6 Ways to Kill a Poet

Summary

The website content presents a satirical article outlining extreme and humorous measures to discourage poets from publishing on the "Tedium" platform.

Abstract

The article titled "6 Ways to Kill a Poet" is a satirical piece that humorously suggests methods for eliminating poetry from the "Tedium" platform. The author, Christina Ward, facetiously advises the staff to stop paying poets, ignore their work, bury their contributions, devalue their creative efforts, and take away their hope of success to discourage them from writing. The suggestions include setting a low payment limit for poems, neglecting to curate poetic content, refusing to promote or even read poetry, and demeaning the value of poetic forms. The piece is framed as a tongue-in-cheek critique of the treatment of poets and their work, emphasizing the challenges they face in a platform that seemingly devalues their contributions.

Opinions

The author believes that the current measures to reduce the presence of poets on the platform are insufficient and suggests more drastic actions.
There is a perception that poetry is not valued as highly as other forms of writing, as evidenced by the proposed reduction in payment and lack of promotion.
The article implies that poets are tenacious and will continue to write despite lack of payment or recognition, hence the need for extreme measures to discourage them.
The satirical tone indicates a critique of the actual treatment of poets, suggesting that the platform may be undervaluing and marginalizing their work.
The author humorously compares the names of certain poetic forms to names of prostitutes, indicating a disdain for the perceived pretentiousness of poetry.
The piece concludes with a note that the article is satire, clarifying that the author does not genuinely advocate for harm towards poets.

Let’s get rid of the POETS! Here’s how:

Don’t pay them Seriously, how do you expect them to go away if you pay them? The new MPP structure is an excellent plan and I do expect it to be rather effective in this regard, but if you really want them to go away completely you will have to buckle down a little harder with regards to payment. Perhaps set a $0.50 limit on each poem? You’re not far from that currently but at least knowing this limit is in place, poets will have no choice but to accept that this is not the place that they can earn money for their work.

Ignore them and hope they just go away Withholding curation seems to be quite effective but with the occasional tossing out of curation “bones”, poets are still chasing this magical dangling carrot. You can solve this in one fell-swoop by just ignoring the Poetry that comes across the curation desk. If it’s tagged poetry just swipe it off the side of your desk and into the garbage can. Done and done.

Bury their work and let it collect dust There’s no reason to promote poetry if you really want to eliminate those pesky poets. Some of the big Pubs could actually refuse to take poetry. That would probably help. And moving it from the front page, failing to list poetry in promotional emails, and just generally promoting all other genres above poetry would probably continue to be effective. Great work on this front so far! But take it a bit further and just kill their babies. (Seriously, they act like every stinking poem is their brain-child.) Let a few of these babies simply “disappear” — they’ll get the message.

Barely read Poets spend a lot of time thinking and thinking and thinking. Their poems tend to be extremely cerebral, a bit lofty, and full of all kinds of insane and dangerous ideas. There’s no sense in promoting that type of craziness here. Just quickly scanning or refusing to read will shut this mess down quickly. There’s no sense in encouraging a poet by taking the time to absorb creative perspective or wrestle with a metaphor. What a waste of time!

Devalue their work The Poets are starting to get the message that we think their Haikus are stupid. Why not extend this to sonnets and other ridiculous poetic forms? I mean, have you seen the names of some of these? Villanelle? Kyrielle? And Haibun? They sound like names of prostitutes! We can’t be on board with that. No one wants to associate with this — keep spreading the word and try to distance yourself from these poetic forms as they might rub off on you. No one wants the “stink” of literary device they can’t wash off.

Take away their hope The emails that go out every month that give the top dollar earned for an article of the month, we know that’s not a poem. Why not make this clear in the article? In fact, why not post directly in those emails that if you ever want to have a viral poem you might as well give up, have a good cry, take a nap. All would be more productive than attempting to have a viral poem. Let these crazy poets know right out the gate that financial success is a mythical beast when it comes to poetry. Encouraging them can only create more problems for you down the line. Take away their hope and take away their poetry by doing so. Unless of course you want to be inundated with whiny, bitchy, and hastily written poems that all come from a place of having the rug yanked out from under them. Let them know right away that hope is futile.

Just give it time. It won’t take long and you won’t have to bear the insufferable poetry for long. In “Tedium for Today” this morning, news has it that the poets are already on the endangered list. With a little more effort we can put them on the critically endangered list.

Again, great work and let me know if you have any questions. I’m on board with the new policies and looking forward to clearing out the superfluous literature on this site as well.

By the way what do you want for lunch today? I’m thinking Pizza? Call me.

Christina Ward 💗POM!💗 is a poet and nature writer from North Carolina. She poets for pennies. She requests that you leave your donations in the jar on the corner of the desk.

** This piece is SATIRE — we do not advocate the harming of poets in any way. :)

Satire

6 Ways to Kill a Poet

advice for eliminating that annoying poetry from the “Tedium” platform — Let’s get rid of the poets

Dear Staff,

Let’s get rid of the POETS! Here’s how: