Saddened by her blog this was written expressly for our Poet Destroyer

Hello Linda:

  I was very saddened by your blog this morning. You have been one of the most welcoming people up on Poetry Soup and you along with a select few are the reason I penned "One Souper's Simple Rhyme." As stated in my poem you are one of the special people up here, that gave "my once solitary voice the very best of all homes." You were one of the first people if not the first person to comment on the first poem I put up and you have no idea how much that meant to me. The welcoming presents of a few, like yourself, was the reason why I started feeling comfortable enough to put up more and more. I have poems up on the Soup now that have not seen the light of day since I wrote them fifteen or twenty years ago. "The Room" my first and only attempt at a sonnet was based on the notorious Bradley McGee child abuse case that occurred here in Florida years ago. If there had not been a Poet Destroyer and a few like you up here on the Soup, there is no way in the free world that I would write a blog and post it about myself, my minor accomplishments, or my writing process. I simply hate tooting my own horn and talking about myself in public period. Until I began putting stuff on the Soup and linking it to my Facebook page, people I have worked with for eleven years did not know I wrote poetry. The main reason why I am usually as uncomfortable as a cat trying to cover up crap on tin-roof talking about myself is as my deceased father always said; "The more people know about you the more they have to hurt you with later."
  However, with all that being said, I have, as time went on, noticed between the nice comments just how jealous these people who should know better can be. What is worse is Poetry Soup seems to appear to have a lot of cliques which is hurtful. I have noticed a lot of the same people commenting on my stuff all the time and I try to respond to each of them, but there a lot who just simply peruse your work and never leave a comment because you are not a part of their little group. I suppose they are checking out their competition, so to speak, but I am not here to compete with anybody. I am here because I enjoy reading and writing poetry and I wish to be associated with others that feel the same way. I have had my rejections, my vicious unhelpful critiques, and snobbish comments from people over the years, so there is nothing these silly jealous cliquish soupers could possibly conceive of that would shock me. I am still writing and will continue to do so because I love it and because it puts me in a place where my mind is not bothered by this kind of nonsense. You just need to know that some of us do love you for what you do and what you have done and I will always be one of them. You have a friend in me and one that will cheer you on each time you feel the need to tell those others where than can go.

Poetically Yours
Kim