liking poems

[just mercedes]

Way too facebookie.  Likes are, as lizzie points out, shown to be a disincentive to comment.  I even hate them on facebook, the kingdom of like-don't-read-just-pretend-you-love-stuff-so-people-pretend-to-love-you-too.

I just had a stranger-than-usual FB happening - a fellow NZ poet blogged about the editor of an ezine (Otoliths) and how the editor had rejected his poem, and asked him to never submit to his magazine again. He also posted the poem Mark had rejected. Then he posted the whole blog to FB.

It's a racist rant, the poem, and I wouldn't have accepted it either. I didn't say so though, I commented only that I'd had a few poems in Otoliths, and Mark had always been professional and courteous in our dealings.

My comment was deleted. The comments left on the post are all supportive of the poet and his poem.

That's the danger of people 'liking' posts - actually believing the number of 'like's is an indication of the relative merits of the work.

I could have said more. I could have asked him if he'd even read Otoliths before he submitted there - Mark likes edgy, experimental work.

I don't know if this is another manifestation of  NZ's habitual passive-aggressive bullshit, but it's ugly.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother to write.