PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I think a lot of young: I think a lot of young politicians are naive enough to think they can make a difference but they will get worn down eventually

Give me something built to: Give me something built to last not the shallow fluff from a soft ivory tower poet or professor

Thank you for your insight: Thank you for your insight into the issue.  As for the last paragraph of it, that is wise advice, and I like your concept of postpoems as a digital book.  I never thought of it in that unique way; but I will do so now.  In a paradoxical way, my complaint about some of the contemporary content at postpoems arises because I love it so much.  I feel very privleged to be a member of postpoems.  Having learned from reading Stevens' letters how much respect one should accord one's publisher, I think of Jason not just as the site administrator or its creator, but as my Publisher.  Some of my poems at postpoems also appear on other sites (only a few poems, only a couple of sites); and one site, operated by the first Internet Poet I ever admired, includes a poem of mine (entitled "Mayerling") on that Poet's list of, and links to, those poems that he considers to me the most important published since 1950.  Postpoems made this possible for me; and in the same way, the site has allowed me to experience and realize the fulfillment of an ambition I have held since 1975---to be a published poet.  My complaint about the rants and the op-eds is merely a tempest in a teapot, made because I feel so comfortable at postpoems that I believe I can freely raise the objection---in the manner of a rant or an op-ed.  But the metaphor occurs to me, as I write this, to deal with the same attitude I had when, in my youth, my First Beloved had to put on shoes to traverse a rough surface or inclement weather.  No reason to complain; it was simply the reality of the situation; and on the other side of the rough surface or inclement weather, my patience found itself well rewarded.  This metaphor now reminds me of the attitude I should maintain, going forward, about postings that do not conform to my personal perspective of what constitutes poetry.  I thank you most humbly and sincerely that your comment led me to this realization, and this metaphor---which provides a corrective to my previous snarly mood.

Amen. Minimum needs being fed: Amen. Minimum needs being fed is not so much possession, as we use and return to nature (no need for me to be graphic there with the most literal form of this process). Possessing, at least as I am attempting to speak of it here and I think you are concurring with, is a desire to hold and control (consumption often is driven by this desire, rather than need). One cannot hold a piece of bread for very long, unless seeking to harvest mold :D   Appreciate you sharing with me that the verse about the high priests funeral hit a certain humorous mark with you. Just as I intended, it was received, at the very least with one reader. And one I particularly respect, so all the better. I do enjoy tone setting, as much as anything, when it comes to writing : )    

I've no doubt that you have: I've no doubt that you have more are more versed in some of the most timeless poetry, and the poets themselves that have penned such work. Eliot is someone I am familiar with and could have listed, but I admit I haven't read much of the writers Stevens, Pound or Cunningham - at least to this point. I've read a lot of Whitman merely due to schooling. He was a little too much of a poetic version of Norman Rockwell for me at times, but I think one of his saving graces was that he was attempting to inspire towards an ideal rather than brush over the flaws of the past and (his) present. Anyhow, our backgrounds do inform, don't they?   I don't find it unreasonable that you have preferences and may find a significant portion of writes on here (or on any site, for that matter) to be lacking in satisfaction to your poetic tastebuds. This conversation is healthy, on the whole. You certainly are in the right place to express how you feel, poetically, but I don't have to tell you that ; )   The world - or at least our portion of it - has undergone an extremly dramatic shift in a relatively short amount of time. There's been many layers to that shift, including but not exclusive to (a) a severe decline in actual verbal communication (one study found that 90 percent of all "verbal" communication between people under 30 in the U.S. is now via emoji's), (b) severe decline in educational assistance and even mere practing in writing/language (all of the students I've worked with in the last 5 years have been severely deficient in writing when they've began working with me), (c) our massively growing divide between each other (aided by the prior two factors, for sure).   I believe you and Patricia have provided some remarks on factor C, already, of which I'd like to add a few thoughts. First, though, let me say that in a world where verbal communication is in a drought period, people starving for it are bending the traditionally held parameters of poetry to find some way to express themselves and connect, truly, with others. I think that art is constantly altering it's shape and borders, and so if poetry can bend a little to give people an outlet, that may be a heroic effort on the part of the art. Art meeting people's wants is wonderful, yet art meeting people's needs is probably connecting to it's very origins. Poetry has certainly been watered down by what amounts to social media memes that get popular and sell (what at least to me are) uninspiring books, but I would say that rant poems are providing us witness to people trying to express themselves rather than sell t-shirts, so this a different animal. Yes, some is (often self unaware) propaganda, to which the collapse of education and rise of pricey miseducation has played a big hand, but I think it's more complex than that.   Division, of course, is largely due to people being constantly led to believe by media they absorb that the end is constantly near, either due to a presidential choice (heck, now we have two groups simultaneously thinking the other "choice" means doomsday), the climate, terrorists, diseases, you name it. We're in a constant apocalyptic state, by in large. Which, I think sir, leads a lot of people to write the way they do. It feels like now or never, leaving many people no time to feel like anything other than a rant-style poem is going to suffice. When one is constantly absorbing what we call the news cycle, today's apocalypse can be ancient history, or at least buried under a couple more apocalypses, in just a matter of months, if not weeks or days.   I think poetry can help people to find and take the long view. It's certainly helped me to take a longer and longer view on life and existence over my years, I can vouch from that. Many of the rants may evolve. Some will probably not. But when we log our writing in this way, we can look back and see what we said/felt/feared versus what actually happened. People can also share insights with the writer, both to aid their writing and also perhaps to help provide a more healthy perspective (and certainly to at least see other perspectives rather than get trapped in echo chambers). Which is more productive than someone constantly re-posting or liking new fear on social media and constantly being sucked into the feed, never looking back. In this way, we can find a positive in that, if nothing else.   The ultimate cure here, at least to me, is for people to largely unplug from the news cycle, remember that "the world is always ending", and touch the world directly around them with more passion and fervor than ever, realizing there is beauty - not just pain - to being so small. I don't know that this will happen, but it might just be a stunning poem of yours or Patricia's or many of the wonderful writers here that inspires someone to do so. In that light, perhaps, you can appeal to your taste buds to accept the added mission of licking your fingers a little more frequently, in order to flip through the pages of writing you don't care for in this digital book called Postpoems. : )        

Thank you for that excellent: Thank you for that excellent comment.  The 86th Psalm is indeed very beautiful and very spiritual, and is great as a guide to personal prayer.  I really appreciate your words, and that you took the time to post such an excellent comment.