Introductions, &c.

Hello everyone. My name is Professor Theodor X. La Merciere and I will be the new poetry reviewer on your little website. Please do not misconstrue the heretofore light tone of this post as an invitation for undue familiarity. I expect to be addressed as Professor Theodor X. La Merciere, Professor La Merciere, or Professor. I have taught adjunct at some of the finest community colleges in the state of Alabama and you will treat me with the respect due a man in my position. I hope this introduction has been sufficient.

The first poem I will be reviewing (chosen at random) was the featured poem on Poetry Daily on Mar. 16, 2009: Deborah Warren's "Dream with Flowers and Bowl of Fruit." (Hmmm, I am bored with this poem already and all I have done so far is type its name.)

The poem begins with what I read as a self-referential allusion to the boredom I am about to experience while reading it: "Too many of my dreams [read: poems] these days are boring." While I appreciate Ms. Warren's tactic of forecasting my distaste, she does nothing to alleviate it. Instead, Ms. Warren uses the next two stanzas to talk about how deficiencies in her character make it so that she is unable to scare up a dream that is any more exciting than the flowers, &c. referenced in the title. (Her mental poverty, I gather, is the lingering message of the poem...)

The loose iambic meter is, perhaps appropriately, plodding and the rhymes could not be any more nauseatingly cutesy, art imitating life in both cases. (Ms. Warren even rhymes "drama, and I miss" to "trauma--and I miss." You must see it to believe it.) Though perhaps the fact that she is a formal poet is punishment enough for the crime of writing this steaming pile.

Rating: Oh, let's say 15% (for her honesty)