Go to hell, you obnoxious reviewer
who enjoys putting bards on a skewer!
In the course of your piece
you’ve applauded MacNeice
but disparaged a name that’s much newer.

Duncan

I was apparently feeling quite bitter when I wrote this a few years ago...


Artistry

The world, it seems, has lost its sense of art--
The painters and the poets go unknown
To ply their crafts, neglected and alone,
Translating the impetus of the heart.
The critics still exist to tear apart
Each earnest scrap of artistry they're shown:
They snidely crush the spirit, then bemoan
Our lack of modern Monet or Mozart.
The penchant for creation has become
A lonesome avocation, lost for some,
In favour of the humdrum and mundane;
The inward artist, inward must remain,
To drown in shallowness, and try to numb
The harshness of rejection, and the pain.

Dear Philip - do not despair.

The sonnet I posted was a piece of devil's advocacy. In a way I am delighted that it appeared so convincing but it was actually published in a collection that included many "straight" sonnets. The poet to whom it was dedicated hardly ever used form. When asked for her advice on how to handle negative criticism, she said that my rhyming "got me noticed" and that the more avant-garde critics saw me as fair game. So I fell on my sword with a grin on my face.

Incidentally I wrote an article on The Sonnet for Poetry News at their invitation after I snuck one under the wire in the National Poetry Competition.

So - thank you for your concern, but you don't have to worry. Much.

Here's some of my own sad old crap:

CRITIQUE

I like this very much, but you should cut
everything that follows stanza three,
maybe change the second yet to but,
eliminate that pompous royal we,
then think about the meter. Are you sure
those anapests you favor don’t create
a sort of sing-song bounciness that pure
iambic verse could help you mitigate?

You might just try this as a villanelle,
or better yet, a series of haikus.
Remember, poet: always show, don’t tell.
And there’s a ton of padding here I’d lose.

I’ve seen your other work and thus surmise
this poem will turn out great --once you revise.

Bob,
Fabulous! I love it!
Martin

In S1 I'd like it better if "yet", "but" and "we" were quoted.

Only kidding...

Philip

"Never Mind”

To smooth a rift, no words seem more felicitous
Than these, whose drift sounds golden and solicitous

Yet covers everything from Cheers, my friend!
And Please, don’t trouble more! to, Why pretend

It’s worth more time or effort or pretense
To sift your fill for any trace of sense?

A range, which tells the otherwise inclined,
We have a lode of issues . . . never mined.

Frank

A gorgeous grin of an answer to a question I've never dared to ask. Ten characters of dynamite exploded in eight lines of wicked glee. Oh, thank you.

I forgot that I had written this ages ago:

Comeuppance



I’m in a room with all the critics who dictate our taste—
Interior designers for the mentally infirm.
There’s not much contact with the eye, a tendency to squirm;
the literary critics seem a trifle janus-faced.

One blurts he likes a painting, then he rushes out, disgraced.
The others use their handkerchiefs as though he were a germ.
They shake their heads and titter and conclusively affirm
that planet Earth is just a pile of cosmic household-waste.

Then, Handel, Shakespeare, Leonardo, Molière appear
with Turner, Goethe, Pushkin, Woody Allen—still they come.
A stream of talent fills the room, Sam Johnson at the rear.
The critics superciliously pretend there’s no one here.
Now Dante points towards the door: “Go, hapless human-scum”,
and Robert Burns flies at the last and kicks him on the bum.

I loved Ann's final couplet. (Yes, I'm that cynical).