On Poetry On Vocal

Introduction

I am wondering how to present this without sounding like a whiny complainant, but because I am not popular with Vocal or Creators, it will come across as that, whatever I say.

This is a two-year-old piece on how Top Stories are chosen

I don't miss out on any of their requirements, but I do feel they have a favoured creators list which they, of course, don't mention and would deny exists, but when you see people who haven't dropped stories for a while get Top Stories within hours of publication, that implies favouritism.

So What Have I Observed?

In the last twelve Top Stories in Poetry on Vocal, only one was not free form, and that is this one (indicated in the main image):

This was an excellent series of rhyming quartets with a great image for the poem.

This is not a denigration or criticism of free-form poetry. I find it difficult because I prefer to have a framework to work in, and feel that if I do not have a form, rhyming and a consistent number of syllables per line, I feel that what I am doing is wrong. That is my opinion of what I do.

When you submit your poem, you are given the options of Acrostic, Sonnet, Villanelle, Pantoum, Ekphrastic (though this is not a form but what the poem does), Sestina, and a few more that I will check when I submit this.

I now have five forms that I use

Terza Rima (Thanks Calvin)

Sonnet

Villanelle

Pantoum

Sestina

I almost feel that bars me from a Top Story or challenge placement; however, my latest book, my collaboration with Angie Livingstone, which is selling very well and has made a lot of money in royalties, contains examples of all these forms of poetry.

Readers do like these poetic forms; I know from the comments that are left on them. A few other creators feel the same as I do about this, but the only time Vocal acknowledges forms is in their Challenges, and usually it is a haiku to generate a lot of entries (though to write a perfect haiku is very difficult or diffic, as Doctor John Cooper Clarke says). Vocal now won't accept images, so here is that poem

“To freeze the moment

In seventeen syllables

Is very diffic

- Haiku No. 1”

We can suggest subjects for challenges, so maybe a poetry challenge using one of our favourite forms:

Conclusion

I was thinking of submitting this to Poets and concluding with a poem, but really, it is a critique, so I will drop it there.

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it.