Making and Unmaking Beautiful Memories at a Nashville Waffle House

[Collapsed We Swear]

"or fall for the ploy"

Are you a lawyer?   You are playing by the rules, but not playing the game.  Get in the game.

From what I can tell, the game is me scrolling through the side bar reading some amateur poetry for an hour, finding one that is appropriately awful, spending another hour correcting their spelling and basic grammar errors, wincing at every cliché—and trying not to turn the phrase “this is cliché” into a cliché, which is an art unto itself on this site—navigating the obligatory, yet counterproductive, assault course of being agreeable while simultaneously implying the author should abandon the poem (and possibly poetry, altogether) because it’s the worst thing I’ve ever read due to an absolute lack of competence and creativity, only for the payoff to be that they don’t change the poem, at all. And why would they? It’s never getting published, anyway, and they don’t give a shit about poetry. 
And then I realise that I just wasted 2 hours of my life trying to sharpen the edges of a poem that’s not a poem for a poet that’s not a poet!
Then, as this is a game of two halves, I might be graced by a thumbs up or thumbs down critique of one of my poems by the same no talent idiots that I just criticized. How fulfilling.
 
So, yeah, I’ll play by the rules, but I won't squander too much time playing the game.