Me And My Poetry

Introduction

Nearly all of my poetry these days seems to be villanelles or sonnets, and I like them because they make me feel safe when I am writing, that is, I know what I am doing is correct.

But...

While everyone who reads my poetry and loves it, it is seldom recognised on Vocal. It seems to me that the only poetry recognised is free-form or short-form.

I remember being told that the piece below was a piece of lazy rubbish, I double-checked and in my opinion, it is a perfect sonnet.

I've also been told that I don't deserve to even place in challenges because I include introductions and music in my pieces, which is not real writing, and why a piece like this was not considered in the latest Vocal Challenge, in fact my villanelle's have never even received a top Story despite the fact that, in my opinion, my poetry is excellent.

The thing is, I have an amazing audience and set of encouraging friends who make me see my true worth, and my stories are very widely read.

I was very surprised that this was passed over by Vocal but not by my audience, yet a haiku containing just profanity was given a Top Story (and while it was funny and I am not getting at the author there was no way it should have been a Top Story, another example of Vocal getting things wrong)

So What Am I Going To Do About It?

I am going to dip back into experimental poetry and free-form stuff and cinquains, odes and visual poetry. I know they won't win Top Stories but I will enjoy creating them, and my friends and audience will love them. I would love to have friends among the Vocal moderators but they have made it clear they don't want me, all my improvement suggestions fell on deaf ears.

There are so many forms to challenge us, though there is a devil in me that tells me I am being lazy whenever I write a poem or a microfiction of critique.

I have been letting that devil get a little too much control recently, so it's time to punch him in the face and move my writing forward.

At the moment my stories are getting a lot of reads outside of the Vocal community, and I feel I am a successful Vocal Creator, so it is just a case of onward and upward to fifty thousand reads and two thousand reads by April 2024.

I will do this and thank you to everyone who has helped me get this far.

You know who you are.

The music, appropriately is "The Story Of My Life" by The Velvet Underground.