Reviewing Books Of Poetry

I like to read poetry, as many of you know, and I also like to write reviews of lots of things, as you can probably tell by the 300+ reviews I've done for this blog, but reviewing poetry books is kind of a mixed bag for me. One problem is that everybody expects when a poet reviews a book of poetry that they try to make their review sound poetic, but fuck all that noise, and also I don't like sounding academic which everybody also wants you to do, to which I say balls poopy vaghole. The biggest problem though is that in this world of google alerts, I always worry that if I write a bad review of somebody's book their feelings will get hurt. When I half-jokingly reviewed Fence Magazine a while back, somebody obviously got angry and started crying or something, and I felt a little regretful because I don't want to make anybody feel bad with this blog, but rather I want them to laugh or some other such joyous act. However, I believe there is a serious lack of poetry police out there, though, and that a lot of journals don't want to publish negative reviews because it "hurts poetry" or maybe for the same sappy reasons I am reluctant to do it. But without poetry police actually leveling legitimate criticism, who's going to call out bad books and bad poetic directions? I don't think I'm alone in saying the majority of American poetry being published in major literary journals is bland and highly predictable. Hey, maybe cantankerous old Yvor Winters had the right idea. In conclusion I would like to say poopy again, and also you probably shouldn't come to this blog for legitimate academic criticism, and if I hurt your feelings somehow I am sorry in advance.

RATING: 27%