An interesting post about “Telling a good poem from a bad one”, (http://www.dailywritingtips.com/telling-a-good-poem-from-a-bad-one/).

The comments following on from the article are, on the whole also well worth reading with (in my opinion) the following exception:
“ahi, as far as I am concerned poetry is for one person and that person is the person that wrote it and to be honest that is where it should be left.

I have tried many times to read poetry which has been sent to newspapers and to magazines but it is too much like hard work to bother because it is generally absolute tripe.

Poetry belongs with latin, forgotten, and should stay there.

There are a few con-merchants around as well who offer to publish ones poems if they come up to the mark. In this case the mark is if you are prepared to pay for the thrill of seeing your rubbish in print and people constantly fall for it.

I even pointed this fact out to one guy and he was still adamant that the quality of his work was “good”. I am sorry but it was absolutely terrible,”ignorance is bliss”, cheers, david”.

The above comment does, I believe say more about the person making it than it does about the value of poetry. “It was too much like hard work” says it all!