Archive for November 11th, 2008
Reading What Passes for Poetry is Like Passing Kidney Stones
Written by John Erianne on November 11, 2008 – 10:55 am -After two-plus weeks of mostly good submissions, I was getting kind of spoiled. The inevitable arrival of bad poetry was bound to happen. It’s statistically impossible to receive more than 10% good submissions during the year when you are dealing with a slush pile. So, after two weeks, the equation had to balance out.
Reading this one god awful poem, this morning, I was overcome with the sensation that reading such garbage is actually painful — kind of like passing a kidney stone. I mean the poem had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It was while reading this poem that I was struck with an idea: what if scientists could develop special DNA testing that could identify and seperate good poets from bad poets. You know what I’m saying? You go and get your blood drawn and some lab tech would run your blood through whatever device, microscope, centrifuge, etc. and a few days later you get a piece of paper with the results. Instead of submitting poems, you could submit copies of the result to poetry editors with a query letter and, based on that the editors could decide whether or not they wanted to read your poems. I’m joking, of course, but — no, seriously . . . what do you think?
Posted in Happy Horseshit, Publishing, The Writing Life, Wannabes, editing, poetry, random thoughts | 1 Comment »
