are there things you dislike about poetry

[Leanne]

So... "patently perfect"... what does that mean exactly? Does it mean, for example, that you'd prefer poems with obvious flaws so you don't feel so bad about your own writing? That might sound unfair, but it's not an uncommon position. As billy well knows (the smart arse), university study doesn't actually disqualify you from being able to write poetry -- knowing what you're doing isn't a bad thing. A degree also does not qualify you to think you know everything, and unfortunately the by-product of many degrees is cookie-cutter poetry or poetry-by-committee as submitted to an MFA panel. The most useful thing I took from university was the theory and a few different ways to look at the world -- of practice, I consider nothing I learned in ten years of study actually helps me to put a poem together. Every bit of practical knowledge I have, I've earned over the many years since, just by listening to others and observing what they were doing, then asking questions, giving it a shot myself, making an arse of myself, being told I was an arse, figuring out what to do next time so I wouldn't look like an arse, then doing it until I felt I was qualified enough to tell those others that they were making an arse of themselves

I do not accept poetry that is all shine and no substance. It's easy to knock off a pretty-sounding piece of verse, any 8-year-old can manage it. It's easy to use a few recent words-of-the-day to fool people into thinking you know what you're on about. It's not easy to think about your failings as a human being, and communicate them to the reader. It's not easy to be vulnerable without sounding whiny and pathetic. And it's not easy to make people laugh at the ridiculous way we carry on in this life, in order to make them rethink their own behaviour.

So it's fair to say that I don't like "patently perfect" poems either -- but the flaw must be in the writer, not the writing.