Just spent about ten minutes looking around the web site. Highlarious--unintentionally, of course. If someone can invent a drinking game based on its contents, though, it'll have earned its keep.

Prissy Classical allusion--drink a beer.
Putdown of free-verse poet--SHOTS, BRO!
Overt racist/homophobic/misogynist statement--sober up, look sheepish and embarrassed for all concerned.

Or something.

I'm glad Quincy said what I merely thought.

My favorite from the archives:

On the Protesters Filled With Hate

By Bruce Dale Wise

And while American airports were filled with screaming hate,
Chief Petty Officer Will “Ryan” Owens met his fate,
caught in a raid against Al-Qaida’s force in Yemen’s love.
Who gives a damn for him who gave the last full measure of
devotion to his country, fighting those Islamic cells,
who out of earthly paradise keep striving to make hell.
Thanks for the righteous people who protest in safety’s screen,
who do not give a damn for those who fight to keep them free.
Chief Petty Officer Will “Ryan” Owens met his fate,
while thousands of Americans protest in screaming hate.

Anyway, I'm sure Salemi has the site bookmarked for when he tires of xtube.

Laughably, shamefully, when I didn't know what I was doing, had no guidance, no poet friends, no Sphere, I found it on Duotrope and sent a poem off to this site without actually looking at it.

And it got published.

I figured the journal would fade to obscurity and close or I could just ignore the poem because who goes to that site (and it wasn't a good poem--it reimagined the Chuangzi dream question in bad iambics and awkward rhymes...), and then the inauguration poem hoax happened. Which was funny and all, but really brought home how dumb that decision was.

I learned from this that you really need to vet the places you send your poetry to rather than merely wanting a pub.

Lesson learned, but woof.

Walter--

I think this site might be Salemi's xtube.

Walter, you should link to the poem above, rather than quoting it, because how can we fully appreciate its brilliance if we're deprived of the edifying comments?

Sally,

I have arrived much more than fashionably late to this party. Congratulations on the publishing of your most enjoyable poem.

Andrew, you might want to avoid this one, too. I hear 'extreme vetting' is back in vogue.

Greg

Free verse poets have certainly been known to say some asinine things about rhyme and meter. But do they waste their time writing clumsy, self-important vers libre manifestos about how much formal verse sucks?

One thing Cook demonstrates with this characteristically witless, soulless poem is that Whitworth and Whitman are both better poets than she is. Her line "Feel sorry for poor poets blaring pompously, full blast" is an inadvertently apt auto-critique zinger.

Every well-written formal poem is a compelling argument for the virtues of the literary tradition it embodies. Bumf like Cook's sells us short by telling the world that formalist poets are insecure cultists with nothing to say beyond empty boasts about being better than the other sects.

Who's superior now?