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I've been active there the past 12 days and it's starting to feel like the Mummy's Tomb. In thirty hours of participation, I've yet to see someone offer a suggestion, let alone a critique. I found a couple strong poems but no takers for anything more than pleasantries. I showed a wildly gifted party girl where to cut some lines but when I argued that giggle shouldn't be overused, she went berserk. Another guy had two brilliant stanzas in short poem; when I asked if he knew Hart Crane's Voyages, I didn't hear back. His Bio says he ran an online forum for a couple years. When the one other commenter called his work Old School, and I asked then what is New School, the OP asked what does school mean? Only two of the ten critiques I wrote were responded to. And those two didn't survive another question. The critiques in their most exclusive subgroup, dedicated to feedback, look like pages from a treatise: the comments are full page paragraphs without anything that looks like a line from a poem. It hadn't occurred to me before but I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a Potemkin Village or Stepford Wives?
In fairness, they have impressive functionality. for the first month allow you to see most of what's there. My critiques, typically brief line edits, leave people dumbfounded or pissed off. I assume pissed off bcz no one ever answers back. How unusual is that for a forum? I asked the one woman, who's the leading gold medal winner there, if she also writes critiques? No response. I shared a line edit with the one guy who consistently writes at a high level. Nothing. A good poet will at least tell you to fuck off. Carolyn Castle below seemed to scram when it was time for her to be more specific about her experience on the site. That's how it feels to post there. Lots of awards and ribbons but no feedback. So Potemkin Village, as unwieldy and bizarre as that may seem, fits the facts better than active forum.
Update 10/9/20: my comment was more a reflection of my impatience than something amiss with the site. For what I can see there are many people here, almost as if they're living in foxholes and looking for leadership. A few of the most talented people are restrained because of the disparity in experience. Lots of focus on form first and blessed day. Ethos is don't offend but at deeper level place seems to be lacking leadership and nothing else.
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