Pet Peeves in Poetry? - John Anderson's Blog

This is very self-indulgent, but I want to share the two types of poems that I dislike:

Ice-Skating => These poems dance around the topic. They often have unrelated titles and lack clear aim or purpose, even when it comes to entertaining with wordplay, form, or meter. They are a jumble of skating twists, jumps and twirls, sometimes with personal experiences. They are shallow and cold, lacking emotion. They often justify themselves with the claim that they merely intend to trigger a response from the reader in some way or other. Authors also claim they are easier to write that way. I am annoyed when reading them.

Entrails Hung => These are poems with very short 1–3 word lines hung down the page, often centre-indented. I call this the 'poesy curse of hanging fruit strings'. Billy Collins said: “Some poems look like they fell down a flight of stairs, one word per step at a time.” There appears to be no reason why they are set out that way. I am annoyed when reading them.

I do not intend to be critical here in any way; people can do whatever they want. Perhaps you have a pet peeve you want to share.