Virginia wrote:" I'm pleased you are less defensive than others are on your behalf."
Michael, you obviously believe implicitly that people care about and are impressed by what pleases and displeases YOU. We have a word for that in my home country - "guzica."
You thrive on dividing people. You attack someone, then you row back once they confess to some weakness, then you attack others who might have agreed with them.
I don't doubt you spend a lot of time here but for someone who "teaches" why don't you put yourself out there and submit something that means something to you - show us how it's done. I also believe you enjoy humiliating people on occasions.
As to the question of etiquette and posting - and this is a serious question to you - who exactly laid down the rules about how many pieces people may submit - it is YOUR interpretation of YOUR perceived etiquette.
You seem to treat this part of the forum as yours and to criticise others for over-posting when, in fact, you are one of those who dominate the thread - 75% of your posts are on this thread.
According to the rules of your own etiquette, you post way too much here - nor do you seem to criticise all who post enormous amounts of waffle. Indeed, some of those whose admiration you openly court seem to post more than is either healthy or wise (read the posts).
As you are being serious with me - and I thank you for that - let me be serious with you. I believe you pick on those you deem to be weak (i.e. not playing your 'let's all be jolly all the time' game) and that, by any etiquette, is bullying. And you do not apply your grammatical rule to all posters equally - take a look at some of the sentence constructions/spelling mistakes among your nearest and dearest and you'll find howlers that go un-noted by you.
Poetry is not about spelling - Yeats was an atrocious speller.
As for your running competitions here - have you noticed the power trip involved in that? You run them, so they must be good for us.
But then you've admitted you know little about poetry - though it hasn't stopped you preaching your dogma.
Be fair - treat all posters equally and don't try to isolate the weak, it's a nasty trait.
And don't assume everyone posts here for the same reasons - your entertainment.
You may not like the quality of much of what you read - you may not like the emotion - you may view our work as tripe but many of us are writing out of very dark places and have been bullied enough already.
Please don't dismiss those you don't know as trolls - it's very hurtful.
As for the harshness of my "flotilla of fawns" - if you'd written that it would be hilarious, clever, witty, not in any way insensitive and we'd be posting away about it for weeks, punning and laughing, all jolly good company. I've seen you write things that were much harsher and seen you expect people to take your comments as sharp-edged but witty - such hypocrisy is apparent even to those you treat as your inferiors.
Speaking of which, "many readers" have the intelligence, savvy and wit to see past many things without your paternalistic patrolling of their minds - even if your intellectual arrogance doesn't allow them that much credit.
No doubt you'll now put me on your black-list, block me and imagine I'll suffer in the darkness that befalls those outside your orbit.
"Guzica" is a good word.
Virginia
Yeats didn't have spell-check.
I call it etiquette but at the least it's a common enough "rule" on a number of poetry sites about limiting the number of submissions of poems. it encourages people to take more time with their writing. I don't know any rule about limiting the number of general and chatty posts. it's strange that you didn't understand the distinction. I am talking about writing, you are talking about people.
I doubt whether anyone would applaud "flotilla of fawns" in any circumstances, whoever wrote it. As you had just been rude and aggressive to Manna and to other women in the past I thought it was a misjudged and patronising comment by you.
I note how you have repeated and expanded on the troll thing, without acknowledging that I withdrew the comment which was only ever directed to you. that sort of lazy response means I can't get up enough interest to respond to the rest of your analysis of my character and motives. for what it's worth, I don't even think trolling is necessarily bad. done well, it''s great entertainment.
I feel relaxed about all this and hope you are not too over-excited or stressed by it (unless it leads to a decent poem, of course).
michael
