Bad Poetry

[billy]

While reading 'good' poetry is still the better way of learning to write;
reading 'bad' poetry as an example of what not to do is, it seems to me,
useful as well. Any thoughts? (See example below.)

"The DECADENT SHIRE!"
Enter not this shadow place, for within its nook love found no space.

A shire so fallen in the cruelest sense. The regard of its caretaker
never holding any respect.

For innocent care was not rendered and selfish greed had taken over.
The spoils of this fallen dream became a twisted dying clover.

It was sad to see but inevitably known.
These were the lost memories of a reality so empty and alone.

it's best to read good poetry and bad poetry, we need to read as much and as varied poetry as we can and as much feedback as we can in order to see the mechanics of the beast. i personally thing you write some good poetry, the standard you have seems pretty high. how did you get to that stage? did you read good or bad poetry etc. reading bad poetry gives us something to balance good poetry against. sadly, most poets on internet poetry sites only ever read internet poetry on ego building sites.

i'd class the poem you posted as novice. i wouldn't call it bad poetry, more undeveloped poetry. (not to be confused with primitive)

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Can you tell me why this is bad?

while it's bad, i would only see it as such if the poet didn't try to improve his/her skills. otherwise it's just undeveloped, as i stated earlier.

ray i think is correct, it's bad to the reader if they dislike it, there is a lot in the poem to dislike (for me)

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A quick google reveals that it is from deep underground poetry. It received the following telling comments:

"indeed, deep vortex man"
and "very good, very real"


The site advertises itself as "The Harder Side of Poetry"

i do know of a few good poets on that site, and some good poetry but a lot that write there write similar stuff to novice poets all over the web. for me the difference between it and here is the quality of feedback in general. there is some good feedback there but there's also a lot of wow and i love it and that's a great poem and other back slapping stuff.

if i'm honest i have to concede that sites like that are breeding grounds for the good poets that move on to good workshopping sites in order to improve their craft.

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You misunderstand. There's nothing about democratizing 'like' in my
comments. I said that there existed different sets of rules for judging it;
NOT that I would accept a vote. I sure as hell wouldn't. I happen to
like my set and I think everybody else is wrong. (Though I do happen to
agree with most of the rules of quite a few other people. Leanne, for
instance, I think most of her rules agree with mine. (She may have a
different opinion on this , but again: it ain't no democracy.)

you make a good point, if enough people make a sensible comment or critique on a poem, then the poet would be silly to not look at it again.

if 20 people say it's shit, the odds are it will have a smell of shit at least

the problems arise when people give bad critiques which are just as bad as bad poetry, i know i've given bad feedback (mia culpa) one of the worst pieces of bad feedback is the ego boosting 'WOW it's fantastic"

leanne's crit of the poem you put up is spot on