Hi Creatr,

Thanks for the kind words but no, I'm not posting poems elsewhere. My remarks about the prejudice against poetry versus prose seem to be true right across the print media spectrum. The Atlantic magazine, for example, occasionally publishes features a poet and includes a few poems that in my opinion are shiny objects, superficially placid and perfect but devoid of deep merit. You would not see a T.S. Eliot there or an Ezra Pound or W. B. Yeats, I doubt, lol, you would see an e.e.cummings but basically these pieces are published as quaint little relics and a wee diversion for readers and usually on a Sunday...
I like what the ancient Romans thought about art - a thing can be perfect despite its dimensions. One should not despise the day of small things and I'm not just speaking about Haikus or Shakespeare's sonnets. It's rare today to read a prose writer who creates memorable lines like Fitzgerald which can stand alone on their own merits as perfectly polished jewels beautifully expressed. By the way, the Atlantic goes to the opposite extreme and published overly long tedious articles in my opinion.

Okay, that's my apologia pro vita mea and it may seem bitter but it isn't - I'm just being realistic. Why post something you know won't be received because of superficial standards? Why pay $20.00 for a slim book of poems when you can have a Grisham novel, not of course, written by him but turned out by a cadre of ghost writers.

As for you and your creative talent, why is it festering unused? Of course your past writing seems superior to what you try to produce now through sporadic effort - there is no substitute for continual work that produces fine craftsmanship. I continually earn 'badges' on Hive for writing each day, but why? I'm a writer. What did they expect-- for me to be satisfied with 1,000 words regardless of its merit?
You have/had a well-deserved following and you could have one again but not easily --it would take work and dedication to your craft. I know I'm kicking your ass here because I hate to see wasted talent. I hope you do get back on Hive, my friend and not just for your posterity but for today and your inner fire and your need as Faulkner says to create out of the human spirit something which did not exist before. Writing for me is dreaming, lucid dreaming, but dreaming nonetheless and without that activity we descend into madness. You need to write, my friend, to stay sane and to push back against the madness of a world descending into chaos. That's what you are called to do. It's your duty, your pleasure not your doom and I will hold you to it.
So this long-winded reply has meandered a bit but you get the message. There are more writers than readers on these sites because now everyone owns a computer and is a self-publisher. But that doesn't let us off the hook, IMHO, LOL!!