Word Warrior: Killing Them Softly One Rhyme at a Time
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When I released my book of poetry – Word Warrior: Killing Them Softly One Rhyme at a Time – in 2023, I did so knowing that poetry books don’t sell. I also did so knowing not much else does either. Something like 96% of books written in recent years sell fewer than 1,000 copies and many sell way, way fewer.
Fraud alert: it rhymes!
I also write most of my poetry in meter and rhyme, which is passé, even though the only poems anyone can remember or quote from their childhood or from literature itself rhymed.
A California professor and poet (of sorts) castigated my book and warned others not to buy it because it contained rhyming poems. Everyone knows contemporary poets don’t do that. I missed the memo that you must do everything the way everyone else does or it doesn’t count.
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I don’t know that I ever equated poetry with rhyme. Just…some of it does, Buddy. Sorry that offends you.
I agree with Ross on one thing. Don’t waste your money. Spend it on Word Warrior instead. In today’s economy, the book costs less than dinner for two at McDonald’s. Unlike the Mickey D menu, it includes food for thought. Plus rhymes. (Sorry, Ross.)