Greatest Living Poet

* Sorry about your dog, Joshua Corey, but this sentence sounds fucking weak to me: "The conference resembled nothing so much as a fourth-rate, Bizarro AWP." What is AWP a fourth-rate Bizarro version of? The real world of real writers with real lives. That some people want to be poets and meet poets makes THEM lame and somehow you doing the same thing (on a much more crass and way more calculated level) is OK and first-rate? See, that kinda kills the whole Josh Corey, Man of the People vibe you're working on. That some people weren't born with the good sense to only value the corporate conventions YOU GO TO doesn't make them dumber than you, it makes them a teensy-bit less-misguided than you. The fact is there is probably no book table IN AMERICA you wouldn't sit behind (and next to Snodgrass or Wagoner or Whoever) EVER. And as opposed to the people that get excited about getting in *that* anthology and being treated like a real writer, *you* ought to know *better*. AWP is the same pyramid scheme as the Poetry.com--at least it has no pretentions of being ANYTHING else. If you titled your post MY VISIT TO THIS YEAR'S AWP and kept all of the text the same, no one would bat an eye. You wouldn't have to change a word. Get down with your smug self-appreciation! It probably only takes one visit to the poetry.com conference for the poor suckers to know they've been had. How many AWPs will it take you for you to realize that people are counting YOUR money and laughing at YOU? [Note: under cover of night careful Joshua seems to have made some edits, blunted whatever unconscious snarling he may have accidentally let seep out. Why are you angry at them, Joshua? Why does everyone have to make the same kind of poetic decisions you did? Why not let them decide for themselves what's worth their time and money? What's wrong with poems about Jesus? But, right Jimmy, Whatevs!!: you're a heartfelt guy when you're not being a tool. Quit pissing me off. I think I'll send a (good) poem (the bad poem thing has been done) to Poetry.com. I know just the one. If I win $20,000, we'll all drink on me...]