Having written a good amount of extraordinarily bad poetry, I feel that it's not entirely out of place for me to comment on the stuff.

What I would like to say is this: Poetry that is devoid of any sort of meter, rhythm, or, in moderation, rhyme, is at best bad prose with random line breaks.

The other think I'd like to say is this: If your poetry is devoid of any sort of meter, rhythm, or, in moderation, rhyme, then reading it in a New London cafe on a sunny Sunday afternoon where it might fall on the ears of unsuspecting and entirely innocent bystanders is like breathing second-hand smoke on baby seals.

I, friends and enemies, am a poetry nazi.