Bowling Green's Underbelly

[vagabond]

Ok, but if i want to read a news article i generally go to a news website, so your justification really doesn’t work for me. A poem needs a little color, spice, perfume.  A poem isn’t an idle collection of words. Drugs are bad, you could have just said that.

I think you're being a little too strict with your definition of poetry. A poem can be about real things, I used an actual scene to establish credibility. By your logic I guess Tupac's entire career as a rapper was pointless because he could've just said "don't be racist, drugs are bad, poverty's bad, etc..." If you haven't lived in poverty or been affected by drugs then you don't really have the right to tell me what to say about them, because I have. I wrote this because nobody pays attention to the way drugs and poverty are affecting smaller towns like Bowling Green and I want to improve my skills so I can do something to bring attention to it. Criticize the poem for its quality all you want, but don't tell me what I can or can't talk about when you haven't experienced these things. Poetry is about self expression, it isn't strictly what you want it to be.

drug abuse is a relative term, poverty as well, much more so. lots of people that would not suit your personal definition of poverty  would have to shut up in your opinion. and by the same logic you would have to stay silent about poverty since there are probably millions of people on this planet trying (and often failing) to live  on less than most people here can obtain.

self expression and bringing attention to small town problems  doesn´t mix easily.
that said, i do think, like a lot of comments stated before that your poem is too long (not because of word count but because of content/ images per words).
if you left out some filling lines it would be easier to read, what i did to your poem below is just a bad example of what i mean.



The odor of burning marijuana reeks from a room at the Days Inn
Two cops were on the scene, pure coincidence
"It's the Bowling Green Police on a routine visit"
 a quiet "hush" was followed
by a toilet flush
It ain't hard to tell what they been smoking,
under the bed, a bag of coke
in the nightstand, a stash of heroin
This town may not have a ghetto
but underneath the guise of regularity,
Bowling Green is scary
Every day more drugs pass through
Heroin is spreading like the common flu
 my mom was addicted to crack
but Everybody can keep living blind,
Act like your problems aren't mine,                                          this line needs explaining: i don´t want to guess how the drug addict´s problems become those of the narrator. or if it is the problem of another group of people.
But this has gone on too long and it's just a matter of time
Before more of em wise up and realize                            them.. the drug-addicted low life you mean?  setting drug-addicts apart in such a way doesn´t help the problem i think.
Bowling Green, Ky is a low life's paradise .



I bet you think it's an isolated incident,              most of the readers wouldn´t think that.  instead you may describe how people in the small town close their eyes to their surrounding.