Bad Poetry?

Woo! I love threads such as these. They get me fired up.  I've had this discussion one too many times. Here's the thing; in High School, I read Neruda and decided that *I* was going to be a poet. I brought my crappy poetry to my English teacher and he would "oo" and "ahh" over it for me. I tell you what, if he had said "this is bad", I would've stopped writing. Not sure if I would've stopped had he said "this is bad. Here's how to make it better..." I think that these sunshine-critique websites you speak of (cough..pathetic) assist other people in doing the same thing. They are sort of the nursery school of poets, if you will. The ones for people who want to build up some confidence before they hand their poetry to someone who will objectively tear it apart. Ah, the passion of it all.

 I remember taking several CW classes in college. They were all watered down and tepid, but that is the Americana way, yes? One of my ex's called it McPoetry. I think that's a good way to put it. In any case, I enrolled in another poetry class in Spring 2005 where my professor gave me much of the same; unwarranted encouragement. However, in *this* class, there was a guy who read my first poem and told me, in so many words, that it sucked. Of course, by this time I had the confidence to listen and try his suggestions instead of saying "Woe is me" (cough....I don't care what you say, we're poets, we're all a little emo) and quitting the pen for good.

He saved my writing by kicking my ass all up and down the page. The best conversation we had was about the objective rules to art. Something that makes a piece of art "good" or "bad" and there are also rules for painting, music, dance, etc. Don't let some artist paint a circle and sell it to you for a gazillion bucks. Use your head.

hahahaha McPoetry. Cracks me up.

Great thread, btw. Made my day.