take a LONG time to write a poem. Recently, after 10+ years of trying to write AT MIDDLEPOOL FALLS, around six (6) months ago I finally found the voice and message I wanted. I spent, off and on, six (6) months writing it, shaping it, editing it, etc until I was finished and satisfied. When I posted it to NeoPoet.com I thought it was a good poem with a good flow and message and feel. I felt it embraced my 10+ year old vision and was ready for others to give me their views. And I got them. I got challenged on phrasing, on pacing, on ideas and word choice. So I reviewed the suggestions, saw that they were valid, and modified the poem to be stronger and more fluid and more clear. I felt, as posted, it was a good poem. As modified, through suggestions I may have taken, if lucky, years to discover on my own, it was a much better poem. Another poem, THAT PERFECT SUMMER, had similar input and challenges and emerged a much stronger work because I listened. I could go on and on but the important thing to take from this is that my goal with my poetry is to express my vision and dreams across as wide an audience as possible. Why then would I ignore suggestions and advice from talented and thoughtful people? I would do so if I were a self-centered and egotistical dolt who could not imagine anyone but myself having a decent idea. And while folks may insist I am self-centered and egotistical, I am no dolt because I have and will continue to glean value and progress from the freely offered talent and time of the folks who make this community unique and priceless. Poetry is a thing that I love, not just for the voice it gives me but for the connections it can establish with others. Those of you who focus on your own voice exclusively are parasites. I will interact with you once or twice to gauge your mettle and then the most you can hope for is that I will ignore you. Should your parasitic behavior include ridicule and arrogance against others in this community, well, then I'll write more stupid poems from my colon as commentary on you and your approach. At the very least I will enjoy myself. Folks, this is not a threat. I don't deal in threats and find them wasteful of time and resources. I am stating the IF THEN result. IF you are an arrogant prick, THEN I will be a condescending asshole. Count on it. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)

I've decided to use this poem in my next volume of poetry even though I promised I would not. My reasoning is thus: It's a great example of a satire/parody poem meant to spur conversation and comment. That's my cop-out, I'm sticking to it. --Jonathan Annoying the world, one person at a time (Group discounts available)