People, don't try to prove Petri *right*!

So everyone's getting in on the Petri act (indeed, I was a day late).

The folks at Flavorwire have weighed in as well.

The problem is, as near as I can tell, most, if not all of those books suck.

Now granted, I don't have a copy of any of them in front of me--but what I can glean from Amazon and Google is that they're filled with the everyday sort of poetry one finds so forgettable--the kind of verse Petri was (rightly, though impolitely) complaining about.

Indeed, the first book is praised for "stalks the borderlands of English and Spanish, fabulist and realist, here and there, with a backpack filled with shifting identifications — Chicano, gay, abnormal — that spill out into the sand" which tells me that the writer for Flavorwire is apparently more interested in people and labels than poetry.

Now, I'll say that I at least found the Powell and Dennigan books interesting enough that I'm leaving their names here so I can remember to look up the works more in depth--but really, all that claptrap is forgettable goo.

Now, maybe it appeals to poets--but Petri's entire point is that poetry is irrelevant outside of the world of poetry.

Praising books that answer to that call is not helping anyone.