Top 10 Poetry Pet Peeves

10. Nevermind, this post is a waste of time. But railing against poet blogs is like railing against reality TV: Neither have much to do with people's actual lives and you can always surf to something else, or turn it off.
  9. The professionalization, which is basically the academicization, of "creative writing." It has fostered a neglect (if not fear) of heights, of lightness and of depth, in favor of that which ripples outward along the surface. Ultimately, though, this can't be too big a deal because it can't affect the "real work," only the reception of it.
  8. Attacks against the professionalization and academicization by neo-con poemeisters, which too easily tie in with the larger cultural disdain for intelligence and art and especially the two together, and might make any distaste for professionalization and academicization seem purely reactionary and rear garde.
  7. The sociology of poet communities as a topic of concern and aggressive posturing. See academic (about the eighth definition or so).
  6. The John Doe Award for Poetry. The Jane Doe Award for Poetry. The Tweedledee Prize in Poetry. The Tweedledum Prize in Poetry. The What-a-Year-It-Was Award in Poetry. The Etc. Prize in Etc. Poetry Etc.
  5. Prose poems as a specialty—write short stories or something—and, more generally, calls for genre bending works that transgress verse/prose/fiction/essay distinctions and waft across Borders and settle in formal blind spots. Also, calls for moratoriums on certain subjects or forms.
  4. Continual flogging of dead-horse confessionalism, esp. combined with über-avant anti-lyric-eye gouging.
  3. Interviews—more now than you can shake the side of a barn with. Wait, that doesn't work. Whatever, from now on I shall (heh, shall) refer to interviews as killer tomatoes.
  2. Chapbooks—possibly more than you can wallpaper the side of every barn in the country with. At least electronic chpbks that suck don't waste paper.
  1. I keep trying to hit the bull's eye, when I'm lucky if I even nick the target. Meanwhile, kids cry for attention or something like food, dishes wait to be washed, dirty clothes get worn over and over, and wife fumes waiting for responses to questions never heard. . . . Also, giving up as a reoccurring theme.