Complaint Review: Poetry

My advice to poets, submit your poems via mail to REAL publishers.

Poetry.com is a scam.

I suspected this from the start, but tested my theory by submitting a poem that wasn't even made from real words, just lumps of words like slkjgkdf aklfjdsl. I fulfilled their word count requirement and submitted my non-poem, and a few months later I received a letter saying the my poem was selected to be in their poetry book. Even later I received letters about some poet's conference that cost thousands of dollars to go to where I would get some sort of honor for my "acheivements" in poetry.
Cleary they don't even read the poems that they "select" for their precious book.

As a real poet, I've submitted to literary magazines rather than online "publishers" and usually you don't have to give them any money, just a return envelope with a stamp so they can mail a reply to you, and they actually publish your poem IF it is good, not just if you submit it, and they'll even spellcheck it for you.

Tracy
Beaverton, Oregon
U.S.A.