Some People are Just Jerks.

I have only recently joined AP and have met different sorts of people in my travels around the site. I have had the distinct pleasure of meeting new friends as well as learning wonderful things about ones that I have known all my life. Poetry has saved my life in more ways than one of late and this website has been a spectacular place to share my words. It has sadly come to my attention; however, that there are some that haunt this site simply to create disturbance and unrest. This revelation makes me very sad because poetry as an art form is meant to be written with the ink of emotion. I find that when too much time and effort is spent within the grasp of form and rhyme, I lose my initial thought and the feeling is soon to follow. This does not mean that my work is any less important or valued than any other. I read quite a bit of my peers’ work specifically because I am not so narcissistic as to believe that I cannot continue to learn and grow as a writer. When I recently received a comment of “Not Bad” and found it very condescending, I thought it necessary to investigate the commenter a bit further before responding. While it was left on a piece that is not one of my personal favorites, I made a vow upon joining this site that everything I wrote deserved its place on my page and so it was posted. In my research, I determined that the commentator does not typically leave constructive critiques on what he reads but instead only nitpicks each poem half to death and walks away feeling better. I agree that the piece is not my best but felt that his words were patronizing and that initial feeling was cemented when I visited his page. There was quite a bit of grandstanding and self applause, both of which tend to leave me nauseated and with a bad taste in my mouth. I responded to his comment to advise that he seemed a bit condescending. He replied that I was a fool & that he had intentions of blocking me because I didn’t accept his help. Very sad particularly because under normal circumstances, I am always open to and often accepting of constructive critiques. Further review indicates that he has blocked over a hundred people communicating to me that this is just the norm for him. I opted not to block him in return because I refuse to participate in such elementary school antics. In any case, I find that common courtesy is apparently lacking in his part of Iowa or perhaps he was simply just not raised with intelligent people skills.

Hopefully he finds some happiness in his life soon as he obviously is not currently a happy boy.

Wonder why?

My moral of the story: Never feel the need to be kind in your commenting but don’t assume that you are better than those you read. You never know what their set of circumstances are & your comment could make or break them that day.

I feel I’ve learned a valuable lesson today and appreciate the forum of soapbox bitching!

xoxo