I often pop into Waterstones and pick up a 'Top Ten' best seller, read the first few pages, toss it back. I'm so annoyed at the dribbley mush that purports to be dynamic, the here and now, writing. Bull S++t!

Poetry you say! I adore poetry. Try and pen it myself. But thank heavens I understand that poetry may take several minutes to write but a lifetime to master. So don't publish before you've lived.

I remember Cyril Fletcher. A wonderful orator. So what colour is YOUR smoking jacket?

According to statistics [Waterstones] only one in ten thousand reads poetry, and worse still, only one in one hundred thousand purchases it. I like those figures, being a reader, writer, buyer, kinda makes me an elite. In America every man and his hound writes poetry, has published, has vanity problem, has bonfire with unsold copies.

So you go ahead and hammer the book. There's far to much rubbish out there. Here's some useful phrases [and I do jest in my comments]:

'Couldn't put it down' -- 'Shakespeare! Eat yer heart out!' -- 'Very nice.' -- 'Lovely poems.' --

Poets so hate sarcasm or words that are non descriptive.

Yours

HePo