Slog, you should be ashamed.

So my dear friend, Caroline Moir, has just won the P-I poetry contest (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/ae/361427_poetry02.html), which is huge, like front page layout huge or hot air balloon huge, and not only does she deserve congrats and congrats again, but she actually brings to the table a slappingly new and interesting voice to poetry.

With this in mind, I want to bring to attention SLOG, The Stranger's blog. I am actually new to this whole blog world (as you can tell by my personal blogging habits or lack there of), so I was surprised that SLOG is just a poor excuse for illiterate assholes to rag on an artist's success because they have no artistic successes of their own. Not to be harsh or anything--but is this head-bashing really necessary? For instance, on Moir's poem: "Typical MFA shit, sucking the last few drops out of the dying body of poetry with extremely self-conscious cleverness and narcissistic wordplay." This is just one of the comments that make me want to hurl, and then hurl again because I hurled. Let's see you actually win a contest because of your innovative work.

And this comment "This is the kind of B-side poem that makes people hate poetry. Here's Elizabeth Bishop, to cleanse your palate..." Give me a break. Bishop, as wonderful as she was, (she is certainly why people love poetry, myself included), is not our contemporary, anymore. So how to we get over that hump of clinging to the past if we reject new voices? If we want to prevent the "dying body of poetry" then we have to give our young poets an opportunity to change the current state of poetry.

So, to conclude, I wish I didn't feel compelled to write this blog because of another blog. But I did. It just makes me sad. It's sad when people talk out of their asses just to be asses. It's sad that reading poetry makes all these contemptuous prick heads come out of their holes and spread their disrespect for those of us actually trying to change the state of poetry. If there is anything to be thrilled about, it is that enough people are reading poetry and take time to bash it. Is this true passion or egoism? SLOGers, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Caroline, I love your poem. Pomegranates and all.