First and Last Reader

an editor's lament I'm sick of shitty verses, mine and yours Keep them far outside my office doors In the postal drawer I see eighty-four Surely I will die if I read more. I'm tired of lyric cruddiness submitted By these would-be poets so limited In talent and in vision I cannot quite envision What they thought they did when they did it. Maybe it's high time we suspended Publication of Top-upended So many silly, horrid Long epic poems, florid Each time I get another I'm offended. I go deathly pale from things like these Send them to anybody else please Blank verse or concrete Crayoned or typed neat Mail them to magazines overseas. c.1978 This crappy old poem is from days when poets had to submit their rotten verse through the postal system. I edited a small journal and received 20 or 30 manuscripts per day. And I submitted my works here and there as another face in the crowd. The reality described in the poem is a condition that is even worse nowadays, when lousy poets don't even have to buy an envelope or a stamp to wreck an editor's day!