But, What About Me?
     (Perhaps a Peanut)
In order to snare
more general readers
into the joys of written poems,
the literary publishers
could resort to a rating system.
     Particularly on the internet,
poems could be rated on a curve
from mirth to intellectual
with symbols such as:
a clown for laughing aloud;
a scholar’s cap for the academic;
a broken chain for free verse;
a musical note for sound;
a stone for the philosophic;
a top hat for the pretentious;
a question mark for the rational;
and a halo for the didactic.
     If the reader sees a scale,
he could expect a traditional poem
with rhythm, rhyme and reason.
     There are poems for all kinds
of readers, but not readers
for all kinds of poems.
     Unfortunately most published
poems do not appeal to potential
and past readers of poetry because
the current avant garde poets are
resorting to obscurity or academic
gibberish in order to gain prestige
among a clique of snobbish poets.

Walt Abbott–2-13-2009