Poetry that is Just Bad

Well- while i should be talking about the election I have decided to return to poetry. I was at a meeting last night and we were talking about Poetry and I really began to think.

The fact is that so much of the poetry created is garbage. Because Poetry lacks the critical infrastructure of Visual art and Fiction allot of 'poets' and 'poetry' is allowed to grow unchecked like a Cancer on the body poetic. Poetry so needs a critical culture to develop and people need to feel free to criticize weak and bad work without fearing for their poetic lives. I am going to publish on Chicagopostmodernpoetry.com an interview in November with Marjorie Perloff and I wont reveal too much but I must say that she is right on and worth reading and so refreshing.
She is an artist of a critic.

The fact is that allot of poetry is weak and not well written and allot of this is done in the name of 'relevance' . Chicago has to endure the slam culture which started so well 20 years ago and has degraded into a skin cancer on the hip hop world, lacking art and lacking craft and rhyming to a weakness that is commercially driven. In the end I think that Poetry is Art, not therapy and that poets need to be adept on their art and their craft. Too many poets do not read and do not know enough and as I write I ask myself the question where does art begin in poetry?

Long Live Pound, Dante, Neruda, Olson, Williams, and the rest!