on poetry and stuff

I went through all the old poetry I wrote five years back.  Sorted out the ZOMG-I-AM-INSECURE-AND-HERE'S-WHY pieces from the stuff that had either artistic merit or personal attachment.  Then further pruned that list down this morning, and came up with a 34 page manuscript of the artistic stuff I'm gonna work over a bit.

I got pretty inspired by finding pieces that didn't totally suck, and started writing new stuff (don't worry, I won't torture you with the new stuff, or the old stuff that has yet to be thoroughly mulled over).

I had a mixed bag of emotions about poetry in general.  The mindset and the craft can be very fun and rewarding.  The various poetry scenes out there, complete with open mics and pompous twits, cliques of mediocrity, SLAM poetry and the like, really turns me off.  I think at some point along the line I realized I didn't want to take in bad art any more.  I'm pretty guarded with my time, to the point where I'll just walk away from something that is no longer fun, like most videogames on the market now, or movies for that matter. 

At any rate, I'll post some finished products up here after I've had a chance to refine a bit more.