Once Upon A Time...(a true story)

Part eulogy for the once great (and now defunct) poetry site 'Poetry Showcase' and part predictor for the future fate of WritersCafe.

    Perhaps you're familiar with Poetry Showcase which was one (in my humble opinion) of the finest poetry sites in existence some few years back. I feel fortunate to have been a frequent contributor in it's formative years and hugely enjoyed the company of many accomplished poets as well as many amateurs hopefully becoming better with every poem or story. But like all things in life, change is a constant and it's not always a good thing. The Poetry Showcase's demise started innocently enough: just a few random

advertisements and articles posing as poetry. Much like a benign cancer having only a few cells and seemingly innocent enough, until being ignored long enough that it slowly metastasizes and becomes an unstoppable and self serving beast. That was the Fate of the Showcase. The ads and non-poetry posts, like Cancer, began to grow until they swallowed up and overwhelmed Poetry...And the poets slowly started (like myself) drifting away, never to return.

  In a few posts recently I have seen some disturbingly familiar (though dim indeed) posts that seem not at all like Story writing or poetry. This site (WritersCafe) has always had to me a slightly social media slant to it as much as a strictly writer oriented site, but perhaps that is just the future of all creative writing sites. As I said earlier 'change is a constant in all things' and what will be will be. As I watched the sturdy dam that was WritersShowcase' slowly erode away to crass commercialism and then cease due to lack of interest by concerned writers

   I hope with all my might that the management of Writerscafe can recognize this cancer in it's earliest stages and stay true to it's poetic roots. I could well be crying 'wolf' but better safe than sorry, since there's only a few good poetry sites left.

...I truly hope I'm wrong...

Author's Note

a very short (and admittedly unpoetic, but well intentioned essay. Please let me know if this matter is of concern to you too. (remember the Showcase!)

Reviews

[Jerome Malenfant]

There does seem to be an inordinate amount of spam masquerading as stories on this site. I've been flagging those that I find; I don't know if that does any good.